Puzzle caches: when to archive?

[marc_54140]

@gotta run wrote:

@marc_54140 wrote:

I can see this topic has run it course, and not likely to attract any more serious input.

Maybe we need a new thread on when to archive an old thread.

Sounds good. YOU start it!

[sandlanders]

OK, how about a number that suits what you feel each cache is worth (hard vs. easy, you like it or it’s really so-so, etc.) 18 months out there? Twenty finds? Six months without any activity–like when it becomes a Lonely Cache and no one attempts to find it?

Geocaches are meant to stay out a while.

[Mathman]

Maybe you can write a note saying that you are considering archiving the cache. See if you get any feedback from cachers within a months time.

[Sagasu]

Lots of variables to consider here. I’ve found a lot of “lonely” caches, including puzzle caches, that haven’t been found since last fall only because there is nobody caching in those remote spots for the entire winter. Some cache owners e-mailed me in the late winter saying I was the first person logging any of their caches for a long time. Even for those of us chasing “lonely” caches it’s not practical to drive to Eagle River in the middle of winter to chase only a few lonely caches on mile plus treks with snowshoes, though some did so with snowmobiles. Takes long enough in decent weather on foot in terrain with no snow.

Winter is often the time many cachers work on some of those puzzles that they don’t want to do in the nicer weather when they want to be outside on the trail instead of doing puzzles inside, some of them taking hours to do. I’ve seen puzzles logged lately by friends who solved them months ago and just now were able to add them to a route and actually make the find. I have some solved in towns I just haven’t gotten to for few months as I’ve been drawn in the direction of lonely cache concentrations and just haven’t been in those places for a while. Seems like it would be tough to have any blanket guideline on when to archive a cache as having “run its course” when there are new cachers just getting started all the time. About the only practical suggestion has been to post a note, or even edit the cache listing declaring a sunset on the cache so those looking at it can get out there and make the find or not bother starting to work on it. Those that miss out, if it’s a good cache, will still feel left out.

I’ve really enjoyed finding some of the properly maintained caches that have been around for several years and reading logs that go back that far, with identities that are still around and many that are not. I have a cache myself that I adopted and have upgraded with a bonus that has an original log book that goes back four years and had even survived a muggling some time before I adopted it. It’s a great log book to read with finders from the beginning of the game. It’s a tough call to make when to pull the plug. ‘Course, I’ve never archived a cache, just tweaked, upgraded, or moved them a bit to keep them safe or get them away from a geotrail that’s forming, so I might be biased on the side of keeping caches alive. Sorry, Marc, if that’s a bit off-topic, but it seems like each cache needs to be looked at individually considering all those factors and others. A good cache, puzzle or otherwise, is worth keeping around for visitors to the area and new faces in the game.

[marc_54140]

@Mathman wrote:

Maybe you can write a note saying that you are considering archiving the cache. See if you get any feedback from cachers within a months time.

I did this on one of my puzzles, and I got three cachers begging me to archive it so it would be off their radar screens! Because of their concerns, I did not.

[Mathman]

@marc_54140 wrote:

@Mathman wrote:

Maybe you can write a note saying that you are considering archiving the cache. See if you get any feedback from cachers within a months time.

I did this on one of my puzzles, and I got three cachers begging me to archive it so it would be off their radar screens! Because of their concerns, I did not.

😆 😆

That is another way to go about it!

😆 😆

[-cheeto-]

I was “one of those three beggars“

I don’t recall saying I “wanted it cleared off my list”. (Note: I will never say this because I do not believe geocaching is about clearing off a to-do list)

And I quote myself:

It’s a great cache idea (atleast what I saw of it) but you should make less cryptic puzzles 🙂 Archive it!

I was actually adding my opinion which was to archive it. You asked for the input and whether it should be archived and I gave you a response. What more do you want from us????

I had that opinion at the time for the exact same reason you are asking this question now (you even state it in your question). The reasoning for my response: It was an old cache that is hardly ever found. Why leave it out there if you, yourself is wondering if you should archive it or not?

A cache you place should be regarded the way you want and maintained the way you want. If you feel a cache has run “it’s course” then give proper notice (I love the idea of an expiration date) and get rid of it. If you want a particular cache to last forever, then maintain it that long. You are the owner, not the general community.

Simple simon.

I would personally, not use # of logs as a reason to archive any of my caches. Now what’s in those logs, now that’s another story.

I love the comments/thoughts some of these threads bring out. Sure we all love to find those historical caches with years of logging. Hopefully they are maintained as such because we all enjoy this kind of find. However, I am one who thinks the game should continually evolve and a majority of the caches should come and go. Will I maintain some of mine for as long as possible? Sure. However, I will also archive some in the hopes that something else will come along.

Remember, not only are there new cachers that start all the time, many of those “newbies” also want to hide a couple as well.

As far as the rants and raves regarding “puzzles”, this is geocaching. There are other places to find what you deem to be “puzzles”. I would put a majority of the “puzzles/mystery” caches that I have done into the category of a “mystery”. You find clues to solve that mystery to lead you to the cache. Is this a bad thing or a waste of my time? Nope. Some would feel that solving these true “puzzles” you speak of a waste of their time. Geocaching in fact is a waste of time according to many wives out there.

-cheeto-

[/i]

[Mathman]

@-cheeto- wrote:

Geocaching in fact is a waste of time according to many wives out there.

-cheeto-

[/i]

You mean my Wife isn’t the only one who says that!!!???

[Trekkin and Birdin]

THIS wife doesn’t say that, and neither does Timberline Echoes’ wife. Maybe the Calvetti boys just married wisely! 🙄

Sorry marc for the OT, but I just couldn’t resist. Back to regularly scheduled programming now.

[Ry and Ny]

I’m on the “as long as someone wants to maintain it” side. My favorite cache is a puzzle cache that was on the Lonely Cache list. And, I don’t mean it’s kinda my favorite, I mean it’s my favorite from leaps and bounds.

[seldom|seen]

I’m no expert on the subject of mystery/puzzles caches, but I do own a few…

I’d echo much of what’s been said here but add these few additional thoughts.

I put a great deal of time into creating my puzzles some of which have been out for a year and have has as little as 2 or 3 finds. Now why would I do such a thing? Those caches are certainly not getting the same attention as some of my other easier ones. As the geocaching community as a whole is not experiencing the reward of solving and finding those infrequently visited caches…

Here’s why, and for me it’s all the reward I need for the time I invest:

A log from a simple s|s cache with 99 finds, active for 1 yr 5 months:

“nice fun cache”

A log from a difficult s|s cache with 4 finds, active for 1 yr 3 months:

“Signed log on 02-25-2008 at 9:52AM with “gotta run” and with “seldom|seen” present.

I had this puzzle figured out 05-20-2007. It was my first “real” puzzle and I was pretty glad to have the coords. Then came the real problem, recovering the cache. To make a (very) long story short, because of the correct circumstances, I got teamed up with “Sagasu” and “rsplash40” to go for the recovery! But that was not in the cards. The day all “fell into place” to make the recovery I was not available. With my previous knowledge and blessings, the others went out and “made the grab”. Congrats go to “Sagasu” and “rsplash40” on the FTF!
I was then left to work on getting a boat the rest of the summer. I came close a couple times but either the weather went bad, one person’s new boat was never delivered on time or the “blue algae” came in and that was pretty much it for a “water” recovery”. I then had to shift gears and start looking at an “ice recovery”.
The opportunity came up to check about going on the “Nifty Fifty” on ice while talking with “gotta run” about other “water” caches on the Bay of Green Bay. He was going out there to do the “Lighthouse” series so I went along and kind of made that the “dry run” for this recovery. “gotta run” finished the puzzle part of “Nifty Fifty” and I was thinking about how we did the “Bay” caches. We knew it was “possible” to get to “the scene” but had to come up with a good plan for the recovery. After much “email planning”, we had the idea of how we were going to accomplish this feat. Now it was just a matter of waiting on the weather and personal schedules. We finally went out there, -3 degrees temperature and a wind chill of -20 degrees! This was not for the faint of heart!
We put our plan into place. We had gathered the correct equipment (and made back up plans for everything) and off we went. We were able to get to the correct spot, find the anchor with in about 10 minutes of arrival and start to work on the recovery. Well, scroll down the log entries and you will see our DNF’s. That was a sad end to the initial plan. Now it was how to recover from this and get everything right.
We were each (myself, “gotta run” and “s|s”) able to contribute something to the rebuilding of the “lost” cache. We wanted to get it “back active” as soon as possible so with in the next week we put all of our pre-planned “pieces” together and met back “out there”. We put together our contributed pieces and sort of built the cache container “on scene”. Myself and “gotta run” signed the new “replacement” log in the presence of the owner “s|s”. After looking around again a bit for the original container with no luck, we placed the new one and sealed it back into its cold, watery home.
It was time to get off the ice so we all piled onto the “six by” and took the bumpy ride back in.

All-in-all a real adventure! Thanks “seldom|seen” for a very interesting and nicely set up cache idea. (Best of luck with your 100th!) And a big thanks to “gotta run” for all the help with equipment and planning.
One of the things that I wanted to do in this game was to get a “5 x 5” under my belt at some point and now it is finally done!

I know there are rules about burying caches and even though “seldom|seen” has this one marked as “NOT winter friendly”, we managed to “get-‘er-done”. (I don’t think the burying rule applies here though!) Now that this whole process is done, I would not suggest this winter find idea to other cachers. Wait for some nice warm weather in the spring while the water is still clear and the waves are low!

What an adventure! What fun! I will never forget this one!”

The logs speak for themselves. Ask anyone of the hundred people who’ve done “Eagles Ballroom” if they remember the hide and how unique and challenging it was. You answer will look like the log for that cache, about 3 words.

Now ask the 4 people who have logged Nifty Fifty the same question, and you had better pull up a chair, it’s going to be a while.

It comes down to quality, not quantity. I am not so concerned that Appleton is replete with caches and it is difficult for newbies to find hiding spots to place a dead-end pill-bottle. The quality and variety of caches we do have in the field takes precedence over the number we have.

How would I evaluate whether or not to archive one of mine? Simple. Read the logs and decide if a year from now if those that logged it would still remember it. If the answer was no, archive it.

[gotta run]

Well, I’ll never forget you trying to hold your cup of coffee while sitting in the dump box of the 6×6 while I had to give ‘er full throttle over the ice shoves to make sure we didn’t get bogged down in the snow… 😆

This topic could really read “when is it time to archive A cache?” Anyone with lonely caches has to make that decision. Our “Cliché Caché” at Navarino has been found a whole 8 times in just over a year even though dozens of people walked right by it while at the Navarino event looking for the easier temp caches.

But, we couldn’t care less. This cache is out there to let those who want a long walk and a real challenge have just that.

So if your point is to put out a cache–puzzle or otherwise–to serve a certain constituency, for a certain time, then so be it, though it would be beneficial to state that somewhere in the listing. Otherwise, we assume a certain reasonable level of permanence with caches and are surprised to read about caches out there for about a year (or less) that have supposedly run their course.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[-cheeto-]

The logs speak for themselves. Ask anyone of the hundred people who’ve done “Eagles Ballroom” if they remember the hide and how unique and challenging it was. You answer will look like the log for that cache, about 3 words.

Actually I remember finding Eagles Ballroom and the fun we had as this was in my early caching days (within the first dozen of my finds). I have lived in Appleton for many years and my wife even longer and we have probably driven by that place many times and we never noticed the interesting statues or the larger than life tether ball. Snapped a picture of these items and it shows up now and again on the ole photo screensaver and I enjoy the picture every time I see it.

I remember the container and the hide as well.

This goes to show you that even a “boring cache” or “low quality cache” (as defined by the owner) can be of interest to someone and be remembered long after.

Now a pure dead-ender with nothing spectacular about it. Yeah I have forgotten my share of those. However, as I have said there’s a fan for all types and a time and place for all types.

[Lander Lancelot]

The Lander half of this team says: Gotta run has made two valid points in his posts here, and is substantiated in one of them by sls. Those points worthy to consider when deciding whether or not to archive are:

1. Real estate. Gotta run has mentioned this point twice. Is the unvisited cache in a busy park in the middle of town that would be getting a lot of visits if indeed it were changed to a traditional cache in the area instead? Is it placed smack in the middle of a park that might actually be able to house 2 or 3 separate caches, but they can’t be placed because of proximity to that unvisited fellow in the middle.

2. Level of difficulty. I agree with SlS. We see way too many logs out there that simply say, Quck grab for me – and there are some cachers out there who will say that even if it took them two hours to find it, just to sound like they’re smarter than the last 29 logs that all said, WP1 was a clever hide and it really took us awhile to figure it out. A longer cache log is always more fun to read and you smile and you laugh when you read it and feel good about the time you put in to set it up and place it. These logs usually come with a more difficult hide/puzzle.

I don’t believe you can go by numbers of finds alone when deciding to archive or not. If you have a put out a puzzle that is going to take someone two years to solve, then it’s not going to get as many finds as one that asks to do a bit of research on historic buildings in the area. Let’s face it, we have a nucleus of math teachers in the Fox Valley/Green Bay area who are quite happy putting out caches that only other math teachers can solve. That certainly limits the number of people you’re going to get logging the cache. And not intending to be disrespectful, but Marc, you have some puzzles out there that I stare at and wonder if you were on crack at the time because I haven’t got the foggiest notion what it is you want me to do and with no hint, I’m completely baffled. A few others seem to be able to get inside your head and solve it, which makes me keep it on my list, hoping that one day a light bulb may flicker to life for me. I don’t want to lose the challenge.

While I’ve been stuck in Canada these past 3 months, Lance and I have spent our time working on the puzzles so that when I get back there, we can go out and grab them all. Some of those are on the list you posted at the beginning of this thread, so I hope you don’t put them to bed. We only cache when we’re together, so for us, being able to spend this time together on the phone working on the puzzles has been our way of playing the game.

Lance’s two cents:
He thinks that possibly if a puzzle has a high difficulty rating that prevents it from being easily solved and it’s on prime real estate – (not in someone’s back 40, 20 miles away from civilization) that maybe the distance rule should become more flexible so traditional caches can also be placed in that same park.

[Team Deejay]

As a reviewer, I see many more puzzles than the average geocacher. Most of the puzzle caches published are of easy to moderate challenge, but a small fraction are very difficult. My thinking is that there are two kinds of difficult puzzles. The first requires significant research, or specialized knowledge, or difficult leaps of logic, or just plain tedious work, to solve. In my opinion, these are great, no matter how difficult, and there is no reason to archive them.

The second type are what I call “read my mind” puzzles. These puzzles utilize some sort of unrecognizable pattern which can only be discerned by external hints or other assistance from the cache owner. The best way to recognize one of these is, when presented with the solution, your first reaction is “why would I ever try that?” Another symptom is a puzzle where you MUST have a geochecker link, because the puzzle could produce many possible logical answers, depending on the path chosen. In my opinion, if the puzzle cannot be solved by anybody without assistance (and you have many of the best solvers around up there), it really doesn’t merit the space it is occupying. Again, we are not talking about hard puzzles, but puzzles where the solution does not follow from any sort of logical approach.

[Author]

Posts