This topic contains 24 replies, has 15 voices, and was last updated by 
Walkingadventure 11 years ago.
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@Trekkin and Birdin wrote:
I talked to Trekkin’, who has some background in what might be termed “deviant behavior.” His take? Good people do these things because there ARE no consequences and it allows them to be “bad.” The same people will not steal from the workplace, lie about their time card or other such things, because there ARE consequences….even though they might be tempted to do these things.
He had other comments on the topic, but that was the main one from his perspective.
That sort of reminds me of something I heard many, many years ago. Always trust someone that cheats at solitaire, because people that cheat other people don’t waste time cheating themselves. 😀
Personally, I don’t care what others do in the game, and I have done P&Gs to fill days, though it’s usually -10 degrees and involved a metal bison tube. To me, that is still a challenge 😆 . I like doing the game the way I want… I don’t worry about numbers, finally hit 1,000 after 10 years. I just cache when I want to and do as many as I want. I am surrounded by unfound caches where I live because I like to explore new areas, not go back to the same park time and time again because some newbie put a new cache there.
not go back to the same park time and time again because some newbie put a new cache there.
Where I live it’s not the newbies. It’s the people who have found everything in the area and now all they do is FTF’s and cache placements. They’ll constantly archive and relist caches with various different puzzles and nuances. The cache will remain often just long enough for them to pad each other’s FTF stats and then it’ll be archived in favor of a new one in the exact same spot or close to it.
I’m actually not complaining, though. They get quite ingenious trying to outdo each other’s hides and puzzles etc and they’re often very fun finds if I can get to them fast enough. They seem to be nice enough people, too. They’ve always been decent with me.
@ckayda wrote:
Where I live it’s not the newbies. It’s the people who have found everything in the area… They’ll constantly archive and relist caches with various different puzzles and nuances. The cache will remain often just long enough for them to pad each other’s FTF stats and then it’ll be archived in favor of a new one in the exact same spot or close to it..
That’s the reason! Being from Eau Claire and traveling back there on a regular basis, I would always download some caches to look for and those I didn’t find would remain on the GPS unit. Next time I would visit, no cache! 🙄
@northwoods Tom wrote:
That’s the reason! Being from Eau Claire and traveling back there on a regular basis, I would always download some caches to look for and those I didn’t find would remain on the GPS unit. Next time I would visit, no cache! 🙄
And that’s why anytime I revisit an area, I always reload the GPS unit with an updated pocket query 🙂
@northwoods Tom wrote:
@ckayda wrote:
Where I live it’s not the newbies. It’s the people who have found everything in the area… They’ll constantly archive and relist caches with various different puzzles and nuances. The cache will remain often just long enough for them to pad each other’s FTF stats and then it’ll be archived in favor of a new one in the exact same spot or close to it..
That’s the reason! Being from Eau Claire and traveling back there on a regular basis, I would always download some caches to look for and those I didn’t find would remain on the GPS unit. Next time I would visit, no cache! 🙄
Well that’s frustrating to hear as someone who’s moving to Eau Claire.
Not all who wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien
Well that’s frustrating to hear as someone who’s moving to Eau Claire.
It’s not really that bad, actually. There are plenty of caches to be found here that have had staying power. I only started noticing this issue recently now that I’ve found a lot of the older caches and the transient ones are what’s left over.
Finding a spot to place a cache that’s worth using and isn’t already taken….That seems to be another story but maybe part of that is my lack of skills in seeking them out. I got an EC county plat map in the mail yesterday and I’m starting to look more outside the city limits.
@todd300 wrote:
@northwoods Tom wrote:
That’s the reason! Being from Eau Claire and traveling back there on a regular basis, I would always download some caches to look for and those I didn’t find would remain on the GPS unit. Next time I would visit, no cache! 🙄
And that’s why anytime I revisit an area, I always reload the GPS unit with an updated pocket query 🙂
Does that means I have to update my equipment… 🙁
This last year or so, we have definitely cut back ALOT of our caching. Currently, we are probably at our lowest count per cache finds in a year.
What slowed our gaining interest in the hobby was the negativity and laziness of others, as well as our combined interests that as our children grow older they really have a lack of interest in geocaching.
When we started, it was a blast and then as our numbers grew and a competition of getting higher numbers within the “family” we have that geocaches. As competitions gained within, a dull finish geocaching was giving us. Then we would flip flop on the type of caches we enjoyed the most. Each type would win dependent on the wants and needs we had at the time.
As we started to get more into the game we began to enjoy the factors of exercise. We started exercising more to get the longer multis, the hikes and walks. Then we really got into the puzzle solving and FTF races. We met more and more people through geocaching through the social events but as the extra games became more and more popular within the hobby so did the competition. Some of the local hiders seemed to compete for who would hide the hardest puzzle or cache, and the finders would compete to FTF. The negativity for us started to build within the hobby at this time. We would hear back stabbing comments at events, people discussing how they could “bend” the rules set by geocaching. ETC. At that time my wife and I looked at each other and we knew to us, this hobby unless society changes the lack luster will dull or even fade off. We even contemplated losing our premium membership.
Here we sit reading our thoughts as you post them. My wife and I have definitely stayed friends with some of the charter members who play the hobby with the same mindset. We cherish some of the friendships we have made in this hobby. We still hide and find, its much more rare now. Our ties have been cut to the negativity we were feeling while geocaching. By cutting those ties we have started to again enjoy some of those classic hides and even some of the classic hikes and challenges. We are now playing the hobby completely differently, enjoying it as we enjoy some of the hobbies we enjoy as a family, fishing or hiking, hunting or canoeing, water skiing or out at a picnic lunch. A rare FTF run for a cache, but the numbers mean nothing to us again. What we enjoy when we look at the stats map are another county we may have visited we have not yet seen, a destination as a family or with true friends.
The PAFs we still have are those cachers that we thought were true people. Those genuine people we are only looking for a friendship, not a group to make a multi easier, or the easy way out on a 5 star puzzle. Like BBG’s story, someone who is willing to carry the extra weight because the extras are just the bonus in life. Who needs the negativity when there is so much positivity out there to cherish.
I almost never even go on the WGA site and read forums…but I figured I would add my 2 cents worth. I always think of it this way: for each thing I dislike about geocaching there are ton of people who like it and for each thing I like about it, there are that many more people who dislike that aspect. That’s just the way it is. A hobby is supposed to be fun and fun means different things to different people. If seeing stats is fun to someone, who am I to deny them that?
It isn’t easy and goodness knows I’ve done my own sharing over time. Everyone that is passionate about something has their opinions which is great. I’ve found that I have been able to change my outlook not by taking a step back but taking a side step to change perspective.
It also helps to have my wife there to remind me it is tupperware in the woods, it isn’t Life or Death.
All I can hope for is in the future I can try and follow this outlook:
Accentuate the positive, Eleminate the Negative
http://youtu.be/4IP9h40z0skFollowing the signals from space.
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