Virtual Cache Demise

[benny7210]

Can anyone tell me what year Groundspeak stopped allowing Virtuals to be published?… (Please no guess or I think dates)

[amita17]

And to tag onto this thread, what was the official reason for not allowing any new ones?

[Chatauqua560]

Here’s a place to start: http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295690

[Chatauqua560]

I also found this: Geocaching.com no longer accepts new submissions of these geocache types. Existing Virtual and Webcam geocaches are “grandfathered” and are still available for you to log. All the Locationless geocaches were archived and locked in January 2006. The new home for these types of geocaches is Waymarking.com.

Found at https://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=63

[benny7210]

Thanks for the help. It pushed me in the right direction. I found a post from May 16 2012. By Mr. Yuck on the GC forums. I will share it if any one is interested. This may not be 100 percent correct, but better than the answers I had before.

Posted 16 May 2012 – 06:24 PM
A quote from the closed “When were virtual caches outlawed?” thread:

Quote
November 2005 was the guidelines update that officially closed the door on both webcams and virtuals. This after the Waymarking site went live.
Virts changed character, from “anything goes” to needing to meet two standards in March 03:
1, only could be placed where a physical cache could not be (like around a state capitol, or in a National Wildlife Refuge),
2, had to have “wow factor”. Also defined that virts needed to have some form of verification question or photo requirement.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Thanks for sharing that. We started in 2006 and neither of those were options for new caches then. We missed it by about a year.

[Author]

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