What are your thoughts on this?

[Uncle_Fun]

I have noticed one fairly new geocaching team that is taking a photo or two at each find and including it in their log. The photo often shows the hiding spot and always shows the container.

The question that I have is. Is this appropriate?

As a cache hider, I spend a lot of time choosing a location, container and the cache page. I decide how much I want to include regarding the location, container and cache page content. In my opinion I think what they are doing is not appropriate. I plan on sending them a nice email letting them know my concerns. Before I did that I wanted to know how you felt about this.

I feel these photos should be stored in their gallery vs on the cache page.

What are your thoughts???

Uncle_Fun

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

I agree with you. Send them a note stating that they should save the thrill of the hunt for others to enjoy.

I have always felt that it was an unwritten rule not to give away the hide in any logs. Written or Photo.

[sbukosky]

I believe that it says photos may be spoilers. But having said that, no, I don’t think pictures of the cache location or container are in the best spirit of things.

[Folk Trakers]

We witnessed this a few months ago. We went to post a find for a cache and noticed a new team post that they found it the same day. The included pictures of them with the cache standing right at the location. We sent them a friendly e-mail welcoming them to the sport, but letting them know how the picture gave a little too much away. They replied thanking us and stated that they were just so excited with their first find ever that they didn’t really even think about it, therefore they’d remove it promptly. We closed the loop by thanking them and inviting them to some upcoming events. They didn’t seem offended at all, and we think they were actually thankful that someone reached out to welcome them and ‘teach’ them a bit.

[Scrappy Scout]

we take photos but we do not post them if they have any clues to the cache. i think the only one we ever did was a pic of the cache spread out showing all the trinkets inside. but we walked a couple of steps away and took the picture so as to not spoil the location. but i agree with you that pictures should not show the location at all maybe only the cache container might be ok but that’s a gray area. i know we are new but my wife also noticed when she was looking for caches to go on that she saw pics of the location and where it was she didnt like that at all.

[cacheseekers]

We use to take pictures of each find and the location but never posted them to geocaching.com. We’ve since started to take pictures of the difficult finds or the interesting containers etc. Some of the caches we’ve found and taken pictures of are on our website (which is pretty out of date). So I guess people could track down images for caches we’ve been to if they really wanted to… We just like to have an image history on our personal pages for friends and family to see.

I’ve alway assumed that would be ok and assumed posting pictures to cache pages would be ‘giving away’ the location for thos who are searching.

[hogrod]

I sent a note to a new cacher not that long ago about a unknown/mystery cache that they had uploaded a waypoint for the final. They had got in the habit of posting their coords on every cache and just had not thought about how those coords would allow someone to bypass the entire puzzle someone had taken the time to put together.
They removed the coords they had posted and thanked me for pointing out the problem with doing this, and they also agreed that the puzzle was great and wouldn’t want to make it to easier for anyone.

[ThatGuy]

I always try to take at least one picture of every cache, showing its location and the container. I also try to take a few other pics if I remember, showing something nearby or anything interesting found on the hunt.

I’m of two minds about posting a true spoiler picture to the log. One is that a given cacher really shouldn’t be looking at the pictures unless they’ve at least put in a good faith effort to find that particular cache. The other is that true spoiler photos are not a good idea.

A true spoiler would be one that gives the details of where the cache was hidden, and any other details that aren’t apparent from the description/hint. The container may or may not be a spoiler, depending. I mean, if you know you’re looking for an ammo box, then what’s the big deal about showing an ammo box? If you know the location may be in the woods, then showing some spot in the woods isn’t a big deal. The difference comes with a truly unique container, and showing it in its unique position for the hide. If it’s a generic light pole cache, then it doesn’t matter. Of course, the more unique the container and hide, the more you want to share pictures.

I think most of the photos I’ve posted so far might be considered hints, but not true spoilers.

Perhaps a spoiler flag could be added to photos? It might be a pain though. My opinion is that photos are fine, and cachers shouldn’t be looking at them until they’ve logged either a find or a DNF for that particular cache.

[TyeDyeSkyGuy]

I agree whole hearted! I too place many caches of my own, and many of them are unique containers and locations. Any pic’s of these would leave me very upset, as most of them are a lot of work.

As a cacher, I try not to read the clues, as they can give far to much away, so pictures would only make matters worse.

Please send them a kind letter informing them of “proper geocaching etiquette”. It’s OK to snap a shot of yourself with the cache, as long as it’s not unique. But also take your picture away from the actual location.

If you want a pic of yourself with the unique caches, or locations, publish them to the cache album, not to your post please.

[PCFrog]

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

I don’t care about taking photos around the cache as I do it all the time. But putting photos of the actual hiding spot in the log is what I am against.

The point is that people take a lot of time to place a cache and hide it just the way they want. Then after it is published and the first finder takes a picture of the cache in the hiding spot. The next finder looks at the picture and says to himself,”find the hollow stump and take the bark off the top and I will have the find.” Rather than, “Hmmm look at all the possible spots where would I hide this cache?”

I kind of look at it as reading the last chapter of a mystery first.

[ThatGuy]

@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:

I kind of look at it as reading the last chapter of a mystery first.

By the same token, as PCFrog states, it is a personal choice. You don’t like skipping to the end, I don’t like skipping to the end, some people do. The photos are reasonably concealed from accidental finding, you must take the effort to do it yourself. If a particular cacher wants the thrill of discovery spoiled, then they can go ahead and read the hints and look at the pictures first.

[Cheesehead Dave]

@PCFrog wrote:

This is not a jab at anyone here but wow. I can’t believe the number of people so far that are against the photos.

I love seeing photos, in fact, I wish GC.com would automatically send notifications when someone attaches pictures to my caches!

Take pictures of the area! Take pictures of the kids digging through the container!

Just please don’t post close-up shots of the cache in its hiding spot.

That;s right up there with posting pictures of travel bugs showing the tag number.

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

@Cheesehead Dave wrote:

@PCFrog wrote:

This is not a jab at anyone here but wow. I can’t believe the number of people so far that are against the photos.

I love seeing photos, in fact, I wish GC.com would automatically send notifications when someone attaches pictures to my caches!

Take pictures of the area! Take pictures of the kids digging through the container!

Just please don’t post close-up shots of the cache in its hiding spot.

That;s right up there with posting pictures of travel bugs showing the tag number.

Exactly what I was trying to say but probably worded better.

[PCFrog]

Ok let’s make this simple, here are two photos I have taken in the past and posted with my log.

Photo A

Photo B

These both show the “Area” and both have the cache in them. But both do not show where it was actually hidden.

Are these acceptable – YES / NO and why?

[Author]

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