Wisconsin gets toasted again

[The Lil Otter]

[Cheesehead Dave]

@GrouseTales wrote:

Like I tell all these people, everyone is welcome to attend. Once you’ve attended a WGA event and found some of our temps, you can then make an informed decision regarding multiple logs.

I personally stopped logging the temps after they changed the “found it” to “attended”. I’d like to log the temps, but it seem silly to me to log them as “attended”, but that’s just my opinion 🙂

My opinion as well. I used to log them because when I was a new cacher, everyone else did, so I thought that it’s just how things were done. I think I stopped logging temps a couple of years ago when I attended an event and there were caches hidden around the room for people to “find” and log.

I think the fun in the events is meeting people and going around with them and finding the temp caches. My single well-written “Attended” log is all I need to remember the event. Logging every individual temp as an extra “attended” log or logging them as “finds” on an archived cache serves no purpose other than extra smilies to boost my find count.

The quality of the temp caches hidden at the WGA events has always been first rate, but logistically, what’s the difference between logging 40 quality temp caches vs. forty film container temps that were scattered around the event?

I do find it annoying that people like to keep bring this up over and over in the Groundspeak forums. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that I also don’t like the practice of logging event temps. I’m just not going to get my undies in a bunch and call people “cheaters” if they choose to do so.

[EnergySaver]

As for me ….

(a) It doesn’t bother me what other people do, this is just for fun and it’s up to them.

(b) I use to log the temps, then I stopped … it was just a lot of “busy work” on the computer (especially with my 26k connection out in the country).

(c) More and more I look to events as meeting the people and less about finding the temps … just the way I’m feeling about it.

[Team Honeybunnies]

After reading back through, I realized it might have been misconstrued that I was referring to One Paddle Short’s posting with mine. I consider Tim one of my new friends made in geocaching and I just wanted it to be clear that my post was in reference to the topic at hand.

That being said, I’ll weigh in on this once more. I was greatly annoyed to see Wisconsin referred to as a nexus of cheating. I could just as inaccurately and unfairly say that Washington is a nexus for pederasts and frottage afficionados. The glory of the internet is that one can say anything without the fear of meeting the people you’re slagging half a country away. Of course I could be completely wrong and these people are just as unpleasant in person.

Logging temp finds is a personal choice. I haven’t, others have. To claim it’s cheating is a bit melodramatic. I’ve attended 8 or 9 events to date. I can’t recall. You can go to my profile and see 8 or 9 events. If a person has logged temp finds you can simply look at their profile and know. They are being completely up front that they have found a temp cache and logged it. It’s about as deceitful as wearing Groucho glasses. Nobody’s hiding anything. But there is a certain power in saying A-HA! I’ve found you out! I would consider logging false finds as being much more egregious, and without checking log books one by one, completely hidden from oversight.

Lastly, I wish issues like this would just go away. I come to the forums to spend time with my friends and acquaintances, not to argue about things that GC.com could easily rule one way or another if they chose to. We could easily have a situation like our neighbors one state west where there is infighting, name calling, splinter groups and just general unhappiness. Geocaching brings so much pleasure to my life, why muck it up with the kind of issues we deal with in the rest of our lives?

[LightningBugs Mum]

Last year when this subject came up, I suggested an alternative in the Groundspeak forum. Why not make temp-finds / multiple attended logs like benchmarks? They could show up on the profile on a seperate line, but not increase the find count. (In other words, your first event log would increase your count, but the rest would not.) Well, that was my idea anyways and like all other helpful suggestions about this topic, GC.com has chosen to ignore it. It looks like they are hoping that the situation will just eventually go away (but it won’t) and I too am disappointed by their attitude about it. They could fix it so easily by just doing something – anything!

@EnergySaver wrote:

As for me ….

(a) It doesn’t bother me what other people do, this is just for fun and it’s up to them.

(b) I use to log the temps, then I stopped … it was just a lot of “busy work” on the computer (especially with my 26k connection out in the country).

(c) More and more I look to events as meeting the people and less about finding the temps … just the way I’m feeling about it.

My opinion about events has evolved in the same way.

[knoffer]

Even though I don’t feel as though I cheated or lied I feel compelled to change my attended logs to notes simply for the fact that I don’t want to be labeled as such. I have always held the utmost honesty in my finds and DNF’s alike. I feel as though I can not voice an opinion in a Forum as long as I have this Scarlet letter hanging above my head.
So now the conundrum that I have to face is that the last four Milestones that I have obtained and logged as such are not true. I have no issue with changing my attends to notes and will do so for this last event.
Now if I go and change the attends for the October event I attended my last four Milestones and logs are incorrect. Now I feel that I have opened the door for someone to scrutinize my logs and call me a liar and cheater for posting that I found said cache as said Milestone. So again I could be labeled as a Liar and a Cheater. Not to mention that I purposely planned the caches that I found for that particular Milestone and that would no longer hold true.
I have changed the attends to notes for this latest event and have to deal with the wrath of having logged multiple attends back in October (two months after starting caching) for the rest of my caching life.
I will say that I feel a little bitter about the whole thing simply because of the fact that I did take the time to find the caches, sign the logs or send an email answering questions required to prove my find. My time like everyone else’s is valuable and I’m a little taken back that not only did I take the time to initially log these finds but now I took the time to go back and change these logs to Notes. In the future one event one log and will be able to sleep at night.
I’m not disgruntled with anyone in general just wish the lines could have been clearer from the get go.
I have seen many logs by new cachers and some old cachers alike that simply stated that they found the location but no cache and logged it as a find. Do I send them e-mail saying that they can not do this? Of course not it is really none of my business.
If I was the cache owner then that is another story. I would most likely check the cache to make sure it is there and then let them know that the cache is indeed there and if in the future they have an opportunity to revisit the area please find the cache and sign the log.
Would I monitor this? No, I simply feel that is not that important to make an issue out of.
Would I delete their log? I’m not sure.
Would I ask them to prove that they were there my asking questions about the surroundings? I don’t know. Again I don’t feel that it is that important.
Are they cheating me by falsifying a find? No they are not. So why make an issue out of it?
All in all this was a learning experience that I will carry with me through the rest of my caching life-cycle.

I will however point out that this sort of disdain towards a particular cacher or group of cachers logging practices does not in my opinion promote Geocaching but rather hinder it’s growth. Why would someone chose to be involved in a sport where they are berated??

I don’t feel that any one in WI holds this sort of disdain towards a cacher. The fact that the GC community outside of WI does can certainly hurt the future longevity of cachers in WI and the world as a whole.

The above is simply my opinion and nothing more. I chose to change my logs and hold no one responsible except myself for this decision.

[LightningBugs Mum]

I’ve gone back and changed some attendeds to notes and I have thought about the fact that this does sort of mess up the milestones. But in my mind, the milestone happened when that magic number appeared on that cache page. And I don’t think anybody but me cares about what cache that happened to be.

The logging police on the groundspeak forum get a kick out of riling everybody up this way. They keep bringing it up because they like the controversy and the stroking they receive from their forum cronies. Until GC.com actually addresses the issue, they are best ignored. Although people on the other side of the argument should continue to let Groundspeak know how they feel about it.

[abcdmCachers]

@LightningBugs Mum wrote:

Last year when this subject came up, I suggested an alternative in the Groundspeak forum. Why not make temp-finds / multiple attended logs like benchmarks? They could show up on the profile on a seperate line, but not increase the find count. (In other words, your first event log would increase your count, but the rest would not.) Well, that was my idea anyways and like all other helpful suggestions about this topic, GC.com has chosen to ignore it.

Let me bounce this idea off people. Since it’s not likely that Groundspeak will address this issue, what if the various statistics counting programs such as mine (CacheStats) and Cheesehead Dave’s (itsnotaboutthenumbers) came to an agreement for special logging tags that would count categories not covered by gc.com. For example, you would be able to put something like this in your attended log for an event:

I had a great time at the event!

##Temporary: 15

##Pocket Cache: 3

Then when you generated your statistics using one of the above applications, you would see two new categories in your cache type listing, but they would not be in your official count. The tag names could be standardized, but wouldn’t necessarily have to be. So you could even create your own categories like “Hikes greater than 1 mile” or “park and grabs”.

It’s clear a lot of people like to get “credit” for finding event temps or even just keep track of how many event temps they have found even if they don’t log them all. That’s understandable – at the WGA picnics I’ve attended it’s no small feat to find all the temps – you may end up hiking 5 or 10 miles to get them all. I think this could be a good compromise that would still motivate people to find the temps even if they don’t get the smilie.

Thoughts? Would people use this feature if it were available?

[greyhounder]

I too have changed most of my logs for temporary caches into notes. Still have a few left — eventually they’ll be changed too. I don’t care what anyone does. All that matters to me is that I am enjoying myself and others are as well.

I tried to argue the facts that it’s impossible to compare any one person’s stats against another because we don’t all find the same caches. I still feel that stats should not be public — that way you can log them however you wish without any finger pointing.

My milestones have all changed too. I typically liked to try a challenging cache for my milestones, so they are still something special in my mind, even if it’s not #300 or whatever.

Bec

[Cheesehead Dave]

@abcdmCachers wrote:

Thoughts? Would people use this feature if it were available?

Some might use it, but unless it became standardized into the size, not everyone would use it, so (at least for my site) generating population stats would be inaccurate. That’s why I’m not rushing to put FtF stats on INATN either. I have doubts that everyone would check all their logs for FtFs, so building stats off that would be off from the start.

I proposed a similar idea to Greyhounder’s once. A cache owner could actually create a temp cache listing. You would fill out a small form: Name, coordinates, short description, a hint, and the GCID number of a real cache to link the temp cache to. These would all be referenced on the real cache page. People could log these to their heart’s content, but they would not count towards your find total. Like benchmarks, they’d be totaled separately.

Anyhoo… In response to Knoffer’s post, I haven’t bothered to go back and change my old finds to notes. It’s not worth my time. It’s part of my “caching history,” and If someone really wants to audit my finds and call me out on them, they can feel free. I’m not going to lose sleep at night over it.

[Buy_The_Tie]

@Cheesehead Dave wrote:

…I haven’t bothered to go back and change my old finds to notes. It’s not worth my time. It’s part of my “caching history,” and If someone really wants to audit my finds and call me out on them, they can feel free. I’m not going to lose sleep at night over it.

Well said.

Me too.

[One Paddle Short]

[Averith]

Out of intense guilt I’ve deleted all my attended logs except one, didn’t realize how much of a big deal it was on the GC forums. Guess I can see the point of logging multiple times for one event being an issue but that’s what I was told to do at the event to log the temp caches. Oh well live and learn I guess. Still had a great time at the event either way.

[greyhounder]

@Averith wrote:

Out of intense guilt I’ve deleted all my attended logs except one, didn’t realize how much of a big deal it was on the GC forums. Guess I can see the point of logging multiple times for one event being an issue but that’s what I was told to do at the event to log the temp caches. Oh well live and learn I guess. Still had a great time at the event either way.

Don’t do anything because you want to make others happy. Be happy with yourself. If you feel comfortable logging the event find, do it. Don’t worry at all about what others think. This is not an activity where one person is better than another based on the number of geocaches found. You are a better person based on who you are and the ability to stand for your own ideas.

But if you feel more comfortable with logging only one attended for an event — do that also. I will certainly not judge you.

Some of those people on the gc forums are good at the guilt, aren’t they? They also really need to get away from the computer and find some geocaches.

Bec

[LightningBugs Mum]

@abcdmCachers wrote:

It’s clear a lot of people like to get “credit” for finding event temps or even just keep track of how many event temps they have found even if they don’t log them all. That’s understandable – at the WGA picnics I’ve attended it’s no small feat to find all the temps – you may end up hiking 5 or 10 miles to get them all. I think this could be a good compromise that would still motivate people to find the temps even if they don’t get the smilie.

My thoughts exactly. I would like to keep track of them in my stats just because I work hard for them – I don’t care if they show up in my total find count. But of course I don’t begrudge the people who do want to count them. There just has to be a better way of dealing with it. *sigh*

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