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@K0rpl wrote:
Some people don’t have the time to dedicate to putting puzzles toghether, or the time/patience/knowledge to research/solve/find puzzles.
Justin
Then don’t do them, right? I’ll never understand where this sense of entitlement to finding every cache out there comes from. If you don’t want to respect the puzzle creator by investing time in solving his or her puzzle and at least making a cursory attempt at sloving, then ignore it. Don’t disrepect them by short-cutting it and then pasting a cookie-cutter TFTC log.
thanks for that summary gotta-run and without all the soft returns, you can actually read it.
Yes, Marc did suggest other caches were fair game and yes, the criteria is that you have to come with 10 solves in hand. But it is being billed primarily as a puzzle cache tour and the potential is there, indeed the Carrot, to come away with a whole lotta other puzzles logged that you may never take the time to do yourself. Or am I mis-reading the intent of the tour?
I will be the first to admit the there are benefits to caching in small groups the most significant of which is coming away with great stories and memorable moments that we will recall years into the future. This is certainly one of the great attractions to the sport.
At the root level, though, the highest level of satisfaction is attained when the scenario is 1 cacher to 1 cache armed with 1 GPS. We all know the feeling of getting a tough find, hunting solo. When the equation changes to 2 cachers to 1 cache with 2 GPS’s the level of satisfaction starts to decrease. Increase that to 6 caches, 1 cache, 6 GPS’s and the personal satifaction of getting the find is next to nil. You might as well get all those people together and go bar hopping as you’d have more stories to share and more enjoyment altogether.
I am also trying to draw a distinction here between traditionals and puzzles and I know it’s not always a clear one. But there’s a world of difference between a film can under a park slide with known coordinates and a hollow book on a library shelf that can only be found after many hours doing other caches, after which you still have to do some puzzling to get the find. While the cache owner probably wouldn’t care about the film can being pointed out as part of a tour, doing the same to the book that took many hours to create and get permission to place, they surely would.
The biggest question I have on all of this is why go after puzzles in this manner at all? Isn’t this counter-productive to your attempts at promoting puzzle caching? You are enticing cachers to short-cut their way through what could be some very creative and challenging puzzles. Why not go after 60 traditionals in Milwaukee instead? At least that way everyone has an equal shot and it’s just a question of who finds it first.
Perhaps I am still to new to this and having only 600 finds makes me a bit myopic. I suppose when you get to 6000, the only thing that shows up are puzzles. And then, I’m not a numbers guy nor do little blue ?’s near my home bother me in the least (not mine of course).
Dang, I was only going to jot down a couple thoughts and look at this… this dark matter sucking away my cache creation time….
Boy, if that’s what happens what you cut and paste, I’d say hold off!
I’ve opened a can of worms I suspect. I have personal feelings about cache “touring” that put me in a biased position on the subject. So, I will attempt to keep those personal feeling from coming out here and do my best to keep the statements about individual cachers to a minimum.
I think this is a good discussion to have, but let’s all try to keep it civil and non-personal when and where we can. That’s a tall order given the nature of this thread.
For the time being I will just be waiting in the wings…
Congratulations Gary!!!!!!
Well done. your Earthcache listings are the best of the best and it is obvious to me that you do your research and invest a great deal of time in setting up the instructional and educational portions of the listings.
You set the benchmark for future Earthcache placers and your recent efforts have gotten others interested again in this very special cache type.
Now I just have to find the time to get out and do yours. I have about 4 Earthcache listings that I have been developing but have decided to wait until the weather breaks so I can spend the needed time in the filed before creating the listings.
I hope that mine will reach the standard you have set for future Earthcaches in Wisconsin. Your caching style, creative puzzles, investment into the caching community via the forums continue to inspire!
Some day soon I will make the trip down to my hometown (Dave even gets there more often then I do these days) and when I do I intend to look you up. You have an appointment with a pigeon and a drainpipe to keep…
Got one from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Want it or do you have that one already?
And the first cycle comes to a close with a final push today.
Couple questions:
Are you going to add a Winner’s page?
When will the list be updated?Boy, with all the jibbing Sagasu’s been getting I’m almost glad I haven’t taken the lead this month! I’m all for the Sagasu Rule as well 🙂
Just a follow-up on the comments here-to-for concerning DNF’s and subsequent find logs. I too thought it a bit pointless to revisit a cache that’s hadn’t been DNF’d since a previous find only to claim points UNLESS there was an objective to the revisit.
One team revisited a cache to replace a log, move some stalled trackables and generally upkeep the lonely cache. Under the new rules, that wouldn’t be allowed.
I’m not sure that this is a good rule change. If you drive a half hour and find a lonely cache to discover that the container is broken and you have the capacity to fix and/or replace it, if you can get the owners permission, shouldn’t that motivate you to return and repair the cache? I suppose you could hold off on submitting the “found it” log until you get the cache replaced but that seems like a not so forthright way of going about it.
I come prepared with replacements and also contact the owners a few days before I know I’m going to have a look for theirs in case it is MIA or broken, but even then I’m not always able to communicate with the owners and most have appreciated the attention to their caches even after the fact.
The point of the game, as has been thoroughly vetted, is to give lonely some much needed attention and the rules should entice cachers to do so, not dissuade them from doing so. This is why I think multiple visits should be allowed, but only the specific points for the revisit should count. In the example above, I might consider it worthwhile to got back to a cache a half hour away to replace the container or add a baggie or pencil if it gets me a couple points and isn’t too far out of the way. But, by the same token, I don’t think I deserve the terrain and visit points since I’ve already done the hard part.
Guess I’m just going to have to be very prepared before I step out o f the house from now on…
From the standpoint of controlling the game a bit more, the rule change will help. I just hope that it does not counteract the whole intent of the game and prevent cachers from performing maintenance or replacements to better the quality of Wisconsin caches in general.
@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:
I kind of think that Seldom|Seen will be all over this one.
Like I don’t burn enough time on the puzzles I put together already!!! I agree, this is geocaching on speed.
I may venture out into this new territory after I get through publishing the other hundred or so puzzles kicking around in my brain at any given moment, which gives me about a year to watch the other like-minded individuals play around with it first.
I do agree with much of what’s been said here. This tool seems much better suited to park tours and historical tours than creating any virtual caches with “gaming-like” experiences. I can totally see this tool used for say, the National Mall in DC, or the Battlefields of Gettysburg.
It does, however, look like a very promising tool for Earthcaches. The educational component seems limitless and if you set up a cartridge for, say, the Kettle Moraine Park with proximity audio for the dozen types of glacial formations with a question at the end of every stop and then made the cache requirement answering those questions, these Earthcaches could be that much more educational on-site where the experience matters not so content heavy on the cache description page.
I’ll be watching and playing, but don’t expect to see anything from me soon, unless someone decides to call me for assistance, in which case…
I just assumed you could only log a cache once per time it was lonely. (Now if you DNF it and then go back on a separate visit and replace the container, then I’d allow the DNF visit to be deleted and replaced with the higher point value maintenance visit.) I think the rules should be changed to close this loophole and prevent people from padding their stats with spurious visits.
When I first started, I thought only one person could log a find on a lonely per period, that was early on. I think there are lots of rules to keep track of and that us “lonely cache” players have made the game more difficult than it needed to be. But, given where we are now, I tend to agree with Jeremy. Let’s remember what the point of the game is. Then let’s reduce the variables and get everyone on the same playing field.
My only concern is that this game has already become more than Dave expected it to be and adding more criteria will make that much more work to keep scoring fairly. Add to that the knowledge that as the weather warms there will be an increasing number of players out there, and you’ve got your work cut out for you. If you thought the first 2 months was fraught with issues and whining… just give it a couple months.
This is a monumental undertaking and at this point you may need to bring another cacher on board to assist in the score-keeping. It is going to get more intense, even if you keep the number around 500.
Yes, it is all in good fun. If Dave and I had not started the game and played hard off of each other the first month, perhaps there would have been even more contenders in the upper ranks. We fully expect that to change when the weather turns. For those of us who have been out hard core, hip-deep in snow, braving sub-zero temp and heinous wind chills to dig out lonely’s, the reward is in the find and in the hunt that few others would venture to join in.
I was out in the worst winter storm of the year driving on impossible roads – that’s when caution is thrown to the wind and the “rush” of making a find in the worst possible circumstances pays off. That is when a few of us really get a kick out of the game.
But, now that we are “into” it, we do look for opportunities to score more points, like replacing missing containers or adding baggies and pencils. I have a few DNF’s to log still, but only if I don’t think I’m going to get back to them before the month is out. I don’t intend to go back and revisit and finds that I have made since the game began to score extra points.
The whole point of the game, I agree, it to improve what is out there by doing maintenance for those who can’t or outright adopting “good” caches that need help. No matter how that happens. So if someone logs a cache, and realizes later that it needed a ziplock or some TB’s moved, that fine by me.
Can’t wait for March. now only if I could find 10 more before Feb. is done…
This next period will no doubt be heavy with lonelies, however, this is only going to happen for the winter months and when you compile the list again in May and go back 4 months, you’d hope that a lot of people have gotten outdoors in March and April to get some caching in.
I agree with the singular visit rule and understand that this make for a great deal of work on your end. I have posted a couple DNFs and hope to get back to post finds. I would not go back to a find and claim a re-visit however, as I do think is it padding. You either DNF it or find it. Perhaps you strip out the points for DNF altogether and allow only one find report per cache per geocacher per period, unless that cacher does maintenance, adopts or performs some other action to better the cache, in which case they get a couple extra points, but not the terrain rating again. That is the point of the game after all (or one of the most important ones anyway).
I myself am surprised to see a contender log a single cache on 3 occasions for Jan and Feb and get major points for each visit, a find and 2 revisits. This is not the point of the game IMHO.
@Trekkin’ and Birdin’ wrote:
Man, the guy is a machine! Lonely Caches, big numbers….couldn’t happen to a nice guy! Way to go, Dave!
I agree. Nice guys finish last and with Dave finishing first in the LCG for Jan, how could he possibly be nice, I ask?
Looks like he’s trying to keep the title too, for Feb. Unless the Hounds on his tail catch him by the short hairs first…
This thread hits close to home. In my formative years, my mother held a Wildlife Rehabilitator Permit. I spent the majority of my childhood and early adulthood caring for and raising injured and orphaned wildlife.
The guiding principle was to make every attempt to reduce our human contact while caring for the critters in captivity, but as you can imagine, that’s difficult to do with 5 kids in the house lending helping hands when needed. This led my brothers and sisters to develop special relationships for the wildlife brought to us to care for. Mom had those relationships as well, even though she tried to discourage it.
It’s been 20 years since I released my last coon into the wild, but I still have very vivid memories of many of my little buddies.
Our first critter was an injured Blue Jay, “Jimmy”. After a year in our care he was released into the woods about a mile from home. You could hear him in the woods and call to him for years afterward and he’d come flying in to the feeders. You could even go talk to him if you moved slowly and didn’t freak him out.
Our all-time favorite guy was Oglethorpe, a tiny Screech Owl who would get on your shoulder and talk on your ear. One of the nicest raptors we ever raised or nursed back to health. He held a special spot in our hearts and any one of us will smile to this day when his name is mentioned
Over the years we took care of Barn Owls, Great-Horned Owls, Red-Tailed Hawks, Sparrow Hawks, Herons, Egrets, Wood Ducks, various other waterfowl, an army of Raccoons, Mallards and our fair share of song birds and squirrels. We probably raised more than 30 Robins over the years.
When Elder Bush took office he appointed a new Head of the DNR. That individual, the name escapes, made it immediately difficult to renew the permit requiring certain site standards (certain types and sizes of cages for raptors and large wildlife) that we just couldn’t meet. Remember, all rehabilitators work for free. Over the years we spent thousands of dollars on supplies, building cages and driving far and wide on a moments notice to pick up injured critters. It was too much and she gave it up about the time I left for college, which may have also had something to do with it as I was the last one out of the house. The empty nest got real empty after that.
The current permit holders are facing new challenges that are making it even tougher to get their permits which means that even more animals injured by human activity will be left to suffer and die. This is a real pity and very saddening. The feeling our entire family got when we finally released a hawk that may have come to us near death from starvation or grounded with a broken wing is a feeling I will never forget. It brought me as close to nature as I think any human is capable of getting.
I hope that the few private rehabilitators out there continue to get through the hoops for the sake of all the made-caused injuries imposed on our little buddies and can continue to bring even a few of them back from the brink.
Wow. I didn’t know there were that many Mounds caches already out there. i am so happy to see this thread.
I have been working on a pair of Earthcaches with mounds in mind. Guess I better get busy now with this new thread before someone else gets any ideas in the area!
That goes for you too, Lostby7!
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