[Team Deejay]

I think the current level of moderation is about right. I also think there is a lot of self-policing among the general membership, where people will send a note/PM to someone if they feel they were out of line in the forums, which I believe is better than heavy moderation. That said, I wouldn’t want our forums to be like the GC.com forums, where people seem to be competing to see how inflammatory they can be with their posts.

I think the Utah guidelines are too strict. I’m all for kindness and such, but threatening to delete people’s thought will stifle communication. Additionally, as our organization is tasked with interacting with governmental organizations, political discussions seem to be on task. Even religion might have a place with regard to what is allowed to be on a cache page. I guess I could go along with points one and two.

[Team Deejay]

There isn’t, and if you think about the process of uploading a picture, you will see why. When you post a log, you have to post the log before you are given the option of uploading the photo. The email process starts before the photo is uploaded. Now, they could obviously rig it to send an email when a photo is uploaded separately, but it doesn’t work that way today. Maybe you could submit a suggestion to Groundspeak?

[Team Deejay]

I like this idea, but I’m not exactly sure how it would work beyond the kid caches that Jason mentioned. Would you suggest some sort of organized activities? Would they be segregated by age groups? From my limited experiences caching with kids, I’ve found that those that like doing it will go all day, with the adults dragging behind, but those who don’t like it won’t cache at all. What I would see happening would be the cache liking kids would be running around with their parents, while the others would be doing the activities. Would this work? What sort of activities would people like? I guess my answer is that I like the idea, but I think the details will be difficult.

[Team Deejay]

OK, definitive answer (at least around here). If you place a cache with more than one stage and all the stages are containers, tags or other objects placed by the owner, and the first stage is at the listed coordinates, that is a multi. If you place a cache where there is only one stage which is not at the listed coordinates where you have to solve some sort of puzzle to determine the real coordinates, that is a mystery cache.

Now, you probably thinking “OK, Captain Obvious, what about where you have a cache where the first stage is at the listed coordinates, but you use some sort of formula to calculate the next stage? And what about caches where you solve a puzzle for the first stage, but then they have more stages which is a more standard multi?” It goes back to the definitions. If your cache has more than one stage and starts at the listed coordinates, you can call it a multi. If it has puzzle elements, including getting info off signs and other stuff, monkey puzzles, or combination locks, you can call it a mystery. It is up to the owner to choose. If the cache does not start at the listed coordinates, it MUST be a mystery. That said, I would strongly recommend that you list your cache as a multi, rather than a mystery, if it starts at the listed coordinates. Why? While there are a small percentage of cachers who filter out multis from their queries, there is a much greater number of people who filter out mysteries. This is especially true among travelers. This means that you will get more finders for an easy multi than an easy mystery. Of course, if your goal is to get people to ignore your cache, maybe a mystery would be preferable. The idea is that either a multi or a mystery cache requires that you look at the cache listing before starting your hunt, so there can be overlap in the classifications.

To add further confusion, letterbox hybrids can be of traditional type, mystery type or multi type (and even wherigo type, although that is more theoretical, I suppose). To be an LBH, the cache has to have a stamp for letterboxing. Other than that, it just has to meet the standards of the other cache types.

[Team Deejay]

I would say that in about 60% of the cases where I have called a friend, the cache is actually missing, so my call ends up a confirmation of that. Another 10% turn out to be inaccessible (under frozen water, in a fenced off area, in an area temporarily closed to the public, etc.) The other 30%….well, nobody is perfect.

[Team Deejay]

Wow! And I thought snowshoeing down a frozen river to try to open a frozen ammo box was dangerous. Remind me to duck when you have your “bird” around.

[Team Deejay]

Welcome to our addiction! I think there is at least one beginner event coming up in the spring in Milwaukee County. Keep an eye here for details! And don’t hesitate to ask questions here. We love to help.

[Team Deejay]

As someone who has spent a lot of time working with this particular parks department, I can tell you that they will not object to geotrash being removed. They are really just trying to get notified when the cache gets archived. They are not necessarily looking to get older caches removed (I asked). In fact, the new guidelines (not yet on the website, but shared with the public at the excellent event held by Pawn of Chaos) include renewable permits and cache numbers assigned to each new permit for easier tracking. The current policy seems to be working well with quick turnarounds on permits and suggestions given to those few who manage to try to put a cache where they don’t want them. Overall, this partnership seems to be working well.

[Team Deejay]

I guess my answer would be the WGA represents the entire state as well as possible. The reality is that our membership seems to be concentrated in SE part of the state, so naturally there will be more interest in activities in that region. That said, the board seems to make significant effort to have events in a wide variety of locations, and, of course, the website is available to all, regardless of location. I’m not really sure what else can be done to improve on this.

[Team Deejay]

I like the idea, but I’m not sure how easily you could restrict access to the list to people on the list. I guess we would need to make another “state” for users, such as member/friend, officer/nonofficer, etc. Seems like a bit of work to maintain this, however. Perhaps the easiest approach would be to have the system send out an email containing the numbers to those on the list on a regular basis.

[Team Deejay]

The good news is that the current production version of GSAK reads the new file format just fine. The better news is that the beta version (7.7) contains full attribute support. You can try the beta by going to http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=13999 and scrolling to the bottom to get the latest version.

Before you run out and download this, however, I need to warn you that the early days of a GSAK beta release are closer to an alpha, that is, you will see new builds issued 2, 3 or even 4 times over the course of a day. There have been 10 builds issued since the 1/7/10 initial release. Additionally, if you push the envelope, you probably will be treated to various crashes, BSODs, database corruption, and other rather major annoyances. Remember that this is a test/development version, not a production version. If you don’t want this sort of hassle, just wait a month or so for the production version. (I used to participate in these beta tests, but my hassle tolerance has decreased recently.)

[Team Deejay]

Actually, as far as really cheap containers go, these are better than most. They certainly are better than the snap-on ziplocs/gladware, film cans, keyholders, altoid tins, breath strip containers, and other substandard containers. The threaded lid gives you some chance of getting a decent seal. I’d put them on a par with most pill bottles, and somewhat worse than food jars, etc. Any decent sheltered location should work fine. I had one hidden in a hollow tree that never leaked. The only problem was that people kept dropping it down a hole in the trunk.

[Team Deejay]

This is turning into a broken record thread, but I must agree with the earlier posters. The membership has spoken on this, and I don’t see any reason to override their opinion.

[Team Deejay]

I think you are on the right track here. We currently have a Community Education Committee, which is charged with both handling these “come put on a geocaching demonstration” requests and also dealing with parks departments, police departments, etc. I think this structure is too much for one committee and should be split. Additionally, for both groups, I think we need to actively recruit members for each region and make certain we have folks available to do presentations, as needed. Of course, that is easy to say, but not so easy to accomplish.

[Team Deejay]

Since I live just down the road from the site, I guess I better volunteer. Sign me up.

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