Volunteer reviewers for geocaching.com review and publish each cache. The volunteer review team is currently made up of more than 200 individuals worldwide, but in the early days of geocaching in 2000 and 2001, the reviewing was done only by folks at Groundspeak. There were no real rules, so if the listing looked legitimate, it got published. This led, of course, to many caches being published without guidelines or landowner permission.
Later, there were a small number of volunteer reviewers (10 to 20) that handled the whole world. There was a single reviewer “queue” and any reviewer could publish any cache, although typically/unofficially they specialized in and handled certain regions.
Most reviewers, or “approvers” as they were originally called, created a different username to separate their volunteer approver account from their player account. The terminology change from “approver” to “reviewer” came later, to clarify that they weren’t there to “approve” caches (which could be taken to mean they would consider cache content, whether it was a “quality” cache, etc.), rather to only “review” that a cache met the Groundspeak guidelines and local rules/laws.
In 2002, the WGA petitioned Groundspeak for its own volunteer reviewer position, a dedicated position that would only deal with Wisconsin caches. This position would be filled by one of the WGA Board of Directors, would be chosen by the board, and would likely change from year to year. The WGA presented this to Groundspeak, submitting that as the organization that represented Wisconsin geocachers, they had the best and most up to date information on where caches were and were not allowed.
In September 2002 the WGA (rather than an individual) was given an approver/reviewer account, becoming one of the first states to have its own dedicated state reviewer. Alan Fiebig (CacheCows) was already known to Groundspeak, being very active in the Groundspeak forums and also serving as a reviewer for multiple Midwest states since early 2002 using his own account. Therefore as a WGA board member he became the first WGA/Wisconsin reviewer, using the name “wicacher” for the WGA account. Although the WGA welcomed the opportunity to approve caches in Wisconsin, there was concern that since the reviewer would no longer be anonymous from out of state, conflict and hard feelings could arise when cache placements were rejected. Moreover, until this point, the role of the WGA was not that of a governing body, but rather more of a facilitator, educator, and an organization where members could gather and socialize through its website and its many events and programs.
2003 brought some significant changes to the reviewing process in Wisconsin. On March 21st Alan Fiebig left the WGA Board of Directors and decided not to continue approving caches on behalf of the WGA user account. He did, however, continue to approve caches, but under his own approver username, which was changed to “dustpuppy.” Alan continued in this role for cache placements in MI, MN, IL, and PA, and occasionally in WI when needed as a backup. He also continued to host the WGA web site. With Alan’s departure, Brian Jansen (GrouseTales) became Wisconsin’s second cache reviewer, changing the wicacher username on March 21, 2003 to “WGA.” Brian was one of the founders of the WGA, having been caching since April 2001.
In June 2003 Groundspeak gave the WGA a second reviewer account to help approve caches in Wisconsin. With the username of WGA2, it was initially the backup reviewer account for Wisconsin, with the user account WGA being the primary reviewer. At first, Ken Braband (kbraband) and Jeremy Vechinski (jvechinski), two of the founders of the WGA, took care of filling the backup duties – usually a weekend or two per month to give Brian Jansen a break. In 2004, Ken got his own IowaAdmin account and started reviewing Iowa caches, but still occasionally helped with Wisconsin reviewing. Brian Geoffrey (Should’ve Bought Him the Tie) was trained as a backup reviewer when he was elected to the WGA Board of Directors in February 2004 and used the WGA2 account.
Note that over time Groundspeak changed the arrangement they had with the WGA regarding reviewers. They did not like that multiple individuals could be using one account, and a single individual was preferred for each of the two reviewer accounts. So it was decided in late 2004 that reviewers would no longer be chosen by the Board of Directors or even need to be board members. From this point on forward, the WGA2 account was used solely by Brian Geoffrey, and he started splitting reviewer duties 50/50 with Brian Jansen. Jeremy Vechinski and Ken Braband stopped using WGA2 for backup duties. Things are less complex after this point, because each reviewer then had their own account, and it was not tied to the WGA board.
Near the end of 2006 Brian Jansen retired from reviewing, having faithfully served as a reviewer since 2002. In May 2006 another reviewer was brought on board, Jeff Thorson (jthorson). Jeff was a two-time WGA board member and one of the first-ever elected to the board. With the username of Cheese-Wis, he served as a reviewer until June 2007.
2007 saw a turnover of cache reviewers with some overlap of time. With Brian Jansen (WGA) retiring near the end of 2006, Jeff Thorson (Cheese-Wis) retiring in June 2007, and Brian Geoffrey (WGA2) retiring in late 2007, two new reviewers were selected. David Secondino (Team Deejay) became the first new reviewer, in April 2007, selecting the reviewer username of Wis Kid. David had been actively involved in the WGA and caching since 2005 (and later also served on the WGA board in 2010 & 2011). The second reviewer brought on board in July 2007 was Becky Waldmann (greyhounder), selecting the reviewer username of WGA3. Becky had been on the WGA Board of Directors since 2006 and was serving in her first of three years as president of the WGA board. When Becky’s final year on the Board of Directors concluded in February 2010, she changed her reviewer name to “Bec” since she was no longer on the board.
David and Becky continued in their roles together as Wisconsin cache reviewers through 2015, alternating weeks for cache reviewing. When David relocated to another part of the U.S. in late 2015, Johnny Waypoint replaced him as reviewer, with David taking on a reduced reviewer role from his new location out of state. Johnny Waypoint had been a part of the geocaching community since 2004, and was able to immediately jump in to review and publish caches.
A summary of all Wisconsin cache reviewers and approximate dates are as follows:
Alan Fiebig (wicacher), caching name CacheCows
9/2002 – 3/2003
Brian Jansen (WGA), caching name GrouseTales
3/2003 – late 2006
Ken Braband (WGA2), caching name kbraband (backup reviewer)
6/2003 – 2/2004
Jeremy Vechinski (WGA2), caching name jvechinski (backup reviewer)
6/2003 – 8/2004
Brian Geoffrey (WGA2), caching name Should’ve Bought Him the Tie
8/2004 – late 2007
Jeff Thorson (Cheese-Wis), caching name jthorson
5/2006 – 6/2007
David Secondino (Wis Kid), caching name Team Deejay
April 2007 – present
Becky Waldmann (WGA3, then Bec), caching name greyhounder
July 2007 – present
Johnny Waypoint
Late 2015 – present
Our geocache reviewers play an important role in geocaching. The game would not be the same without their dedication, guidance, and commitment to geocaching.
Thanks to our WGA Historian John Sudar for putting this together in March 2016.
Last updated December 22, 2020 by ACME_WildCachers.