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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 10, 2013 20:15:48 GMT -9
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Post by fuzzybelly on Jan 11, 2013 9:22:34 GMT -9
interesting
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 11, 2013 10:29:06 GMT -9
Indeed.
I believe this is one of those "consequences" of the GC ban on commercial caches. A company wants to use geocaches as a promo for their company and they end up placing them in an unlisted manner. As long as they maintain them, don't break the general placement guidelines, and remove them when their promo is over, it shouldn't cause any problems.
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burtonsinak
Bronze Cacher
Posts: 60
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by burtonsinak on Jan 11, 2013 12:30:22 GMT -9
If they are not using geocaching.com to place them, there is no guidelines for them to ahold, this there? But yes it is good if they would do as you said above, (i dont have the copy and past fig. out yet)
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 11, 2013 13:18:42 GMT -9
That's the rub... if you place a cache and list it on Facebook instead of on a formal listing service such as geocaching.com or even opencaching at Garmin, then you are no beholden to any of the guidelines that we've worked so hard to implement. Those guidelines are there to keep geocaching off the radar of those who would "freak out" at our leaving of boxes on public lands. Some of "those" folks even call geocaching "organized littering" and look down their noses at our little game.
So, when small groups, companies, or even individuals are dropping caches outside of established rules, we run the risk of ticking off the wrong people, which can get caching banned from some areas. In addition to Arctic Cat running their own little geocache placements down in their neck of the woods, I know there is a small group on Facebook as well as some letterboxers who have illegally placed caches in the National Wildlife Refuge on the Kenai Peninsula. Because they do these things in secret and outside of any formal listing or approval process, they get away with it. But if one of those caches is found by a land manager, the blame will be on all geocachers.
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burtonsinak
Bronze Cacher
Posts: 60
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by burtonsinak on Jan 11, 2013 16:33:39 GMT -9
several thoughts, can some one from geocaching contact these people and organization to inform them about the problems or consaqences to geocaching organization they can cause? Would it be safer for geocaching to contact/inform the organization like NWR, and say this is not us and not connected and therefor want to help so we are not getting fingers pointed at geocaching and keep a good repor with them.?
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 11, 2013 17:44:38 GMT -9
Not a bad thought. I think one of the reluctancies of reporting these is the negative stigma that has been generated about "cache police". One thing with people working inside of the world of GC.com, but something else with people dropping "caches" completely outside of the game and the rules.
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Post by ladybugkids on Jan 11, 2013 21:47:06 GMT -9
Indeed. I believe this is one of those "consequences" of the GC ban on commercial caches. A company wants to use geocaches as a promo for their company and they end up placing them in an unlisted manner. As long as they maintain them, don't break the general placement guidelines, and remove them when their promo is over, it shouldn't cause any problems. Groundspeak supports commercial caches if they are placed on Groundspeak's terms. Any commercial entity can place a cache or series of caches after working out a licensing deal with Groundspeak. The reason commercial caches cannot be published by "Joe Cacher" is that geocaching.com is a free listing service for geocaches. Groundspeak is not in the business of providing free advertising/publicity for commercial entities, charities, etc., without receiving compensation in return.
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Post by ladybugkids on Jan 11, 2013 21:48:32 GMT -9
If they are not using geocaching.com to place them, there is no guidelines for them to ahold, this there? But yes it is good if they would do as you said above, (i dont have the copy and past fig. out yet) You don't have to copy and paste. Just click on the "quote" icon.
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Post by ladybugkids on Jan 11, 2013 21:57:58 GMT -9
In addition to Arctic Cat running their own little geocache placements down in their neck of the woods At least Arctic cache is calling their drops "caches," not geocaches. Those folks must not be abiding by the terms of use provided by letterboxing.org. Geocachers not getting permission to place geocaches on Joint Base Elmendorf/Richardson (JBER) land and then geocachers lying to the Recreation Officer when approached on JBER land is what got geocaching banned from JBER.
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burtonsinak
Bronze Cacher
Posts: 60
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by burtonsinak on Jan 11, 2013 22:54:59 GMT -9
Hey I would rather be and have the negative stigma then loose and being kicked out of an area and worse yet is get a rep. from these diff. organizations that we are the culprits and have influance getting us ousted from other orgaizationa/places. Also if no one steps up and says anything then the game and rules get runamuck and dont mean anything.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 12, 2013 6:54:17 GMT -9
I don't know what kind of "review" process there is in Letterboxing. Last time I poked around their map of our area, I saw a whole string of letterboxes hidden along Skilak Loop Road in the NWR between Cooper Landing and Sterling. That was about 2 years ago and I've paid little attention to letterboxing since, so I'm not sure what is still listed out there. I know that their multiple listing services was kinda confusing and the apparent lack of placement guidelines turned me off of participating.
There was a very small group I stumbled onto in Facebook that I believe was based out of Seward that was hiding their own caches without listing them on gc.com. I recall seeing one or two on their short list that looked questionable, so I sent a message asking what the GC number was. I received no response from them.
I believe that the only point that can be made is that there are a number of folks out there who are doing cache-like activities outside of the GC listing service. There's no way that we can "police" them up, but in the bigger picture, it does make sense that if we stumble onto something that is clearly a potential to cause problems for geocaching, that we need to take action on it (preferrably education of the party so they can choose to work within the system).
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Post by ladybugkids on Jan 12, 2013 10:13:49 GMT -9
I don't know what kind of "review" process there is in Letterboxing. Letterboxing does not have a review process. They claim to post land management policies on their [url= www.letterboxing.org/Links.php]links[/url] page, but I don't see a single policy posted there. Agree. Reporting others' activities directly to land managers can result in our game pieces disappearing. If folks are using a GPS for their non-gc.com activities, they know how to use them to negatively impact our game. It's happened in other locations around the world. I like the idea of contacting folks directly and explaining in polite terms the potential negative impacts their activity can have on ours. I suspect just the fact that they are contacted may make many folks stop because they know someone is watching. We can always maintain the high ground with Land Managers by proactively working with them, establishing land use policy for geocaching, and helping them get comfortable with how we play the game on their lands. If we're approached about a letterbox or other geocache-like item in the woods, we'll already have a good rapport. We absolutely do not want to get caught in the middle between a Land Manager and a renegade land user.
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burtonsinak
Bronze Cacher
Posts: 60
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by burtonsinak on Jan 12, 2013 17:38:28 GMT -9
And what if they dont choose to work within the system? The reason i ask that question is so we can work though and have a set up plan to do at that time instead of not knowing or fumbeling around trying to do something that may be wrong. I know we are not the only game and it has to be done only our way, at the same time we MUST protect ourselves. I feel.
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burtonsinak
Bronze Cacher
Posts: 60
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by burtonsinak on Jan 12, 2013 20:30:16 GMT -9
9 I don't know what kind of "review" process there is in Letterboxing. Letterboxing does not have a review process. They claim to post land management policies on their [url= www.letterboxing.org/Links.php]links[/url] page, but I don't see a single policy posted there. (Agree. Reporting others' activities directly to land managers can result in our game pieces disappearing. If folks are using a GPS for their non-gc.com activities, they know how to use them to negatively impact our game. It's happened in other locations around the world.) I like the idea of contacting folks directly and explaining in polite terms the potential negative impacts their activity can have on ours. I suspect just the fact that they are contacted may make many folks stop because they know someone is watching. We can always maintain the high ground with Land Managers by proactively working with them, establishing land use policy for geocaching, and helping them get comfortable with how we play the game on their lands. If we're approached about a letterbox or other geocache-like item in the woods, we'll already have a good rapport. We absolutely do not want to get caught in the middle between a Land Manager and a renegade land user.[/quote]
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burtonsinak
Bronze Cacher
Posts: 60
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by burtonsinak on Jan 12, 2013 20:32:49 GMT -9
oops im trying to do the quote thing.. not this time.. but any ways its sad others are bidder and take revinge by distroying/removing some one elses cache cause they lost theres or there rights. I had not heard about this happening in other locations around the world. what can be done?
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Post by ladybugkids on Jan 12, 2013 20:49:53 GMT -9
One suggestion is given in the last paragraph of post #12, above. Individuals who choose to take on other individuals over soda preforms, Tupperware, and ammo cans in the woods, do so at their own risk. There are a lot of crackpots out there who can makes one's life difficult and law enforcement isn't going to get involved until something illegal happens. Old timers are fully aware of the misery caused by an Alaskan cacher who removes TBs and geocoins from the game, steals caches, and signs blank cache logs profanely. It's sucked the fun right out of the game in one Alaska region and not a thing can be done about it. This, unfortunately, is one of those situations where one may be in the right, but one doesn't want to be (figuratively) dead right. Sometimes, as much as one doesn't like it, one has to let some things go because the final outcome can have unintended consequences.
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Post by fuzzybelly on Jan 13, 2013 9:16:38 GMT -9
I don't know any business made caches up here like those JOAT showed us in the first thread, but WHEN it happens how it is handled will be important.
I ike this idea, along with maybe helping them create a cache that follows the guide lines of geocaching. through every step, creating a profile, getting them a good container and helping them with the cache page so it does what they're intending(staying within groundspeak advetizing guidelines)
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 13, 2013 13:50:23 GMT -9
You should think of some of these more like day caches rather than permanent geocaches. I've seen several instances where a business or organization will put out some temporary caches as an advertising gimmick. The Arctic Caches are, I suspect, something along that line. They will probably be removed before the snow is gone, since the promotion is for snowmachines. Islands and Oceans in Homer as well as the Challenger Learning Center in Kenai have both run internal geocaching promotions designed as fund raising and educational activities. They put out caches and then removed them after they were done. None of it was done within the GS system and they didn't even have an event associated with it.
Most of those were setup for a day or two. This Arctic Cache promo seems like it is a much longer term deal. And didn't Jeep just do something similar to this last year with their own "off the books" cache placements?
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burtonsinak
Bronze Cacher
Posts: 60
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by burtonsinak on Jan 13, 2013 18:55:03 GMT -9
yes jeep did.. it was to find a real full size jeep somewere. or was it just to find a key? I would hope they had promission for the hide location. it would have been funny if a land owner or some working for land owner(gov.) found it and won.
OK so it seems most of those hiding cache types and not following guidlines are temp. and are picked up soon after if im reading this right? so we should not be concerned... but maybe be aware or watch out of the corner of our eye?
I know we, gecacheak did a one day event, hid caches not by any rules and the finders removed them the same day.
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Post by ladybugkids on Jan 13, 2013 19:48:02 GMT -9
OK so it seems most of those hiding cache types and not following guidlines are temp. and are picked up soon after if im reading this right? so we should not be concerned... but maybe be aware or watch out of the corner of our eye? Most of the hides being discussed in this thread are not being billed as geocaches or being placed by geocachers. Therefore, I feel it's a bit of a stretch to say they aren't following the guidelines. It would be a different story if the hides were being published on geocaching.com. I recommend folks focus on what geocachers and Groundspeak have jurisdiction over, with the exception of reporting activity that is clearly against policy for a given land manager jurisdiction. That's right, and it happens all over the world at geocaching events, including Groundspeak's own Block Party. However, since the were never intended to be published on geocaching.com, they don't have to comply with proximity and other guidelines. GeocacheAlaska! does get the required permits to use the cooking facilities, picnic shelters, etc.
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