Friday, April 08, 2011

Seed caches

For some time there have been caches called seed caches that contain lots of small cache containers -- usually 35mm film canisters -- with instructions that geocachers who find the "spawn" or "mother" cache should take one of the seed caches and hide it "to keep the game of geocaching going." However, Groundspeak has instructed reviewers that seed caches constitute an ALR (additional listing requirement) and therefore reviewers should not publish caches that require or even encourage people to hide "spawn" caches. I think this is a good idea because too often, the seed caches obtained from mother caches were placed in less than ideal locations with little thought going into them and little maintenance provided after the hide.

4 comments:

Tape worm said...

Thank you!!!! I've seen so many seeds or spawns that where obviously just tossed out to "use" the seed. I have found a few where that is not the case, but the majority of them are this way. Plus for some reason they seem to be placed far from where the cacher is lives, and maintenance on them isn't very good.

Two thumb's up from me. :)

Take A Hike GPS said...

This brings up an interesting point. With the emergence of sites like Garmin's OpenCaching, is Geocaching.com still going to unilaterally decide what the "rules" of geocaching are going to be? And if they do, should they?

IowaAdmin said...

Geocaching.com can and does set rules for using their listing service to publish geocaches. To me, that does not mean they unilaterally decide what the rules of geocaching are, because, as you pointed out, if someone doesn't like the rules at Geocaching.com, they can use a different listing service. So far, based on numbers of caches listed each day, geocachers continue to heavily favor the value and quality they receive from Geocaching.com.

Tape worm said...

Very well put Ken!!!

We all know I use a few different cache sites for my listings. (Won't name them here out of respect for Ken). Some times I come up with a cool idea but no matter how I shape it, it just won't fit into the guidelines. Ken has always been more than helpful when I come into one of those and had a question. Very quick to answer them for me, and he's given me ideas on how I could make it fit. GC.com doesn't make up all the "rules" in the game, they just make up for there web listing service. Most of them are for good reasons, and have been developed over time just as the game has. A few things I wish they would clamp down on, and a few things I wish they would loosen, but that's a whole other topic. But I always do have that decision that I can list it on a different web listing service. I guess my main point is I agree with Ken, you can always list it on another weblisting service. And yes I do believe the sites can coexist without bickering, pointing fingers, and people just plain old ripping one of them apart because they don't like it. Cache how you want to cache, just remember respect other peoples property. (land owners rules and property, cache containers, and SWAG or other cachers property)