IGO's annual Hike N Seek event

I’m a little late in blogging about it, but I wanted to report on the great time I had at the annual IGO Hike N Seek event, which was held Sept. 23-25 in Elkader. I drove to Elkader after work that Friday evening and arrived in time to set up my tent in the city park before heading over to the local movie theater, where the IGO organizers had arranged a special screen of “GPS: The Movie.” I have to admit I wasn’t impressed with the production values, the plot, the acting or the writing. But other than those deficiencies, I thought it was an OK flick. What I did enjoy was gathering at the theater with fellow geocachers, some of whom I haven’t seen for awhile and some of whom I had not previously met. It was a nice, homey little theater and the popcorn and wine were quite tasty. Saturday I joined the rest of the Iowa geocachers at the city park shelter for the instructions for the competition (which I did not enter) and the downloading of coordinates into my GPS for the approximately 100 new geocaches that had been hidden by several area geocachers. The new caches were well-placed and I appreciated the cache owners’ cooperation to submit them throughout the summer to give me plenty of time to review them and resolve any issues before the prescheduled mass publishing that Saturday during the event.  After caching during the day, we reconvened Saturday evening at the park for grilling, potluck picnic food, and door prizes. Mary (my wife) was scheduled to leave town on Sunday for business travel, so Saturday night after the potluck dinner I decided to pack up my tent and head home so I could spend the remainder of the weekend with her. My thanks to all the organizers, cache hiders, donators and geocachers who attended this great event.

River Action launches geocaching program

I've been working with organizers of the Geocaching on the RiverWay program to publish their series of geocaches. Some are also listed on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. You can find a list of these new caches at their website for River Action, and read a news release about the program. As an avid kayaker and part-time kayaking instructor, I'm happy to see efforts like this to get people better acquanted with the Mississippi River.

SuperGoober: One of Groundspeak's Featured Cachers of the Month

Congratulations to SuperGoober (Jeff) for being named one of Groundspeak's Featured Cachers of the Month! This is a well-deserved recognition. In addition to what The Weasel wrote to nominate him, I'll add my two cents. SuperGoober is a super choice. I have corresponded with him many times over the years as he asked questions about unusual and creative caches he was thinking about placing. He has hosted lots of geocaching events and has been a leader in working with land managers to create special educational events that call attention to public lands and geocaching in general. I’ve had the pleasure of hiking with him on one of his "The Seige" cache hunts that he has organized. I’ve always found him to be super courteous and super friendly, even when he asked me for advice about how to deal with occasional poor behavior on the part of other geocachers. A true geocaching leader and gentleman. Two thumbs up.

Listen to podcacher.com show #330 at 25:55 for Sonny and Sandy's discussion of my email comment. While I enjoyed Sonny's humorous rebuttal, I don't agree with his disagreement. But it was fun to be included in this week's Podcacher.com show.

Rock Island kayak camping weekend

Rock Island kayak camping weekend at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Wisconsin

Time for a cache clean-up and a thank you to Nomex

You may notice that a number of caches marked with Needs Archived logs (or SBAs, as they used to be called) are going to be archived within the next few days. Every so often I enlist help from fellow reviewers to clean up these inactive geocaches where the owners have apparently gone AWOL. One of my go-to reviewers for this assistance has been Nomex. He is once again providing this valuable volunteer service to me and to all Iowa geocachers. Thanks, Nomex! By the way, if you visit Nomex's profile page, you'll see he has listed a bunch of helpful tips for submitting new caches. 

Website update coming Wednesday

Get ready for a new look and experience on Geocaching.com beginning this Wednesday, May 4. Geocaching.com will go offline for four to six hours on the 4th beginning approximately 8 a.m. Central time. Lackeys will be upgrading the database server to improve site performance. Groundspeak will also be releasing the latest website update, which includes a sleek new design and interface for the homepage. Here's a video sneak peak of what to expect.

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.

The Lexicon of Geocaching

Whether you're a newbie or an old hand at geocaching, here's a nice resource to look up terms that may be unfamiliar. As I looked at the list, a few were new to me. For example, DPM --  really? Never heard of that. Also, the whole "ringbone" thing, that was news to me. It's fun and fascinating to read these entries and learn more about the game.

Questions and Answers about Geocaching

I receive a number of questions from geocachers asking about specifics of getting caches listed on geocaching.com. Most of the time I can answer their questions right away. Sometimes I have to consult with my fellow reviewers and/or the lackeys at Groundspeak to be sure I'm giving the correct answer. I thought you might enjoy seeing a few of the recent questions I have received, followed by my responses. I changed the text slightly in some of these to protect the privacy of the email writers. 

Question:

Hey Ken!
We were wondering what exactly the rules would be if we had a cache that had a micro SD card in it so that cachers could simply insert it into their phone and save a video or  photo to log their find. I'd think that that would be perfectly fine, but would we also NEED to have a paper log? It would be no trouble to include one, it's just that we think it would be a little cooler/high tech if it was only the SD card. Geocaching is a high tech sport/hobby/obsession and with the huge increase in popularity of smart phones or phones with cameras, this would be a really cool cache.

My Answer:

Thanks for your inquiry. It's cool to hear that you're thinking up new ways to make geocaching fun. As you have guessed, yes, you would also need to include a paper (or similar substrate) logbook that geocachers can sign. Using the SD card would have to be clearly marked as optional. In the past, geocachers have hidden USB drives in caches in hopes that geocachers would need to plug them into their laptop computers to obtain final coordinates of a multicache or unlock a code to find a puzzle cache, but Groundspeak has not allowed those to be a required part of finding a cache because of the potential for someone to introduce malware to the storage device. That same reasoning would apply to an SD card. 

Question:

Hi Ken,
I was wondering if you could tell me the coords for the GCXXXX cache stage that is too close to the cache I placed today GCYYYY (40ft up a tree).

My Answer:

I'm not allowed to give you the coordinates of the second stage because you would need to find it on your own, but I can tell you that you would need to move your cache at least 290 ft east of where it is now to be at least 528 ft from stage 2 of GCXXXX. If you know the owner of GCXXXX, you may wish to ask him for the exact coordinates of his second stage. Thanks for working that out with him.

Question:

A geocacher could not find 3 of my caches and he took it upon himself to replace them. I take great  pride in maintaining my caches. They are almost all local and as soon as someone says it needs attention, I am right there to do it. If there are several dnf's listed in a log I go out to check on it. Just because he didn't find it, does that mean it isn't there? That decision belongs to the owner. I went out and replaced the containers he left with my own and my own logs. Only one of these caches had a dnf before Sunday and it was only 1 dnf. I replied to him about replacing the one cache and he mentioned in his reply to me that he had also replaced the two others. He did not log that in his log entries. I would never have known he did that unless he had told me in the email. I deleted all 3 of his logs. What do you think of this and is there any way you can mention to him that it is not acceptable to do this?

My Answer:

I sympathize with the frustration you feel about having your caches replaced by another geocacher. I had the same thing happen to me in the past. Sometimes it was done with my permission because a geocacher asked me ahead of time if it would be OK. Other times it was done without my knowledge or permission. In your case, if your caches were replaced without your permission, then no, that is not OK. In my opinion, based on what you have told me about the situation, it sounds like you did the right thing by writing to the geocacher and then deleting the logs that you felt were not legitimate. That's your responsibility as the cache owner. Regarding your question about whether I should mention anything to them, with your permission, I may post this email conversation in my blog so more people become aware of the issue. But in the long run, there will always be behaviors displayed in geocaching that you, I, or other geocachers disagree with. Neither you nor I can stop everyone from doing things they shouldn't do. But in the case of geocaching, we CAN control how much the things they do affect us -- our attitudes and our lives. What I'm saying is, you should go ahead and delete the logs and maintain your caches in the correct manner, like you are apparently doing now. But don't let the actions of a few spoil geocaching for you. 

Question:

Hello Ken,
I have a question regarding the new “chirp” accessory and the beacon attribute. First of all, I would like to know if the “chirp” is considered a “physical container”, and whether its placement falls under the 528ft saturation guideline. I would think not, since it would not be seen or handled by a geocacher.

My Answer:

Even though a Chirp is a physical waypoint, Groundspeak allows considerable "latitude" (if you'll pardon the pun) on the saturation guideline for the waypoint locations of the wireless beacons. The range of a Chirp is around 32 feet for an exposed chirp; inside objects, it's less than that, so that's why they allow them to be placed closer together than 528 ft and closer to existing geocaches and physical waypoints. So I'd say, yes you can place your Chirps closer than 528 ft, but you should probably place them at least 40 ft from each other. Does this answer your question?

 Their Response:

Yes, that answers my question. The stages I have in mind will be several hundred feet apart, so the 40ft suggestion you made is not an issue. But, it is possible the "virtual" waypoints of the hide I have in mind will be within a few hundred feet of other virtual and physical waypoints of nearby caches. I just wanted to verify if I had working room for my idea. I think you have verified that. I'd hate to set the whole thing up and have you deny it when I submitted, based on saturation rules. Thanks for your help and input. As always, you are a "wealth of information". 

 

For the poker players

This is not geocaching related, but I wanted to share news about our son's recent accomplishment on the World Poker Tour. Last fall Tom (also known as TitanTom32 in the online poker world) made it to the final table of the Legends of Poker tournament in L.A. The first half of the rebroadcast was televised this past Sunday. Part 2 will be on this coming Sunday, March 6 on the Fox Sports Network at 8 p.m. and again at midnight. In Part 1 they showed the elimination of the fifth and sixth place players, so in Part 2 he will be the first one eliminated because he finished in fourth place in that tournament.

Des Moines Register blogs for geocaching

Last week Kyle Munson, who writes a blog for the Des Moines Register, interviewed me about geocaching. The interview was mainly for background because his real information came from the geocachers -- Team RSV -- who took him on a few cache hunts and showed him the ropes. You can read Kyle's column here and watch a video of their cache hunts.

Fun reviewer notes

I love reading the fun reviewer notes you guys post when you submit new geocaches. For example, tonight one of them said: "Cache is ready for your blessing. Thank you!" I joked with my wife that I need to get one of those big Pope hats.

Behind the scenes with a geocaching reviewer

For the past five years -- through this blog -- I have tried to provide readers with a behind-the-scenes view of geocaching reviewing. Today Groundspeak posted a nice story on this same topic on their blog Latitude 47. Check it out. My special thanks to geocacher "swr rat" (Kevin) for the nice comment! 

EarthCache guidelines updated

If you're an avid EarthCacher, you may be intersted to know that the guidelines for that aspect of our hobby have been updated as of January 1, 2011. The biggest change is that:

"Requests for photographs must be optional. Exceptions to this guideline will only be considered if the requested photograph is related to an Earth Science logging activity such as recording a phenomenon. This particular guidelines was updated on 1 January 2011. All EarthCaches must conform to this guideline as photo requests are considered "additional logging requirements" (ALRs) and follow the guidelines set forth by Geocaching.com. Existing EarthCaches that do not meet this guideline must be updated to comply. Cache owners may not delete the cacher's log based solely on optional tasks."

And in case you weren't aware of it, I don't review Earth Caches in Iowa. They're reviewed and published by a different group of reviewers. If you have questions about Earth Caches, you can address them to glewis@geosociety.org.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to geocachers (and muggles) everywhere! May you be FTF peace, hope and love.

Chirping?

In case you haven't heard, Garmin has come out with a new geocaching device called Chirp. And tonight I received my first inquiry from a geocacher about it. My response, based on guidance from Groundspeak (the company that operates Geoaching.com):

Any caches that use a Chirp (or any future similar device) should use the new "beacon" attribute. If you put a Chirp in a traditional cache and geocachers have an alternative method to find it without using the Chirp, then it's OK to be published.  If for some reason you absolutely don't want to provide an alternative means of finding it, it must be listed as a "mystery" cache with the beacon attribute. Your cache description may mention the "Chirp"as long as the text doesn't go on and on with overtones of advertising, marketing, or promotion.

Notifications are not part of my domain

At one of the geocaching events I attended this summer, someone asked me if I intentionally send email and mobile notifications about newly published geocaches to certain people first. The implication was that I keep a "friends" list and those who are on it get first dibs at being FTF for new caches. I assured the questioner that not only do I NOT give first notice to a list of friends, I have no control at all over email and mobile notifications. That's all up to the inner workings of the geocaching.com website, once you set your account to receive notifications. I was glad this person asked the question. It made me think they might have been holding a grudge against me for quite some time. Well, for all I know, maybe they still do. :o)

The end of new FTF series caches

In the past, a few geocachers have criticized me for being more strict than other reviewers -- at least that's the way they saw it. As evidence to the contrary, let me point out that I have been more liberal than other reviewers regarding FTF (first to find) series caches. These are caches that require or suggest that the person who is FTF such a cache is "strongly urged" to continue the series by hiding a similar one in the same area. I have been approving such caches as long as they made it clear that placing another cache was not a requirement. However, I am no longer going to publish new FTF cache series because of clarification that Groundspeak has issued. Essentially the requirement or suggestion to place another cache has been judged to be an ALR (additional logging requirement) so volunteer reviewers have been instructed to no longer approve them. I just wanted to give Iowa geocachers a heads-up: I will no longer be publishing such caches.

Hike N Seek Shelter

I'm in the Fort Madison/Burlington area for IGO's annual Hike N Seek event, although looking at the forecast for today they may need to rename it Hike N Seek Shelter. The rainy weather that is now moving across the state is expected to arrive down in this corner of Iowa around noon. The main event starts here -- well it started a few minutes ago at 8 a.m. with check-in so I'd better get over to the park. But the competition part of the event kicks off at 10 a.m. I'm not planning to take part in that but it will be interesting to see who does. Last night I attended the IGO Board of Directors get together. About 100 geocachers packed into a small restaurant in West Point for a meal and socialization, followed by an IGO board meeting. It was a nice event with fun conversation.

Are you ready for some new geocaches?

Over the past few weeks several geocachers have been busy preparing for three large geocaching events in Iowa. I know because I have been pre-reviewing the many caches they have submitted for these events. Today is the big day for two of those events: 

Lake Red Rock GC2B26J, for which 90 new caches have been submitted and will soon be published,

and Welcome to Marcus GC2AJW7, for which 76 new caches will soon be published. 

Then next weekend there will be at least 147 new caches published for IGO's annual Hike N Seek event  in the Fort Madison area. I'm planning to attend the Hike N Seek event next weekend, although I don't plan to be one of the competitive types vying to find the most geocaches in 24 hours! If you're going to be there, please say "hi" and introduce yourself. I look forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting new friends.

Apostle Islands kayaking Aug-Sept 2010

Apostle Islands kayaking Aug-Sept 2010

Mary and I have been counting down the days until vacation time, and now that time is just about here. Tomorrow we leave for a kayaking trip in the Apostle Islands of northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you may recall we kayaked the Apostles three years ago. On that trip, wifi hot spots were more rare than they are now. Nonetheless, I will be getting some help during the week from a fellow volunteer reviewer, so Iowa geocachers, don't be surprised if you see a new geocache published by someone other than me next week. I'll post some photos of our trip here and let you know if I find any cool geocaches up there.

Churning

If you haven't checked out the brouhaha going on in the Groundspeak forums about a pair of geocaches that I reviewed, you should take a look. Apparently a friend of the cache owner objects to the fact that I wouldn't publish two caches that his friend submitted. The caches were not new. They were simply renamed versions of his existing caches, which he had recently archived so he could resubmit them. When stock brokers buy and sell a client's portfolio simply to inflate their commission, it's called churning. That term can also be applied when cache owners archive and then resubmit their caches when nothing about them has changed -- not the location, not the cache container, or not anything about the hide. Most of those posting in the forum topic seem to agree with me when I requested that they should ask for their previous caches to be reactivated/unarchived rather than published as new caches. What do think?  And for the record, despite the title of his forum topic, I never claimed that publishing these caches would cause a FTF frenzy. I simply implied that this appeared to be the only reason for relisting the exact same cache at the exact same location. So, OK. Maybe I should keep my opinions to myself? ..... nah

Appreciation Event

Mary and I had a great time at the IowaAdmin appreciation event last Saturday. As I told Bucknuts, the event organizer, I'm having a hard time getting my hats to fit my head as a result of all the attention. Geocachers are the ones who make this hobby so much fun. I'm just glad to have a role that lets me be so involved with the activity and which gives me the opportunity to correspond and meet so many fun people. Here's a video from Team Gamsci (I didn't realize how boring a speaker I can be.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlBEgETgWgI
And here are a few photos from the event.

I received the following email this week:

Hiya,
I can't find a contact button on your blog, go figure.
I was wondering if you could post some photos on your blog of what the "reviewer interface" looks like and what all that cache reviewers do from when they get the cache to when they click the publish button. 

And here's my response: 

Thanks for your inquiry. Unfortunately, I can't share the type of information you're asking for. Groundspeak does not want its volunteer reviewers to reveal information about the reviewing web pages. I think it may be out of concern that the system might get hacked or otherwise abused. I can tell you that when a new cache is submitted, I look to make sure it complies with all the guidelines as published at geocaching.com, such as minimum distance from existing geocaches, that the geocacher lives close enough to the cache to maintain the cache or has indicated his/plan for regular maintenance, and has obtained permission when necessary (such as on Iowa DNR-managed land). If there are specific questions you have, let me know and I will answer those that I can.

Ken
IowaAdmin
volunteer reviewer

Iowa geocacher busterbabes in Groundspeak video

Congratulations to Iowa geocacher busterbabes for her appearance in Groundspeak's Lost & Found Celebration video at Groundspeak headquarters in Seattle. Very nicely done. It looks like it was a great event.
Did any other Iowa geocachers make the trip out there?

Door prizes

To encourage some of you who may be sitting on the fence about attending the geocaching get-together this Saturday in Des Moines, I'll be bringing some geocoins to give away as door prizes.

A reviewer appreciation meet & greet in Des Moines

Geocacher bucknuts has organized a Reviewer Appreciation Day for July 17 in Des Moines at Boston's pizza place on University. I think this event was inspired by one held in Georgia in May, which was attended by three of my fellow reviewers. I'm very flattered that bucknuts would want to do this, and I'm even more honored that some geocachers have already signed up to attend. I may even convince my wife to attend. It should be a fun event. I hope to see you there!

Jones County geocaching policy and permit form

Jones County now has a geocaching policy, apparently since the beginning of 2009. So if you are placing a geocache there, you'll first need to obtain the permit from Jones County. Here's a link to the form. I also added this link in my list in the right column of this blog. My thanks to geocacher BlueDuece for drawing this to my attention.

Another Okoboji weekend

It's Memorial Day weekend so that means we're at Okoboji for the 24th consecutive year. While here, my wifi coverage is weak so don't expect at lot of caches to get published this weekend. I'll get caught up as the week progresses.

A great 10 years of geocaching event

I enjoyed my time at GC22TB1 10 Years! Cedar Rapids Area this past Saturday. I know everyone says this about geocaching events, but it truly is fun to put faces with the names that you see online. The group hike in the woods to find a couple of geocaches that afternoon was also a lot of fun. Thanks for Super Goober for organizing it and inviting me to tag along. Here are a few photos from the day.

Cache permanence: A lesson learned?

An interesting situation arose today that I want to write about because it highlights the section of the geocaching.com guidelines that deals with "cache permanence." I'm not going to name the cache owner because I don't want to embarrass anyone, but a cache was submitted yesterday for the purpose of giving grade schoolers a chance to try geocaching at their school.

First, let me explain that I have reviewed and approved other caches that are placed on school property. (I've found a few, too.) As long as the cache owner states that the cache is placed with the knowledge and permission of school officials, that's normally enough to get the cache approved -- even though it's possible that not every teacher, school administrator or facilities employee will be made aware of the geocache. As a result, geocachers may look suspicious and may be questioned if they're seen lurking around a school building during school hours, so it's up to each geocacher to decide if he or she wants to look for that particular cache.

Now, back to the cache in question. It was placed just outside the doors of an elementary school building by a teacher at the school. But what I did not know was that the teacher intended to leave the cache in place for just one day so his or her students could search for it and, in the process, learn about geocaching and how to use a GPS receiver. An admirable goal, to be sure. Teachers who make the extra effort to make school interesting and fun should be commended, and I do commend this teacher. However, the problem in this case is about cache permanence. Geocaches can't be listed on geocaching.com if the intent is to leave them in place for just one day. Quoting from the guidelines:

Cache Permanence

When you report a cache on the Geocaching.com web site, geocachers should (and will) expect the cache to be there for a realistic and extended period of time. Therefore, caches that have the goal to move ("traveling caches"), or temporary caches (caches hidden for less than 3 months or for events) most likely will not be published. If you wish to hide caches for an event, bring printouts to the event and hand them out there.
We realize that it is possible that a planned long-term cache occasionally becomes finite because of concerns with the environment, missing or plundered caches, or the owner’s decision to remove the cache for other valid reasons. Please do your best to research fully, hide wisely, and maintain properly for a long cache life.

So even though I didn't want to put a damper on this fun class project, I archived the cache this morning -- the very day that it was supposed to be in place for the students. I haven't heard for sure, but I assume the teacher was still able to conduct the geocaching demonstration with the kids, only without the element of looking up the coordinates on Geocaching.com.

Along the way, in addition to learning about navigation satellites and using a GPSR, my hope is that another valuable lesson was also imparted to the students. About reading directions.

Upcoming events

I have two events on my calendar that I'm looking forward to attending this spring and summer. Well, more than two actually, but these two are public events that other geocachers may be interested in as well. The first is

10 Years!: Cedar Rapids area, Iowa

on May 1. In case you haven't heard, geocachers around the world are hosting events to commemorate the 10th anniversary of geocaching. 

The other event happens on August 21 in the Quad Cities: 

Floatzilla 

Mary and I are planning to paddle the "advanced" route, which will be 9 miles from Ben Butterworth Parkway, Moline, to Rock Island's Lake Potter.

Will we see you at one of these events?

IGO's system to recommend caches for archiving

Back in the December, bucknuts (Dale), a member of the Iowa Geoachers Organization (IGO) board asked me my thoughts about working with IGO to get caches archived that may have passed their useful lives because the owners are no longer maintaining them. We agreed to give it a try. The IGO system for calling such caches to my attention has been in place for about a month. So far it's been working well, although there has been some questions and discussions about it among Iowa geocachers. To shed more light on the system, I'm posting (with permission) an email I received from Rlowtek (John), who raised valid concerns about the IGO system, followed by my response.

Ken, 

I have exchanged messages with the President of IGO over my concerns with the new IGO cache “Tagging” process.  Below I have provided my thoughts and would like to know your opinion and how in practice you use this process.

I believe this will not enhance geocaching (to the contrary) and that a proper, open method already exists to accomplish the desired result. In effect, this creates two parallel systems. Publicly, you, the administrator or other Groundspeak volunteer, warns the owner and they generally have 30 days.  The open system, governed by geocaching.com/Groundspeak, provides if someone publicly abuses the “Needs Maintenance” or “Needs Archived” logging,  the system will be self-correcting.  However, the underground, anonymous system, is not self-correcting and is without benefit of public exposure to the point of not requiring the "tagger" to have personally posted a "Needs Archived" log. Further, it appears that archiving is instantaneous.

While I share everyone’s frustration with caches that are not maintained, I believe this “cure” is worse than the disease. It will result in accusations, retaliations and misunderstandings. If one is concerned about caches needing justified attention – use the “Needs Maintenance” or “Needs Archived” logs. The IGO tagging will be influenced by individual personal bias and opinions of what geocaching is supposed to be – bias that we all carry. Even with the purest of intentions, hard feelings will be the result. 

I believe we have enough squabbles and misunderstandings in the caching community. We simply do not need more fuel for the fire. While at times we all feel the need to be the geo-police, it is ill-advised to give in to the temptation. I further submit there is a better system already in place that is reasonably impartial and is certainly in the open.

RLowtek/John

My response:

John,
    Thanks for your feedback.
    A few responses...
    First of all, archiving a cache is not a death sentence for a cache.
It's simply another method to take it off the books until the owner decides to do something about the DNFs, Needs Maintenance, or SBA logs. If, after archiving, the owner truly wants to keep the cache going, he or she needs to be prompt about getting it fixed before another cache takes its place. In most cases it can be brought back to life with a simple email to me explaining that it has been maintained and is ready to be unarchived.
    Second, I agree with you that there is already a system in place for dealing with caches that need attention. I don't view the IGO tagging process as a replacement for the geocaching.com system of logs. Rather, it's a useful supplement to that system because it gives the elected organization leaders a way to notify me about caches they feel need to be maintained. I view it as a useful aid to help me monitor caches that may be in need of TLC.
    Regarding whether there was a Needs Archived log on a cache before it is archived, I agreed that there should be.  In fact, I pointed this out to the IGO board -- requesting that they not forward to me requests for archiving unless there has been a SBA log posted on it for a reasonable amount of time -- say two weeks -- without a response from the cache owner.
    I hope this clears up the situation and the current interaction I have with IGO about its tagging system and how I respond to it.

Ken
IowaAdmin
volunteer reviewer

Remember locationless caches? They're still no longer allowed.

Here's email I received today, followed by my response. (Name withheld)

Is there any way that you would publish a mystery/puzzle cache without there being an actual container? The whole point would be to get pictures of Cachers from around the world without them having to travel to the actual cache. The one that I want to put out would be to get people to take a picture with there favorite rock or rock formation, and post it in there log, and then it would count as a find.  So it would be sort of like a virtual or locationless earth cache, but it would be posted as a mystery cache.
Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks for your email. Sorry to say that this type of cache cannot be published on geocaching.com. There has to be a physical cache for people to find and a log for them to sign, as per the guidelines. I'm not sure how
long you have been geocaching, but a few years ago there was a category of geocaches called "locationless", which the cache you describe would fit into. The cache owner would stipulate what the requirement was to log a find: see a yellow Jeep, find a Kent Feed sign, etc., and then post the coordinates where you saw it. Those cache types are no longer allowed to be listed on geocaching.com.

Time to catch up on SBAs

To those of you who have posted SBA (Should Be Archived) logs lately, help is on the way. (Actually, to be precise, the log type is now called "Needs Archived") Expect to see action within the next few days to address many of those inactive disabled caches across the state. Owners of caches that may be in need of maintenance can expect to receive a note from fellow reviewer Nomex, who has graciously agreed to lend me a hand with this task.

A cold weekend in Iowa

We made it to Cherokee this past weekend and enjoyed a nice time with many of our relatives. However, we didn't do any geocaching -- it was just too darn cold and there was too much snow on the ground to spend time rooting around for geocaches. Friday night and early Saturday it got down to -24F. As we were driving home Saturday afternoon it was still only -12F. Just after 4 p.m. Saturday as we were driving on Hwy 20, we came upon the scene of a single car accident. A car had left the 4-lane roadway and rolled over several times in the median. It looked like no one could have survived, but I read online that there were three people in the car and they all survived. We had stopped for gas just a mile or two before arriving at the accident scene and I saw a state trooper whiz by while I was stopped at the gas station. It made me think what might have happened to us if we would not have stopped for gas and had been near the other car when it blew a tire. It's disheartening to see the chances some people take when they're driving without ever thinking about the consequences to themselves, their passengers or people in other vehicles.

To Grandma's house we go

We were hoping to make the drive to Grandma's house in Cherokee for Christmas but the snowstorm forced us to change our plans. The new plan is to go to Cherokee this weekend. Maybe we'll be able to find some Tonedog52 or Wonder Boy caches if we have time between family activities.

A nice Christmas thank-you

Here's an e-mail I received a few minutes ago. It's the nice notes and comments from geocachers I meet in person that make it all worthwhile.

We just wanted to thank you for all the time and effort you give so that we can put out and hunt caches. It is amazing how many you have approved this past year. We just started geocaching in June and are having such fun as a family. We appreciate all you do and we know we couldn't do it with out you. THANK YOU!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Who's not getting my vote for cachers of the month

File this one under the category of "Ya Think?"
Here's the cache they were going for: New Phila Ballfields in Ohio.
And here's the result, a story in their local newspaper:
Headline: Shortcut may cost geocachers

The DARPA balloon project

In case you haven't been following what's going on at Groundspeak today: http://www.10balloonies.com/  Looks like they're closing in on all 10 balloons, thanks to the nationwide network of geocachers.

Peak placement season seems to be over

It was a busy summer for new geocache placements in Iowa. Now that the leaves are nearly all down and the temperatures have dipped, the pace has definitely slowed, which it does every year about this time. Instead of opening my browser and seeing a queue of 20 to 40 new caches on weekend mornings, this morning there were only four... so far. However, if this year follows form, there will be a mini-spike of new caches just after the holidays when new GPSRs are doled out as Christmas gifts. By the way, my wife was at Garmin headquarters near Kansas City this past week (on business) and mentioned to them that her husband is a geocacher. They told her I should stop in sometime and meet with their geocaching team. Evidently Garmin has a designated team assigned to the geocaching market, which only makes sense considering how many GPS units must get purchased every year primarily for geocaching.

"Team" finds or "ghost" logs? What do you think?

This week two different cache owners wrote to me to ask my advice/opinion about how to respond when a geocacher posts a "find" on their cache page but did not sign the log. The first situation (messages are posted below with permission from the cache owner; names changed to protect identities) involves members of a geocaching "team" who all log a find even though only one of them is present at the cache. Here's the message I received:

Hello Ken,
You have been a wealth of information to me lately and because of that, I have a semi-hypothetical question for a real-life situation and how our geocaching guidelines apply to it....

Let's say you and I are good geocaching friends and we call ourselves "GeoPair". So maybe I go out and make a find today (by myself) and sign the log as "GeoPair". I let you know I found it, and BOTH OF US log a find. But since GeoPair is just a pseudonym for our partnership, we have to log our find individually using our separate usernames on geocaching.com. The owner of the cache does a log check and finds GeoPair signed the log, but you and I both posted finds. Perhaps it is well known that you and I together are "GeoPair", perhaps not. The general guideline is once you've signed the physical log, you can post the find on the internet. In this situation is it allowable for both of us to log a find? Is it acceptable (without repercussion) for the owner to delete both of our logs (due to the "bogus" nature of the logs)?

I ask these questions because I am aware of a situation that exactly mirrors my description of this hypothetical situation. What are the exact "rules" that apply here? If I had made this "find" today I could have just as easily signed my name and "forged" your name and the owner probably wouldn't/couldn't know the difference. I assure you, I am NOT doing this. I am aware of another geocacher that IS doing this (signing a pseudonym and/or signing for others). I am just looking for clarification of our geocaching guidelines and options/remedies for a situation such as this. I am relatively new to geocaching, but I believe in and insist on maintaining the integrity of this sport.

I would appreciate your insight and opinion regarding this matter. Thank you!

And here's my response...

I appreciate your efforts to protect the integrity of geocaching, but the geocaching logs are sometimes a mysterious place where one person's viewpoint conflicts with the next person's. As a volunteer reviewer, I have been instructed time and time again that reviewers are not the log police, so we shouldn't be editing or deleting logs on caches (other than those we own) unless a log violates terms of agreement that all geocachers "signed" when they created their account on geocaching.com.

Note: The rest of this email is my personal opinion and not necessarily that of geocaching.com. My personal opinion -- and I believe the widespread opinion of many long-time geocachers -- is that if you are not physically present for a find, you shouldn't claim it as a find.

In additon to my IowaAdmin account (which I rarely use to log finds), I have an account that I use when I cache hunt on my own and a third account that my wife and I use when we geocache together. Having said that, I know of many couples (usually husband and wife) who have just one account and log all their finds there regardless of whether they were both present. If a single account is shared by a nuclear family, there's seems to be widespread agreement among geocachers that it's OK for family members to log a find even if a spouse or kids were not present. To each his/her own.

Regarding the situation you describe, the cache owner IS the cache police for his/her own cache. I believe the cache owner is justified in deleting any logs he/she truly feels are not legitimate. Like any situation where there may be a difference of opinion, all actions by the cache owner should be done with tactful courtesy and not out of spite or nastiness. The cache owner should clearly explain why he or she is taking the action, such as deleting a log, and give the geocacher a chance to respond or revise the log. If the geocacher doesn't like the outcome, he/she can choose not to search for any more caches owned by that particular cache owner. But there's no need for public shouting matches about it. Just accept it and move on.

I hope this helps.

So what do you think?

Stats a lot of caches!

It's time once again for some stats about geocaches.

• I reviewed 3,053 new geocaches during the past year -- roughly from September 2008 through August 2009. All of these were in Iowa. That comes to an average of 8.36 caches reviewed per day.
• Worldwide, 391,742 new geocaches were reviewed during the past year.
• In the United States, 193,054 new geocaches were reviewed during the past year.
• Iowa now has 7,949 active geocaches (including event caches but not including EarthCaches) listed on geocaching.com.
• Worldwide, there are now 912,967 active geocaches.

What's your guess for the exact date that we'll hit 1 million?

Cemetery caches - what's the policy?

If you're a regular reader of the forums at geocaching.com, you may have noticed discussion about an update to the guidelines that mentions caches hidden in cemeteries. The discussion from Groundspeak is summarized in this posting from MissJenn. In a nutshell, the guidelines now include cemeteries as areas where geocaches might not be allowed. Quoting from the guidelines: "Caches placed in areas which are highly sensitive to the extra traffic that would be caused by vehicles and humans (examples may include archaeological or historic sites or cemeteries)." (Boldface added by me.) MissJenn's posting says, in part, "This is why we have local experts (your reviewers) who know the deal in their respective territories. They know the right thing to do. They have been doing that and they’ll continue to do the same."

My standard operating procedure for cemetery caches remains what it has been for several years. When a cache is submitted that is inside a cemetery in Iowa, I temporarily disable the cache and send this note to the cache owner:

"This cache appears to be in a cemetery. Because of complaints about geocachers
playing 'games' in cemeteries across the country, I need to make sure you
received permission from the cemetery owners or caretaker before this is listed.
Also, the cache needs to be placed away from graves so it doesn't upset mourners
who may accidentally find it or see geocachers in the cemetary. Please reply by
posting in a reviewer note the name and contact information of the person who
granted permission for this cache and then re-enable the cache so it reappears
in my review queue. If you don't plan to seek permission, please archive
the listing and remove the cache. Thanks for your understanding."

Therefore, if you are planning to place a cache in a cemetery in Iowa, you'll need to seek permission. Once you receive permission, please be sure to include that information somewhere on the cache page, either in a reviewer note or in the short or long description.

Occasionally, a cache owner will submit a new geocache and state that it is just outside of the cemetery. It happened just this morning. In those cases, I have not been asking the cache owner to seek permission. However, if the cache is hidden on the gate, fence or wall that surrounds a cemetery, I have been asking them to seek permission, because gates, fences and walls are part of the cemetery and owned/maintained by the cemetery owner/groundskeeper.

Submitting caches in advance for an event

Here's a recent question that has been asked of me at different times by different geocachers.

Ken,
Just a question regarding our upcoming event. For last years event,
you allowed us to submit caches "pre-approval" before the event and then
published them a few days after the event. We are already scoping out
places for this year's event and were hoping to do the same thing. A few
of the containers we make for a specific spot. How much extra work
is it for you to pre-approve these caches and then sit on them? Do you have a separate database of caches that have been approved
but are not yet published? As always, thanks for your time.

So that more geocachers can understand how I like to handle these situations, here's my answer. In general it's fine to submit caches for pre-approval that you don't want published until a specific date. I'll look them over and let you know if they appear to comply with all the guidelines, including the 528ft. proximity guideline. Rather than me setting some type of timer on them for publication on a specific date (a feature which is not available to me but which would be nice to have), I'll disable them and wait for you to re-enable them when you're ready for publication. That way they will to reappear in my review queue.

It's fine to submit caches several weeks in advance. Even a couple of months is OK if you're planning to submit a large number of them. However, it wouldn't be fair to other geocachers to let you submit geocaches more than a few months in advance, because that would be abusing the privilege of "reserving" geocaching locations.

Get out there and get 'em

I was at Okoboji at a family gathering this past weekend, so even though I logged on to approve a few caches a couple of times overe the weekend, I didn't want to spend much time reviewing caches while I was with the family. So, I just finished publishing about 50 new geocaches this evening -- catching up on those that were submitted over the weekend.Those are in addition to the 90 or so I published after last weekend. If you don't have a new geocache near you... well, maybe you haven't checked geocaching.com lately. :-) Here's a little video of fun on the water while at Okoboji...

Cherokee's Welcome Spring event

I had a great time in Cherokee last weekend attending the "Welcome Spring" geocaching event hosted by Tonedog52 and Wonderboy. The caches placed for the event that I found were worthy of standing on their own. By that I mean the organizers did a very nice job of hiding quality caches. Some of the parks where the geocaches were placed did not exist when I lived in Cherokee back in the late 1960s to mid 1970s. It was great to meet so many geocachers that I have corresponded with, and to renew a few aquaintences as well. Lots of people came up to me with questions about specific types of cache hides or specific caches that they were thinking about hiding, so it was enjoyable for me to offer guidance and encouragement. I especially enjoyed the Sunday morning paddle trip down the Little Sioux River as we found geocaches along the way that Tonedog52 and Wonderboy had placed for the river event. I wish every event included a paddling-while-caching aspect to it. Lots of fun, despite the fact that a few paddlers managed to dunk themselves that morning.

Power Trails back in the discussion

Two years ago I wrote about power trails and explained the reasons behind Groundspeak's guidelines and restrictions against placing lots of caches in a row along a trail. That posting led to a number of excellent comments on this site. This spring some additional geocaches were submitted that I felt crossed the sometimes grey line into what constitutes a power trail -- a series of caches along the new Old Creamery Trail near Vinton and a series (not yet published) along the Little Sioux River near Cherokee. In both cases I have corresponded with the cache owners and we have had polite and constructive dialog to get as many as the caches approved as possible while complying with the intent of the power trail guideline. As I said two years ago, power trails are a difficult area of the guidelines for me as a reviewer to interpret and enforce. But if you read what I wrote back in June 2007 about them, and what I wrote in the subsequent comment discussion, it gives you a pretty good insight into what the guidelines are asking -- at least my interpretation of those guidelines.

No more ALR caches

In case you haven't heard the news, the geocaching.com guidelines have been updated and ALR (Additional Listing Requirement) caches have been banned/stricken/outlawed/disallowed... whatever word you prefer. Here's the new guideline text:

Logging of All Physical Caches

Geocaches can be logged online as Found once the physical log has been signed.

If it is appropriate for your cache location or theme, you may ask the cache seeker to accomplish an optional and simple task, either close to the cache site (normally within 0.1 miles or 161 meters) or when writing their online log. For example, wear the goofy hat inside the cache container and upload a photograph. Cache finders can choose whether or not to attempt or accomplish optional tasks. Cache owners may not delete the cache seeker's log based solely on optional tasks.

This guideline change applies immediately to all logs written from April 4, 2009 and going forward. Older caches with "additional logging requirements" (ALRs) are not grandfathered under the older guideline. If you own an existing cache with mandatory additional logging requirements, we request that you:

• Cease deleting logs based on additional logging requirements.
• Review your own cache listing to see if the ALR can be made into an optional and simple task, or whether it must be removed altogether.
• Adjust your geocache listing by editing the text then contact a reviewer to change the cache type, if appropriate.

Compared to some parts of the U.S. and the world, I think this change won't affect Iowa geocachers that much because I've seen very few ALR caches submitted in Iowa. Many ALRs had nothing to do with geocaching, such as the requirement to draw a picture, stand on your head, step under a waterfall, sing a silly song, etc.

What do you think? Do you (did you) love ALRs and think this is a terrible idea? Or did you hate them and think it's about time they were written out of the guidelines?

Yesterday's blog post

For those of you who may still be scratching their heads about my blog post yesterday describing changes to the guidelines... think about the date on which it was posted. Yes, it was an April Fool's joke. No, there are no such plans in the works.

But wouldn't it be nice?

My thanks to General Disarray, who reviews caches for Oklahoma, for letting me borrow the idea. I understand Heartland Cacher, who reviews for Nebraska, also played this prank in the Cornhusker state.

New guidelines take effect today

As some of you may have heard, there are modifications in the works for Geocaching. I would like to take this opportunity to inform you of some of the changes to take effect starting today. These changes are being implemented in order to take geocaching back to its roots.

Cache Size: Cache containers must now be of the one quart size or larger. No “nanos”, matchstick containers, or film canisters will be published.

Cache Content: All caches must contain a logbook (not log sheet) and items for trade. Fast food toys will be added to the list of items disallowed inside caches.

Permissions: As all land is owned by someone, all cache owners must obtain permission from the landowner in writing and fax or email this to me. This will be kept on file for the duration of the caches existence. *fax number to be added to my profile*

New Saturation Guidelines: The .1 mile rule still applies to caches placed within public parks. There is a new guideline for “linear” trails (sometimes referred to as “power” trails). This guideline states that caches must be placed no closer than 3-4 miles apart and must be in a location that will “wow” your fellow cachers.

Logging Guidelines: 1. Physical logbook: your physical log must contain more than just a signature. 2. Online Log: Acronyms are no longer an acceptable way to log online. You must write a minimum of three sentences detailing your experience. Logs containing “TFTC”, “TFTH”, “SL”, etc will be deleted.

As more information becomes available to me I will make it available to you via this site and my profile. Let’s continue to make Iowa the best state to geocache in.

Cherokee's "Welcome Spring" Event

When I saw that Tonedog52 and Wonderboy are hosting an event in Cherokee the weekend of May 16, I put it on my calendar but I seriously didn't think I would be able to make it there because we'll traveling to Okoboji the following weekend. Well, after thinking about it for awhile I decided what the heck, it's going to be right in my old 'hood (I went to high school in Cherokee) and my mom lives there. So... I have made plans to be there. It should be fun to explore some of the newer parks that were not yet public areas when I lived there. If you're planning to attend this event, I'll see you there.

Today is my anniversary

Eight years ago today I embarked on a pathway of joyful bliss and began a new journey that would lead to greater discovery, understanding and happiness than I ever imagined would be possible and a deeper appreciation about what is really important in life. No, I'm not talking about getting married, although that's been terrific too. I'm talking about geocaching. Eight years ago today I found my first geocache. Her name was Beverly. She was just a little plastic container under a bush, but for me it was love at first sight. I don't keep in touch like I should, but it was good to virtually check in on her today just to see how she is doing. Although she is getting up there in years, it looks like Beverly continues to be active and is still entertaining and enlightening her visitors.

Why do people cheat on virtuals?

Just a heads up -- if you own a virtual cache and you care whether anyone is placing bogus finds on it, you may want to check for a find by a geocacher named The-Sledge. He/she posted a find on my American Gothic virtual cache today and dated it Dec. 31, 2007 -- so it wouldn't appear at the top of the list, I guess. I deleted it. I see he posted many other finds in many states, supposedly on that same day. I don't understand why anyone would go to these lengths.

La première dérive

My daughter is undertaking an interesting GPS-based project today for one of her art school classes. She calls it Dérive, which is French for drift. Jacey has been geocaching with me a few times over the years, so it's interesting to me to see how she is applying her experience with GPS to create this project. You can read the blog she created for this here. I'm not sure I completely understand what's she's doing, but I'm looking forward to reading about it and viewing her photos.

Heading home

If you submitted a new geocache in Iowa that was published this past week, you may be interested to know that I clicked the "publish" button from Grand Cayman. We were there this past week on a scuba diving vacation. In fact, we still there... er, here... waiting at the Grand Cayman airport right now for our flight home. I just discovered there's free wifi here, so I'm online killing time for the next hour and a half. Mary is on her computer too, and she's telling me the temps back home are supposed to reach the 50s today. Looks like we won't be hit with the frigid temps that Midwesterners experienced this past week. Woo hoo! Here are a couple of photos from the past week. These were taken by Matt Leverson, a professional video shooter from Albert Lea, Minn., whom we met down here. You can see more of Matt's photos and videos at his web site. When we weren't diving, we had time to look for a few geocaches. We did manage to find two that were within walking distance of our hotel.

The day the music died

I'm two days late posting this, but it has now been 50 years since the music died.

Total caches published

This morning I noticed an announcement for an event hosted by Minnesota geocachers to commemorate Surfer Joe's 10,000th published geocache. This is a well-deserved honor for my fellow reviewer to the north, especially when you consider that he's been reviewing for just three years.
This got me to thinking about how many geocaches I have published. In a post last September, I wrote that I had published close to 6,000 geocaches in my 5+ years of reviewing. I don't recall how I arrived at that figure, but upon checking this morning, IowaAdmin has officially published 6,491 caches since the summer of 2005, which is as early as the "published" log type goes back. I probably published an additional 1,000 in the 12 months before that. And for a year prior to creating my "IowaAdmin" I.D., I reviewed geocaches in Iowa and Wisconsin using the I.D. "WGA2". Because WGA2 is now owned by a different reviewer, I don't have an accurate way to know exactly what my total is. My best estimate is that it's now around 8,000 caches.

Happy New Year's 2009!

On this first day of 2009, I know that some of my friends celebrated by going geocaching. However, I participated in a different outdoor activity to mark this first day of the year. My daughter and I went kayaking. The weather wasn't great -- 23 degrees, wind gusts up to 30 mph and snow falling -- but the challenging conditions seemed to make it that much more fun. And before you start thinking that we are completely nuts, I should tell you that the lake -- Columbia Lake near Portage, Wis. -- is a cooling lake for a coal-fired power plant so the water temperature is in the 70- to 80-degree range year round. That doesn't make the wind any less bitter when you're putting your kayaks back on top of the car, but it does make the paddling a little more bearable. How ever you celebrated today, I hope you had a good one. Here's to a great 2009! (It's got to be better than 2008, right?)

Iowa had largest cache % gain of any state!

Last January, I posted here about Iowa geocache statistics that were compiled from geocaching.com by my fellow reviewer, Riviouveur, who reviews caches for France. He recently provided me with an updated spreadsheet that once again shows Iowa in relation to the rest of the world, and Iowa continues to show a very high rate of growth in number of geocaches. In fact, for the period of Riviouveur's latest spreadsheet (May 2007 to early December 2008), the U.S. state with the largest percentage gain in active geocaches was -- drumroll, please -- Iowa!

Here are some details. We grew from 2,943 caches on May 30, 2007 to 6,260 caches on Dec. 7, 2008. That was a gain of 3,317 geocaches, which was a 113% increase during those 18 months. That equates to approximately 184 new active caches per month. If you clicked on the link above to my previous post, you saw that our previous rate was 155 new caches per month, so you have really picked up the pace during the past year.

According to Riviouver’s latest calculations, Iowa now has 43 caches per 1,000 square kilometers, (up from 28.7 in his previous report). That puts us 38th out of 143 regions (countries and states) worldwide in terms of cache density (up from 51st in his previous report).

In terms of population, we currently have 209.9 caches per 100,000 population, which ranks us 21st on the list of 143 worldwide regions. (Previously we were at 140.4 and in 28th place.)

Once again, the numbers included in the spreadsheet are ACTIVE cache figures. Reviewers have actually reviewed more caches than those numbers indicate. The numbers are the net of total caches submitted minus those that have been archived and minus those that were not approved for listing.

In case you're interested, the state with the most caches per 1,000 sq kilometers is Rhode Island, with 307.3. Alaska has the fewest caches per 1,000 sq kilometers with 1.6. The state with the most caches per 100,000 population is Utah with 523.5. New Jersey has the fewest caches per 100,000 population at 60.9.

Roundabouts

On my way to and from one of my office locations, there's a newly constructed roundabout that I now pass through. It's so new that occasionally drivers in front of me seem to be confused about what to do so they slow down or even stop before entering. It's all I can do to keep from yelling, "Keep moving!" But I tell myself not to get too excited. After all, it's something new to them. They'll get the hang of it...eventually.

Yesterday I reviewed a geocache that was placed in a roundabout (the first geocache in an Iowa roundabout submitted to www.geocaching.com that I can recall). Since I had not come across this before, I had to do some research to find out how other reviewers are handling roundabout caches, and to find out if there are any applicable local traffic regulations about walking inside roundabouts. Some reviewers say they use the rule of thumb that if there does not appear to be any pedestrian walkway into the center portion of the roundabout, it would appear that pedestrians are not welcome in the center portion, and therefore neither are geocaches.

Think about it -- how distracting would it be to some drivers if they saw someone poking around in the bushes or rocks inside a roundabout when they're already trying to watch for merging vehicles while trying to find their exit? And it's not just me saying this. The Iowa DOT has a web site that gives advice about roundabouts. (I orignally wrote that previous sentence as "the IDOT gives roundabout advice" but that didn't sound quite right.) The IDOT says this: "Never walk though a roundabout or cross the center island."

Bottom line, unless you seek and obtain special permission for your specific geocache from the local governing municipality, I'm not going to publish geocaches that are placed inside roundabouts .

Useless hints

As I have previously posted, useless hints are just that -- useless. I was reminded of this tonight when I read a post in the IGO forums complaining about useless hints. Bottom line: When you create a new geocache, if you're not going to give useful information in your encrypted hint, leave that field blank. If not, all you're doing is frustrating your fellow geocachers and diminishing their opinion of your cache.

Paperwork -- sometimes it works!

Success! My effort to follow-up with the internet service provider of the web site that ripped off my blog content appears to have paid off. As I mentioned in my previous post, I sent a document -- about 12 pages of explanation and samples of material copied from this blog -- to the ISP. After waiting only a few days, I checked the offending web site and found this message:

ForbiddenYou don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally,
a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to
handle the request.

It appears the ISP quickly realized that their customer was doing some bad things and so they took them down. I don't know if they will resurface on a different URL, but thanks to the power of Google searches, I'll be ready. :-)

Ripping me off on the web

A couple of weeks ago I received a Google alert that a web site mentions IowaAdmin. (I will not mention that site by name here so as not to give them any additional visits from my site.) So I checked it out and discovered the site has duplicated several posts from my blog -- some credited to me, most not. I posted a few comments on that site politely asking that they remove all these posts because it appears I am the one who is selling geocaching goods on that site, which I am not. The site is also advertising for sale geocaching gear from Groundspeak. When I click them, it looks like lots of copyright violations and re-selling of Groundspeak stuff! So far they have not responded to me. It looks like they removed my comments and now they have added even more of my blog posts. This evening I sent a formal letter of copyright infringement to the Internet provider for that site. We'll see if this helps.

I feel like someone has broken into my house and stolen some of our stuff. Have any of you ever experienced anything similar?