Talk:Geocaching/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Code Letters 2 Monopoly? 3 Too many External links 4 Geocaching and letterboxing 5 Three Points of Different Transportation=Word? 6 Appropriate Category 7 Commercialisation 8 Geocaching associations format and order 9 External links (yet again) 10 Muggles? 11 Yes, Muggles 12 Geocaching as a Sport 13 Squibs? 14 Neutrality 15 Some variations of the game include a point system to enhance game play. 16 Growth? 17 Pictures 18 UK reversion war

Code Letters

I'm new to geocaching and I noticed on the website that everyone leaves a code at the end of their logged messages like "TFTH" or "TN/LN/SL". What does this stuff mean? it would be really nice if this article could include some explanation of these codes.

TFTH: Thanks for the hunt/hike.

TFTC: Thanks for the cache.

TNLNSL: Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

More can be found here: http://www.geocaching.com/about/glossary.aspx

The Bronze was here! Hi I'm a Geocacher in Central New South Wales, Australia. Quite literally Geocaching has changed my life. I now revolve around my weekends seeking caches hidden in the Australian Bush and urban hideaways. Geocaching to me is not about the finds (the finding of an actual cache) but the challenge and uniqueness of each location. Every time I set out to find a cache I find a new place.

The whole Geocaching community makes the sport a social one and with the strict supervision of the website it is more environmental than you may think. The policy "Cache in, trash out" ensure that teams that visit a cache are proactive in making a location tidy and more welcoming. After all who would want to find a cache hidden in a rubbish dump.

For a long time Geocaching was very much underground but since it's exposure through magazines, newspaper and even television, Geocaching has become a family and singles orientated sport and with graded cache and an easy, interactive cache page that dosen't fill your inbox you can go for a weekend walk along a footpath or canyon in 12 degree water over a long weekend.

For more information be sure to visit Geocaching.com and you Aussies, see you at Geocaching Australia. Similar concepts are terracaching, navicache and GPSGames.org offering shutterspot.

Monopoly?

Geocaching.com is definitely the biggest name in geocaching, but I don't think it should be called a complete monopoly. What do you think? Jobarts^-Talk 06:44, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

I use geocaching.com when I seek and log (online) geocaches. (For disclosure.) I'm addressing the usage of the word "monopoly". It seems like it would be easy to come to a conclusion, but it depends on the definition used. These definitions are from the Wikipedia article on monopoly as well as other sources. I'll assess whether geocaching.com meets each.

• The sole provider of a product (commodity or service). No
• Controlling enough of the supply chain to be able to set prices. No
• The amount of the commondity controlled will cause a significant cost (monetary or otherwise) in switching to another product. (This is how Microsoft was legally declared a monopoly; to switch to another operating system would have cost people a lot of money to buy new software.) No

But a monopoly does not necessarily do harm to whatever community is being affected. Theoretically, a monopoly can be more efficient and therefore deliver the product better for a better price. But like the efficiency of dictatorships, monopolies don't always deliver what the consumers want. This then leads to competition, unless the monopolist keeps competitors from entering. Legally, monopolies are not a problem. Microsoft was twice convicted (a decade apart) of making it difficult for competitors to enter (through multiple means).

I have brought up Microsoft (briefly) because that is the monopoly case that I am most familiar with. The antitrust (monopoly) laws were created in the days of the expansion of the railroads because of the types of things that they had been doing. But IBM and AT&T have also been pursued under these same laws.

But back to geocaching: Geocaching.com does not control geocaching. It has the advantage of having the web site corresponding to the name of the sport. The argument could be made that the commodity being controlled is the database of active geocaches. In this case, geocaching.com is clearly a monopoly. Geocaching.com used to share this database with other geocaching sites. This was of great benefit to the geocaching community. But they have shut down this access.

I would like to see them open up access to this database to the community again. But, as much as I want them to open it up, I think that they have the legal right to share or not share their database. I encourage other geocachers to enter their geocaches at other geocaching web sites that share their database even though I haven't done so with my own geocaches, yet.

So in summary, geocaching.com isn't a monopoly except with regards to the geocaching database. You're free to include my comments above in the geocaching article, but it would be "personal research". If you want to note the history of sharing of the database, that would be encyclopedic. But you can't realistically get away with calling geocaching.com a monopoly. Val42 16:40, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

I beg to differ

Geocaching.com clearly controls the pricing. They chose the $3/month level. And if they decided to make it $4 or $5, then it would be. If they wanted to, they could require premiums for all memberships. Some users would leave, and they would not find a large supply elsewhere.

It is true that there are other suppliers, and that these others are growing. One of them quite quickly. But none of them yet have the necessary membership base to be able to compete with Geocaching.com. So in most areas of the world, if you want to continue caching, you'd have no choice but to pay whatever price was demanded. --67.126.247.140 17:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Not too mention that they control geocoin tracking pricing. Hell, they no longer allow people who sell geocoins that aren't trackable at geocaching.com to post advertisements on their forums. They used to allow this in the past. But since geocaching.com now charges $1.5o per trackable coin, it's in their interest to leverage their position as the #1 geocaching site to influence the production of geocoins to their benefit. They are using their (near) monopoly to affect another market, and quite successfully at that. --Dogbreathcanada 19:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Geocaching.com clearly does not control the pricing. Anybody can make a website that lists geocaches on it. If the price was high enough, people would go to competing web sites. The reason that competing web sites have such a small user base is that geocaching.com is large and free (for most caches). If they started charging, people would leave. Also, anyone can make a website that tracks geocoins or travel bugs. Our local geocaching organization has a web site that tracks the movement of travel bug-like things which are not trackable on geocaching.com. The cost of switching to another web site to find geocaches is insignificant. Pfalstad 22:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

As you said, geocaching.com is large. They are only free, if you don't want the premium features, that is true. But where I must disagree is where you say that people would leave if they charged more. Clearly some would leave, yes. But where would they go? The ones who left would, for the most part, just stop caching. Other sites would get a certain amount of those members, but most other sites don't have a large enough user base to attract and keep them. And of course those new members would be from a self-selected group of people who don't want to pay.

Don't let the gc.com policy of allowing "non-premium" memberships fool you. They could choose to raise their premiums, or require all members to be premium any time they wanted. It would take years for the disgruntled members to coalesce around an alternative supplier. --Headybrew 00:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

gc.com may have terrible customer service and are a bunch of uptight snobs but they are in no way a monopoly. Caching simply isn't a big enough hobby to support two large database holders. I'd guess they wouldn't lose many if they doubled their prices (it's still extremely cheap) but if they went much higher than that you'd see other small databases increase in size. And I think you have to include letterboxing as a competitor as well.

Too many External links

Anyone else think there's too many External links on this article? The links section is about 1/3 of the article. Going by the guidelines at Wikipedia:External links, and noting Wikipedia is not a web directory this seems far too many.

• Specifically, links about things like travelbugs, geocoins, Where's George etc should be on the articles about them.
• The foreign language links should already be on their own language articles, i.e. geocaching.de should be on de:Geocaching.
• Do we really need all of the links for areas of the USA? Some of them seem to be for very specific areas, with several per state.
• Things like the Firefox plugin and Geohelper seem of questionable significance, though they could be useful to some people.

Maybe most of these could be replaced with a link to the appropriate category on dmoz or a similar directory of geocaching links? --Vclaw 14:05, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I've found a place that lists geocaching associations by state and country. This will take the place of the growing list with the same information. First I'm compiling a list of those on our page that aren't on the page that I'm linking to. I'm going to send the list to the maintainer of that web site then make the change. Val42 16:36, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Revisiting this topic many months later - YES, there are still too many external links on this article. I'm itching to delete some in that confusingly long "miscellaneous" category (leaving informational sites but getting rid of discussion forums and online magazines and sites to "connect you to the geocaching world") but fights over external links are awfully common and I don't want to get into one.

How about if I at least get rid of the book list? Such lists are valuable in wikipedia when they draw people's attention to information works they would otherwise be unlikely to find, but geocaching books are becoming a dime a dozen (Amazon has twice as many as here). This list now serves no purpose, I think, except to clutter up the page. Any objections? - DavidWBrooks 20:34, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

There's still too many links because all of the associations that were previously deleted have been re-added (plus even more!), I'm in favour of completely deleting that section. I agree with you about the miscellaneous section, some should be deleted (i.e. geoblogz which seems to have about 5 users and 10 posts). Some of them i.e. the Firefox plugin, the GSAK link, could be moved to Geocaching Software and/or Paperless Geocaching (though they are probably already on those articles).

I also agree about the book list - unless there is some reason why those particular books are interesting / relevant / notable, they shouldn't be listed. --Vclaw 21:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I removed the books. I removed geoblogz (which I found sprinkled on other article pages, too). I removed the Firefox plugin and the GSAK link, which are already on Geocaching Software. I'll wait on some of the others to see if there are more comments. - DavidWBrooks 00:34, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Indeed... I don't think the long list adds to the article, especially not things like listing Great Plains Geocaching in each and every state it covers.

Every comment on the talk page so far has been positive towards removing the links. As the original poster said, it's not a web directory, it's an encyclopedia. I'm saying we should delete most of it, especially the "Associations by Country" page. Any objections - any links you find extremely worth keeping in an encyclopedic context? Enno 14:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

See my comment down below about creating List of geocaching organizations and moving all the geographic stuff there, rather than deleting it. A number of similar pages exist in Wikipedia - the key is to separate them from the real articles, so that they don't get in the way of reading. - DavidWBrooks 14:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with creating a List of geocaching organizations and moving everything but a short list of Cache Listing Sites and possibly Similar & Related Activities over to it... items such as Travel Bugs and Geocoins already have links from their respective Wikiarticles. 72.131.44.247 01:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Geocaching and letterboxing

Two separate people have moved letterbox geocaches from the "Types of geocaches" because "letterboxing is different than geocaching." Letterboxing is indeed a different, but related, type of activity. But there is a crossover in letterbox geocaches. Geocaching.com currently (I just checked) allows new listings that are, in their exact text, "Letterbox (Hybrid)". I have personally found a letterbox geocache and done the stamping. I had the notebook for the stamping because my local geocaching association (Utah Association of Geocachers) has a game called "Stampin' Fools". This game has stamps that travel from cache to cache and are logged, just like travel bugs. The goal is for a geocacher to get points by finding as many as possible.

Letterboxing is different, but related, so it is listed in the "See also" section. But letterbox geocaches are a legitimate type of geocache. So I'm going to move it back to that section. Val42 15:40, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

As someone who both geocaches and letterboxes, I agree. "letterbox geocaches" are geocaches in the sense that you find them via GPS (letterboxes are usually found by using a description, some of which can be very creative) and letterboxes in the sense that you don't take/leave anything, other then stamp impressions. Sadly, there are some LBers who have a somewhat 'anti-GCer' attitude. Both are fun, and if I'm going to a place, I try to see if there are both LB & GC and do both. --emb021

Three Points of Different Transportation=Word?

Need a word and clear definition for a point where a road, river, railroad tracks, bridge, walkway, subway, airport landing, or any other place or transportation meet. A name for when three of the above mentioned are connected. For Example A bridge for both a train and cars go over a transportation waterway. Confluence? Intersection?

What the government in Utah calls these places are "intermodal hubs". They are places where you may change from one type (mode) of transportation to another (iter-). Because there are multiple types (modes) of transportation their, they are called hubs. Is this what you are looking for? Val42 21:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Not to speak for the person asking for the original question, but it sounds as though they're looking for "intersection", "junction/conjunction", or "crossing". A bridge for both train and cars doesn't sound like a point of changeover for mode of transportation. I'm not completely sure what relevance the question has to the article in its current state though. ju66l3r 21:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That question was asked by a passing anon a year or so ago, and it was incredibly irrelevant then, too. - DavidWBrooks 23:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Appropriate Category

I think there should be an appropriate category which includes at least:

• geocaching
• letterboxing
• trigpointing
• benchmarking (appropriate article not yet written)

and in addition, perhaps:

• orienteering
• treasure hunt

But what would the category be called? And would it be a subcategory of Category:Hobbies or Category:Sports or what? Or maybe there's already a suitable category to put them all in? --David Edgar 11:15, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I know that this is long, but what about "Outdoor locating games". Val42 14:01, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the suggestion! - I've just created it. --David Edgar 18:46, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Commercialisation

Why was the section on commercialisation removed? The anonymous user, Special:Contributions/66.23.231.191, that deleted it left the summary "No need to talk about commercialization, just about caching." but I don't see how discussion of businesses built around the sport isn't "about caching".

Tobin Richard 10:12, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

It also seems to me that mentioning geocaching.com specifically in this context is appropriate, the site even claims to be "The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site" (emphasis mine). - Tobin Richard 10:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I replaced it. - DavidWBrooks 11:45, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I removed it because there is always this stupid battle by Geocaching.com (or more particularly some of their users) to make them appear to be the only listing site that can legitimately list caches. Just leave it in. Too much trouble. Oh, and it is Commercialization.

I've just added some information on the one geocaching related lawsuit (or threat thereof) I know about. Perhaps some discussion of the fact that most caching sites use the word free in the sense of price not liberty would be of value. - Tobin Richard 11:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Why was the snippet on geocaching.com's claim to be the official geocaching site removed? I think it's relevant in the context of listing competition. - Tobin Richard 02:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

It struck me as irrelevant advertising, slapped on by an anon ("XYZ Website says it's the best!") but if you think it is pertinent, it should remain. - DavidWBrooks 22:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I see your point but the note about the lack of a governing body makes it look like it's not advertising to me. - Tobin Richard 00:10, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Yep, the second sentence is what gave it relevance. --Dogbreathcanada 01:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Geocaching associations format and order

I've made the listings for geocaching associations consistent in format and order. Here are the rules that I used:

1. The two (by far the) most active countries are listed first in alphabetical order; Canada and the United States.
   1. Province/State geocaching associations are listed alphabetically under those.
   2. Format of listing depends on number of entries:
      • Zero: Not listed.
      • One: Listed on same line as province/state separated by colon.
      • More: Listed on following lines indented one more level.
2. Continents are listed in order of geocaching participation using basically the same rules as for Canada and the U.S.

Most of this structure already existed, but this is a formalization of the rules. If there is any objection(s) to continuing to use these rules, let's discuss it here. Val42 19:46, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks very nice. The only debatable point, I think, is whether we should move the whole list to a separate page so it doesn't clog up this one - I think this has the worst ratio of external links to text of any non-stub article I know. - DavidWBrooks 20:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't that just make that page have a worse ratio? Or would that be okay because it is a page just for links? I'm not familiar with pages like that so that's why I'm asking such questions. Val42 20:47, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

True, but if the page was something like List of geocaching organizations nobody would be expecting anything else from the article. Right now, they may be looking for general information, and get lost scrolling around the page. - DavidWBrooks 21:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

External links (yet again)

The links really need to be trimmed down to the ones that actually add information to the article. They have been discussed several times over a period of months, but nothing has been done to reduce their number. I'll probably give it a few more days, then visit each site linked and take a chainsaw to the list. I would prefer it if somebody with an interest in the subject did the cleanup, but the current situation is ridiculous. --GraemeL ^(talk) 17:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I've created List of geocaching organizations and moved all the local groups there. (That was the easy part!) - DavidWBrooks 17:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I suspected a little external nudge might be enough to push you into making that decision. ;-) --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Muggles?

Different anonymous IPs occasionally add the phrase that non-geocachers (that is, about 6.49999 billion of the world's 6.5 billion people) are called "muggles", as in Harry Potter terminology. While this may be true for certain clusters of pre-teen geocachers, as far as I can tell it is not widespread, so I have removed it. - DavidWBrooks 21:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Muggles

Last I checked 44 does not qualify me as a pre-teen, and, yes, Muggles is a term used in geocaching as is muggles, geo-muggles and a cache being "muggled". I will refer you to the book by by Joel McNamara "Geocaching for Dummies" page 18, page 125, & page 128 and several aritcles on geocaching.com for example the article from the UK newspaper the Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=P8&xml=/health/2005/10/04/hgeo01.xml. I'm sorry if you hadn't heard about it but it is real.

I stand corrected - my apologies. - DavidWBrooks 22:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I would agree; Muggles started in the UK I believe, but it's used worldwide now. Confusingly, those who haven't read Harry Potter often use the phrase "Mugglers" Kert01 11:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Geocaching as a Sport

Since defining geocaching as a sport is a relatively controversial topic in the geocaching community, allowing the text of the article to state that "In general, geocaching is accepted as a 'recreational sport' by most participants" would be wrong. The majority of geocachers agree that geocaching is an activity and a hobby at the very least, which is why I will continue to change the text above to state "In general, geocaching is accepted as a 'recreational activity' by most participants". --Dogbreathcanada 01:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

While I understand your concern, I do believe it is safe to say that most participants consider it a recreational sport which is different to most people than any other kind of sport. If it is just an activity, then why bother with this statement at all. "Activity" is the "duh" response. "Sport" or more specifically "recreational sport" is the clarification response that helps people understand what it really is.

The American Heritage definition of "sport" is:

1. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively. A particular form of this activity.

2. An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.

3. An active pastime; recreation.

By all three of these definitions, geocaching should be considered a sport. Call it recreational sport if you will, but a sport it is. In addition, look at the activities you mention to describe this. "Others are very difficult: under water, many staged multi-caches, challenging cryptography, 50 feet up a tree, on high mountain peaks, on the Antarctic continent or above the Arctic Circle." Peaks, trees, under water, artic circle - not a "sport"?!?!?!? --129.62.34.147, 10 January 2006

The three definitions are not equal. Dictionaries list definitions in order of common usage. So the first definition is really the only one worth noting. Goecaching is NOT governed by a set of rules, instead it is governed by a set of guidelines. Secondly, geocaching is not engaged in competitively, since competition begs a set of clear-cut rules that the participants will abide by, thus allowing for comparison between participants. If you've ever taken part in any of the geocaching forums, one of the quotes geocachers will often throw back at you, if you complain that someone isn't playing "fair", is that all cachers "play by their own rules." Now imagine if football allowed it's participants to play by their own rules. Or marathoning, where Joe decides he'll take a shortcut, because he's playing by his own rules? Would those still be sports? Of course not. --Dogbreathcanada 21:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I'll have to agree with the other guy and that geocaching is a sport. If you take a shortcut while running a marathon, that doesn't make the marathon itself any less of a sport. Furthermore, read the blooming definitions. Multiple definitions exist because there are multiple meanings. Yes, a sport CAN be governed by a set of rules OR CUSTOMS (read guidelines). But it can also be "An active pastime; recreation." Sorry, dogbreath. You are just wrong on this one. I'm changing it back to sport.

Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that you were the ultimate judge on the issue. --Dogbreathcanada 20:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems there is no widely accepted terminology (as the start of the section says), so why not remove that final sentence ("In general, geocaching is accepted as a 'recreational sport' by most participants") completely, and forget the arguing? - DavidWBrooks 18:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not intending to continue this argument, but I did just add a fair-use quote from Dave Ulmer that I think adds to the value of the discussion by providing some historical input without taking away from the two modern viewpoints. Plus, who can argue with the guy that invented the "sport".

Well, Ulmer's an idiot then. *grin* Besides, he didn't invent the hobby ... pirates did. Treasure hunting. And, do you really think an Easter Egg hunt (high tech or not) is a really a sport? That's how he describes geocaching. --Dogbreathcanada 19:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure, why not go down this path.  :) Like geocaching, Easter Egg hunting is "an active pastime; recreation." Your statement about no competitions is also false. The Texas Challenge for one takes place every year and is a state-wide, highly competitive "egg hunt." There is even an entire section on "competitive geocaching" in Geocaching for Dummies. AGA, TXGA, WGA, and others often host their own competitions. KeenPeople.com and Terracaching.com are two sites dedicated to making Geocaching competitive. Just Google "competitive geocaching" or "geocaching sport" and prove yourself wrong.

Why is it necessary to continually change these statements? We've already established that the definitions of the word "sport" indicate that geocaching is a sport, the inventor of geocaching says that it is a sport, and all of your arguments against it being called a sport haven't stood. If the SPORT really hasn't changed any in the past 6 years when it WAS considered a sport, then by your own comment's logic, geocaching IS still a SPORT. Was a sport + hasn't changed = still a sport. Recreational sport? Yes, but it is still a sport.

• From Geocaching.com, "The sport where You are the search engine!"
• From the cover of The Geocaching Handbook, "Geocaching is one of the fastest growing outdoor sports of the millennium, combining aspects of treasure hunting, high-tech navigation, and exploration."
• From the front page of Buxley's Geocaching Waypoint, "GPS-based "geocaching" is a high-tech sport being played by thousands of people across the globe."
• From the front page of TXGA, "The purpose of our association is to promote the sport of Geocaching in Texas."
• From About.com in reference to Geocaching, "The sport is now played world-wide."
• Even in the now infamous article about the geocache hidden at a police station http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635176898,00.html, the headline reads "New sport called 'geocaching' raises red flags."

As is seen by all of the above references and hundreds of thousands of other Google hits, the term sport has long (6 years at least) been associated with geocaching and is used too often by geocachers and non-geocachers to even really be having this discussion. The term sport has been describing this activity LONGER than the term Geocaching itself! Despite the fact that there are individuals like yourself who don't like the term, it should be obvious from just being the tagline of Geocaching.com that geocaching is commonly and publicly associated with the word sport, and despite your objections - the general public, the media, book publishers, Geocaching.com, and Dave Ulmer himself (who IS widely credited with the creation of Geocaching) consider geocaching a sport. Please, sir, I implore you to concede.

The entire section on the "debate" about whether geocaching is a "sport" is unreferenced in its entirety. Where has the discussion occurred, who are the proponents of each position, what have they said, etc? As far as I can see, the section is just a summary of the above discussion. If this is true, it needs to be zapped. As for whether or not it _is_ a sport: one suspects an etymological hijacking is in progress. Consider that there must be literally billions of references to homosexuals as "gay" -- and yet how many of them fit the previous definition of the word? Frankly, if geocaching is to be called a sport, then we might as well call going into unfamiliar supermarkets a "sport" too. If you want "sport", you must go to geodashing at the minimum. Far more challenging, and it's safer as well (no bogus/missing/trashed/etc caches, no concerns about the contents of a cache, etc -- all reasons why I gave up on geocaching years ago). mdf 22:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't think the entire question is relevant an encyclopedic article. Sure, maybe in a discussion of what categories to include, but not deserving of a section or even paragraph! I concur, let's remove that section rather than have a paragraph about semantics. --RJFerret 04:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Squibs?

Is someone who is aware of geocaching, but does not actually participate in the activity a Squib?

I take it you mean it along the lines of blood purity - squibs, as compared to muggles? Personally I've never heard the term used. --David Edgar 17:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally I don't see why we would have to use it. Let's not start using it. --Dogbreathcanada 21:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality

It seems to me that this article is extremely centered around www.geocaching.com, rather than geoacaching in general. I know that www.geocaching.com is, as the article states, the "most popular" site. But it is far from the only site. And their recent move of most non-traditional caches to a seperate site seems to be reflected here in that locationless or virtual caches are relegated to a brief mention as a "variation". Also there is no mention of point systems or how caches are approved for listing (which varies considerably on other sites. I think it would be appropriate to include these things in the article.

Any thoughts?

--Headybrew 00:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Some variations of the game include a point system to enhance game play.

I'm not sure what that sentence means. Can we elaborate here on what it means, and maybe we can rephrase it in the article to make it more clear?--Sonjaaa 12:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Growth?

How about adding:

Geocaching has enjoyed impressive growth and popularity with, for example, the number of geocaches placed in Connecticut doubling annually from 2001-2006.

(This is based on my records starting in 2002, and Geocaching.com listings, showing that there were 100 in Spring 2002, 200 Spring '03, 400 Winter '04, 800 Spring '05, and now 1600 Spring-Summer '06.) -RJFerret 05:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, RJF, unfortunately, we need a reputable independent source to meet the "no original research" policy of wikipedia to include something like that. Has there been a newspaper article that references the growth rate that GC.com listings have experienced since 2001? That would be our best bet for inclusion in the article. ju66l3r 20:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

We've got two regular size, and a micro cache picture? I think we should replace one of the tupperware pics with an ammo box cache, show a greater spread of caches.--Grand Edgemaster _Talk 14:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

UK reversion war

There has been a recent rash of UK IPs (presumably all the same person) attempting to push back in the "Politics" section that has been reverted previously because it's strongly POV and lacking much information or verifiability. They also remove a number of good informative statements and links and move around certain sections making those parts of the article much less readable. Very little of the edits they are continually pushing onto the article are all that good or useful, so it's become a see-saw trying to keep the older version.

I'd like to see discussion and consensus here about the changes they are proposing before they are accepted into the article en masse. If we can reach a consensus then further changes can be considered vandalism at that point and the 3RR policy will not come into play for someone, like myself, who is trying to maintain the overall integrity of the article. Thanks. ju66l3r 14:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

"the 3RR policy will not come into play for someone, like myself, who is trying to maintain the overall integrity of the article......" is just as arbitary as the person 'imposing' the "Politics" section by reversion.

"They also remove......." The same person is doing all this? A rather paranoid assumption and unverifiable just as is "presumably all the same person".

"lacks much information or verifiability...." the renegade section included links to geocaching.com, AI and the Geocachers Creed which supported the points made. To say there was a strong POV was questionable..... given that it was asking whether Politics was an issue..... rather than saying Politics WAS an issue. IMHO it would more easily sit with the section on "Ethics" after "Without some rules geocachers could be a danger to themselves, other cachers, or society....."

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.64.228.132 (talk • contribs) .

Actually, it is not as arbitrary a position because if a consensus is reached here that the additions are not acceptable, then as per Wikipedia guidelines, the consensus version is the "right" version until consensus changes and any attempts to change those parts would be considerable as vandalism to the "right" version. This is the means to which discussion fosters compromise and ends edit warring.

It is my presumption that one or a very few people are attempting to force certain changes into the article by brute force. The IP originates with the exact same provider and each time they only choose to work on this exact article without any efforts elsewhere. I'm just not willing to put in the checkuser request at this point, as we're still working to build consensus, but ultimately I'm more and more certain that your IP (along with most of the others) will traceback to a single source computer or two. If you'd like to be better trusted, then establishing an account on Wikipedia goes a long way towards verifiability as to how many others are working to build consensus (instead of renewing their dynamic IP to IP-sock their opinion as coming from many others as well).

Finally, some of the links removed were useful and others were redundant (no need to reference GC.com multiple times in this article aside from where the major websites are listed). This is also why the Politics section is seemingly pointless (aside from its POV prose), because there are little to no politics when multiple sites are playing very different games all under the umbrella of geocaching...unless you're speaking to the politics of a specific website (which would then not be appropriate to this article). ju66l3r 16:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

"It is my presumption that one or a very few people..." I'm glad that you now accept that this may not be all the work of the same person, but I think the sentence would read better if you wrote "It is my presumption that one or a very small number of people..." 80.225.7.2 11:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)