View Full Version : Too Many Caches?



Moonsouth
03-01-2010, 03:53 PM
Do you guys think that there will ever come a time when there are just too many caches in one area? That maybe NO MORE caches will be allowed? I was talking with someone about caching that told me that in some places in California if you are sitting on a park bench, and looked under it, there would probably be a cache there. I mean if there is a cache eventually every 1/10 or 2/10 of a mile (or whatever the rule is) where ever you go in the state, doesnt that really take away from the game? It goes back to the whole numbers thing...I will say that I like the competition of the numbers, whether for bragging rights, to show experience, or just a self satisfying accomplishment thing, whatever. But it kind of irritates me when people get their first 500 caches within a couple of miles from their home. Maybe its just me, I was wondering on others thoughts.

cano
03-01-2010, 05:29 PM
There is no such thing as too many caches :) In fact over 3 million of caches would still fit in Maine not violating rule of thumb :)

WhereRWe?
03-01-2010, 05:40 PM
There is no such thing as too many caches :) In fact over 3 million of caches would still fit in Maine not violating rule of thumb :)

Sheesh! Don't give anybody any ideas!!!!!

benandtina
03-01-2010, 05:59 PM
I don't think there will be too many. I think even if there does end up a cache every .1 mile it is pretty easy to run pocket queries that filter out the type of caches you don't want to do. You can pick and choose what you want to find and don't HAVE to check every park bench :) (With that said, if Ben were in California and heard this he would begin checking them just because he would feel it wrong to sit on a cache and not find it, LOL.)

Sometimes we go out knowing exactly what type of caching we want to do... numbers, hiking, difficult finds, etc. We run our pocket queries for the day to find us those specific caches and off we go. The only way I think we may miss out by doing this is if cache owners don't set up their attributes... but we haven't found that to be the case very often.

Other times we just feel like hanging out together and don't care where we end up/what we find, so we load the Garmin with all caches and find whatever we happen to find.

brdad
03-01-2010, 09:01 PM
Anyone that has been around these forums since the beginning ( I can hear all the "Oh here we go again"s already!) know I have had a fear over too much cache saturation since I started caching in 2002, and there were less than 150 caches in Maine then. I'd like nothing more than for the minimum distance between caches to be at least a half mile for urban caches and a mile for rural caches.

I think the push to place as many caches as fast as we can is setting the sport up for problems - namely caches being placed in places they should not be placed without permission and risking landowners taking action and making the sport look bad. That does not mean there is not a place for micros, GRCs, LPCs, or other easy caches.

On a personal level, I think that caches should have a purpose other than for the numbers and should to take you somewhere of personal interest to the hider and hopefully somewhere the finder may not have gone otherwise. Every cache placement of mine is an extension of me - A cache finder may not always see that actual connection, but think they are interesting enough to make the ponder what connection there is. If you want to know the real connections, just ask....

brdad
03-01-2010, 09:10 PM
I don't think there will be too many. I think even if there does end up a cache every .1 mile it is pretty easy to run pocket queries that filter out the type of caches you don't want to do.

This is where the problem lies. A person who does not like puzzles can easily filter those out. Don't like micros? - filter them out. Want to do a long hike - once again the filter works pretty well. But for those of us who like all cache types and styles, but want to find a cache which has been placed for some purpose other than the numbers - that is a bit tougher!

dubord207
03-01-2010, 09:16 PM
I share brdad's concern about caches placed without permission. But unless I'm missing something, have there been a "lot" of complaints from people about caches having been placed on their property without permission?

Please don't think that because there haven't been complaints that I think it's ok to place without proper permission, I'm just curious if there have been complaints. I haven't heard about many.

hollora
03-01-2010, 09:28 PM
I share brdad's concern about caches placed without permission. But unless I'm missing something, have there been a "lot" of complaints from people about caches having been placed on their property without permission?

Please don't think that because there haven't been complaints that I think it's ok to place without proper permission, I'm just curious if there have been complaints. I haven't heard about many.

Considering the total number of caches out there - there probably are not a lot which meet your criteria (complaints) = the % overall is low. There have been a few which I remember. Some of them, if there were complaints, I am sure we might never hear about.

On the other side of the coin, there have been a few whereby, I hesitated when encountering a No Trespassing sign at the parking coords, trail head, clear cut fenced area and no mention in the description of permission granted. An example of signs and permission clearly being granted is - EMSDanel's Geozoo - it is signed Private Property by permission and his cache page explains.

JustKev
03-01-2010, 09:49 PM
Wasn't there one recently placed, I'm thinkin south west of Augusta somewhere, that was quickly removed when questions were raised by the landowner?

brdad
03-01-2010, 09:49 PM
There have been very few complaints here in Maine that I know of. It is just an area of concern of mine. Geocaching does not really supply any benefit to the general public and I don't think it would take much of an incident for landowners to deny use for caching.

One good example which occurred nationwide is caches in national parks. We had a couple placed in Acadia National Park early on. One of those was hidden after the ban, it was a multi with the posted coords outside the park but the final inside. It was the hiders way to cheat the system. I can't help but think if people had approached the park service in the beginning that the relationship between the two entities would have started out much better.

CARoperPhotography
03-02-2010, 12:50 AM
Thanks for the idea! I have a plan.....!

CARoperPhotography
03-02-2010, 12:52 AM
I think I will start by putting a micro on Brdad's front lawn.

brdad
03-02-2010, 01:08 AM
Go ahead; just get permission from the boss.

JustKev
03-02-2010, 07:50 AM
Go ahead; just get permission from the boss.

Does she share your views on too many caches?

fins2right
03-02-2010, 10:37 AM
Having done a variety of caches, from GRC runs to hiking (and failing) into Gulf Hagas for one, I'd say the type of caching I do depends on my mood. I like having the options though. I still think that there is a lot of opportunity out there for the State of Maine to use Geocaching as a draw for tourism. I know that it has been discussed in Augusta, and I'd like to think that our state has enough natural wonder (and caches) to advertise and draw in revenue.

I've heard of a few landowner complaints, and a few caches taken in by M.D.O.T. but I think the percentage is really low. Heck, if I owned a business, I'd put one on my property as a draw. I remember looking at a map of Provo, Utah and seeing so many caches that it look almost a minute to download. (I had a flashback to my old 14.4 modem) I think that as long as they are maintained well, then put them out!:D

brdad
03-02-2010, 09:12 PM
Does she share your views on too many caches?

The boss = wife? Hell ya!

Share my views? Hell ya! And perhaps then some!

I had to check the date, it was 11/8/2003. Lee and I had just recently met and were on a caching trip in the Rangely area. At Smalls Falls there are two caches, .3 miles apart, which you access from the same parking area. I can remember us both discussing this after we found those two caches. We could not help but feel we were cheating and wondering if it was right to log both caches. It remained on my mind enough I even discussed it in the national chat room afterward. My how times have changed!

brdad
03-02-2010, 09:17 PM
Heck, if I owned a business, I'd put one on my property as a draw.

But if you were not a cacher and owned a business, would you have a more favorable view of caching if someone come in and presented the idea to you or if they just hid one without asking permission, and you did not find out until you saw people poking about your property?

Team V3
03-02-2010, 09:19 PM
If I owned a business I would love the idea of having a cache placed on the property but I would be FURIOUS if it was done without permission.

lexmano
03-03-2010, 11:14 AM
When planning trips to cache dense areas there can just be too many caches. When 500 caches are within a 3 mile radius of your hotel, and it can take 10 plus pocket queries to get caches into gsak so you can begin to sort them out and plan your caching days.

In those situations it can be frustrating as you need to do some heavy advanced sorts on your PQs which could keep you from seeing a tough cache that you would want to work in.

Now if the PQ limit was 2500, I would be happy.

cano
03-03-2010, 02:07 PM
When planning trips to cache dense areas there can just be too many caches. When 500 caches are within a 3 mile radius of your hotel, and it can take 10 plus pocket queries to get caches into gsak so you can begin to sort them out and plan your caching days.

In those situations it can be frustrating as you need to do some heavy advanced sorts on your PQs which could keep you from seeing a tough cache that you would want to work in.

Now if the PQ limit was 2500, I would be happy.

Problem here is not a cache density, but ignorance on geocaching.com site.

brdad
03-03-2010, 02:10 PM
Now if the PQ limit was 2500, I would be happy.

I know I sometimes reflect too much on the past, but shortly after PQs first came out I can remember listening to the left coasters complain that the 500 cache limit per query was not enough and I was always bragging how I could get all Maine caches in one PQ. After a year or two I started to see their dilemma. Even now if there was a 2500 cache limit, it'd still take 3 PQs to get all Maine caches.

If the pace keeps up, we'll be saying we'd be happy if there was a 25,000 cache limit per PQ!

Unfortunately upping the number of caches per PQ would require much more server power than gc.com could afford without charging more (or charging everyone) to play.

cano
03-03-2010, 02:22 PM
I know I sometimes reflect too much on the past, but shortly after PQs first came out I can remember listening to the left coasters complain that the 500 cache limit per query was not enough and I was always bragging how I could get all Maine caches in one PQ. After a year or two I started to see their dilemma. Even now if there was a 2500 cache limit, it'd still take 3 PQs to get all Maine caches.

If the pace keeps up, we'll be saying we'd be happy if there was a 25,000 cache limit per PQ!

Unfortunately upping the number of caches per PQ would require much more server power than gc.com could afford without charging more (or charging everyone) to play.

I don't really see a problem why there can't be 100000 cache limit per PQ. They are already serving it asynchronously so horizontal scalability can be used if they lack of computing resources. In addition they can offer different type of PQs, for example light version without long descriptions and logs, just coords and hint, that's all I need :)

kayaking loon
03-03-2010, 03:06 PM
There can never be too many caches. Find what you like and ignore the rest. It's not JUST about the numbers!

Ekidokai
03-03-2010, 07:31 PM
It took me 7 days and 32 PQ's to get all the caches in Ohio.

brdad
03-03-2010, 07:46 PM
I don't really see a problem why there can't be 100000 cache limit per PQ. They are already serving it asynchronously so horizontal scalability can be used if they lack of computing resources. In addition they can offer different type of PQs, for example light version without long descriptions and logs, just coords and hint, that's all I need :)

I think there is more to it than that. It's probably better to limit how many caches allowed per PQ than to slow down the time it takes to get them. And it is and has been growing so rapidly they are always behind some. There have been over 120,000 new accounts signed up already this year.

I know another reason they do not want the allowable PQ size to be really large (like 100000) is that makes it easier for individuals to publish fresh cache data on their own web sites.

However, if a person wants more PQs, they are free to purchase another premium membership!

Of course in my world, distances between caches would be increased, non-premium accounts would be limited to maybe 5 cache hides, premium accounts would be limited to 15 or 20 caches, and all cache hiders would be required to prove identity by credit card or license or some better method. That, and hiders would have to explain to the reviewer why every cache should be allowed to be placed at the location.And no %*$**(*$# dogs allowed to hide caches! That would reduce the load on the PQ servers.

I bet you and much more of the caching world are glad I am not running the game!

CARoperPhotography
03-03-2010, 10:30 PM
I think Brdad is a paid consultant for Groundspeak.

CARoperPhotography
03-03-2010, 10:31 PM
I'd just say get rid of the max 5 PQs per day rule.

masterson of the universe
03-04-2010, 02:18 AM
When you run a My Finds PQ, doesnt that allow for more than 500? Aside from time and the obvious deleted logs, whats in place to stop someone from paying for a premium membership, logging every cache in the world as a find, then running a My Finds PQ? Wouldn't that allow for someone to fill GSAK with every cache out there all in one PQ?

brdad
03-04-2010, 07:23 AM
I think Brdad is a paid consultant for Groundspeak.

It can see how it looks that way, I think I have stood up for their practices quite a bit lately. But you can see from what I said a few posts ago you can also see I would do a lot of things differently if I was running the show. The biggest reason I back them a bit is whatever they are doing despite maybe not being perfect is working - they are making a profit and new caches are being placed every day and new members are joining at an astonishing rate. If they can do that while the gov't is running us into a hole they might be doing something right.


When you run a My Finds PQ, doesnt that allow for more than 500? Aside from time and the obvious deleted logs, whats in place to stop someone from paying for a premium membership, logging every cache in the world as a find, then running a My Finds PQ? Wouldn't that allow for someone to fill GSAK with every cache out there all in one PQ?

That would work, but they only allow you to get that PQ once a week instead of every day, and it only includes your logs on those caches. So that still limits your ability to maintain fresh and complete data.

fins2right
03-04-2010, 10:19 PM
But if you were not a cacher and owned a business, would you have a more favorable view of caching if someone come in and presented the idea to you or if they just hid one without asking permission, and you did not find out until you saw people poking about your property?

I had to think about that one. I guess I'm not sure. I suppose if I found one near my business that was in a nice container and well maintained, I'd be alright with it. I guess it would depend on my type of business and the location of the cache. I suppose I'm thinking of it as a draw to get people inside, which is not keeping with the spirit of the game. I'll have to chew on that one for a while. I guess it would be nice to have prior notice, but I'm not sure if I'd exactly freak out if the intention was good. :)

brdad
03-09-2010, 07:28 AM
According to the head toad, 1000 cache PQs will be available by May 2!

Ekidokai
03-09-2010, 01:01 PM
You are a great and wonderful king. I bow before you.

Mainiac1957
03-09-2010, 04:55 PM
According to the head toad, 1000 cache PQs will be available by May 2!

That will make my geowoodstock PQ's a whole lot easier to get.

brdad
03-09-2010, 05:17 PM
Yep, seriously!

lexmano
03-09-2010, 05:23 PM
According to the head toad, 1000 cache PQs will be available by May 2!

Thanks for the word, Dave!:D

masterson of the universe
03-09-2010, 11:24 PM
That will be nice. For now, we'll be able to get the whole state in just 6 PQ's instead of 12.