Breaking your own rules
One seems to hold pork barrel politics when it comes to following their own rules. When people having difficulties having their genuine caches approved, others don’t seem to no troubles in having outrageous caches approved.
You probably know which caches I’m talking about:
- International Space Station by Richard Garriott (GC1BE91)
- Rainbow Hydrothermal Vents by Lord British (GCG822)
Despite the fact that aren’t recent, they incur – by all means rightly – a lot of fuss and displeasure. Why’s that? Simply, the break every rule hurled at ones head upon approval:
- ‘GPS usage is an essential element of geocaching’. I’m aware of letterbox caches where the owner had much difficulty getting this cache approved since the reviewer had the feeling that it didn’t make enough use of a GPSr. It’s clear that the ISS cache isn’t located in Kazakhstan as the coordinates give the impression
- ‘As the cache owner, you are also responsible for physically checking your cache periodically… It may be difficult to fulfill your maintenance obligations if you place a cache while traveling on vacation or otherwise outside of your normal caching area’. This so called holiday rule is applied strictly on earth caches. I don’t see the owner of these 2 caches have the ability to do regular maintenance. There are some logistical and financial hurdles to clear in order to establish that.
- ‘The geocache is presumed to be commercial if the finder is required to go inside a business, interact with employees, and/or purchase a product or service, or if the cache listing has overtones of advertising, marketing, or promotion.’ It is clear that both caches violate this rule:
- The ISS cache says: ‘Today only the American Space Shuttle and Russian Soyuz vehicles can reach the ISS. This will be changing soon, not only is the shuttle retiring soon … but there is a fleet of private space vehicles coming soon’
- The Vents cache says: ‘Most years Deep Ocean Expeditions … takes people down to these vents’
I you have the ability to make the use of any of the above commercial services – if available anyway – don’t come as cheap as e.g. a bus ticket
- An obscure rule – that isn’t described in the guidelines – seems to say that a cache which hasn’t been logged > 1 year needs to be checked. I’ve seen reviewer notes threatening to archive the cache in that case. The above caches have never been logged in their life time.
I can only see two reasons for these two caches:
- It’s a April Fool’s joke. It might seem funny at first sight – it even made rise my mouth corners a bit (I’m a grumpy old man, but not a sourpuss) – but it’s getting corny and – since there (ate least) two of them – stale
- It’s a classic text book example of how it shouldn’t be done
Whatever it is, the reason for being active can’t be justified when one is a busybody towards others when they try to add some useful towards the rest of the geocaching community. I can consequently only conclude that the above caches (and other follies) needs to be archived asap and RIP in the next world or chronicles of the geocaching history.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
They’ve been there long enough and haven’t been a problem. It’s all in good fun in my opinion…. even though they are definitely not cachable and do not meet guidelines.
February 6th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
@LilLuckyClover Just checked in on these caches, and they have been locked by GC.com…. some reviewers don’t seem to understand the rules of the game. Clearly the Vents cache was commercial due to advertising a business. And the other was impossible to get…. This is more a black eye to the reviewers more than anything!
February 6th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Locking a cache isn’t sufficient. They should be archived.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
@LilLuckyClover: those caches were published by Iryshe and Bryan. That´s two-thirds of the founders and shareholders of Groundspeak. I think you´ll find that they understand the rules of the game fairly well.
The reviewers and cache placers work to a set of rules. Groundspeak can waive any or all of those rules, any time they like. This is not a democracy.
As for \commercial\: Groundspeak has no problem with commercial caches, as long as you either pay for the space, or get their prior approval. Regular reviewers cannot give that approval. But there is no rule that says \there can be no commercial caches\.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
@sTeamTraen Even if they are permitted, there is no reason for having these commercial caches. A normal geocacher can’t afford these commercial services.
February 7th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
If these two caches really cause so much grief why not just ignore them?
The ISS cache may not technically be in Kazakhstan but unless you were planning on hiding your own cache within 520ft of the posted coordinates does it really matter? And even if you were I don’t suppose a reviewer is really going to refuse your reasoning for why the ISS cache doesn’t break the proximity rules – it’s more than 520 feet above your cache for starters.
February 7th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
@ oojiflip Since the cache isn’t a mystery, the cache should be located at the given coordinates. At least, that’s the rule that the approvers (should) follow. I doubt that any coordinate would address the exact location of this cache and thus no GPS can be used, which is against the rules too.
February 7th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
@ErikaJean We’ve clearly a different taste about things