Misconceptions About the "Alternative" Caching Sites

[DudleyGrunt]

There seems to be a wide-spread misconception from people who either spend too much time on the Groundspeak forums or only know what they hear from other misinformed cachers, that the non-Groundspeak caching sites don't have rules / guidelines for placing caches and may even encourage illegal / irresponsible geocaching that is sure to endanger the hobby, as a whole.

I shared on 5 local / global forums the primary chunks of the OCUS, Navicache, and TerraCaching guidelines and even highlighted certain aspects, regarding obtaining permission.

I won't repost the whole thing here, but if you're curious would like to help spread the word on your local forums, you can see my post on the Maryland Geocaching Society forums for inspiration.

If you're not involved in any local caching forums, I'd encourage you to become active in them. First, it's one of my biggest recommendations to new cachers. Secondly, they could stand to hear the voices of more people to know that Groundspeak is not the only game in town and can help them not just be the "Geocaching.COM Organization of Wherever", but the "GEOCACHING Organization of Wherever". Along with your local caching organization, I'd recommend listening and contributing to some of the various caching podcasts.

[caughtatwork]

Geocaching Australia does not have a reviewer system. That doesn't mean we don't look at and act on illegally placed cached though. The SBA style notes are acted on to archive listings that are placed illegally. The Australian geocaching community monitor their own caches and act accordingly.

We go one better than Groundspeak in terms of caches places in National Parks. Australia does not have a blanket ban of caches in National Parks, but NSW (one of our states) requires permission to place a cache. We have what we call "zones" which are bounded areas where if you try to list a cache in an area where permission is required, your listing will not be activated until you provide proof of permission.

The zone marked NSW NPWS Managed Area http://geocaching.com.au/zone/select/9 requires permission. When you attempt to list your cache, the co-ords are checked as to whether they are in a permission zone and you are told that you cannot list the cache without permission. This is better than the GS "submit the cache and hope the reviewer picks it up". i.e. It's fully automated.

Take this zone as an example.
http://geocaching.com.au/zone/view/67/

Click into the Google Map.
http://geocaching.com.au/zone/gmap/67/

You can see that part of the green area is covered and part isn't covered. That's because the top left portion of green, which looks like part of the park, is actually a state forest and Geocaching does not require permission in that area.

So while we, nor GS, can check a location for illegal placements, we have an online, realtime tool that Geocachers can use to determine in their cache is in a permission zone and act accordingly. i.e. It's all self-service rather than submit and hope the reviewer notices the separation of permission vs. non-permission areas, even in contiguous "national parks".

[DudleyGrunt]

Thanks. I didn't include GCAU (do folks use that acronym?), since I am not familiar with the site in much detail. Good info.

[caughtatwork]

We refer to ourselves as GCA (GeoCaching Australia).

We're so far away from the Open Caching network of sites what with you all being in the Northern Hemisphere. I think we're the only Southern Hemisphere alternative. opencaching.com has a few cross listed caches down under but no unique ones that I can see. So you're perfectly justified in not knowing what we do. Come visit the site one day. You might find some things we do that might be able to help you with (I'm one of the developers of the site).

My point in posting is that with the wonders of spatial data (if you can get it) is that you can avoid the necessity of relying on people to do the work. With the data in place and a small but of coding, you can determine what's in a permission area and automatically inform the hider. With the GC model, you need to submit and hope that you are OK with the placement.

I appreciate we're only really covering one country (albeit a bloody great big one) and the same approach may not be viable worldwide, but as a rebuttal to the "no rules" mob, alternative listing sites, even though they do not have a review process, still act responsibly.

We have some 2,500 physical caches listed (along with about 5,800 trigpoints you might call them benchmarks) and I can only recall 1 being archived for being hidden in a drain (which is illegal) and was archived the day it was listed and 1 in a National Park that required permission but the map data was a little bit "off". That was also archived after a member posted a SBA log. So 2 of 2,500 is a pretty good hit rate for a site that has no formal review process. I think GC let through just as many even though they have a review process. Humans are not infallible either.

We also don't have a proximity rule, so there's a big thing that the GC reviewers have to worry about that we don't. We highlight any caches within 161m (.1m) of any other cache (except multi and mystery) so it's the choice of the hider as to whether they perceive any proximity issues. We're pretty much laid back down here.

That's another point. We don't have the same proliferation of caches as the US or some parts of Europe, so we don't have the same needs for as many guidelines as GC, but unfortunately if you list on GC you get stuck with US centric rules. I suppose my point here is that different strokes for different folks and so the standard reviewer enforcement doesn't need to come into play in other regions of the world.

I visit your site every other day or so and wish you and your fellow Open Caching network colleagues well.

[DudleyGrunt]

Thanks. I do feel, as I've learned more about GCA, this year, that we're definitely family.

The OC code alerts us if a submitted cache appears to be placed on National Park Service land and then we can act accordingly.