Good article Bob. BTW - I bet that person "with 100+ finds within a few months can't control himself and his wife probably thinks he's obsessed" is HAVING A BLAST!!! Heck with the numbers. I'm very active now (used to be a couch potato), don't miss staying home, and am learning and seeing more of Arizona than most people. I have something to look forward to after work (yes Cody, I do work) and on weekends. Geocaching has also brought my family closer together. Getting my girls to "go with dad" used to be difficult, now they get mad at me for going cache hunting without them. Larry Farquhar 1/5 of Team "Wyle E" www.azjeeper.com -----Original Message----- From: az-geocaching-admin@listserv.snaptek.com [mailto:az-geocaching-admin@listserv.snaptek.com]On Behalf Of Bob Renner Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 9:18 AM To: az-geocaching@listserv.snaptek.com Subject: [Az-Geocaching] "Finding" caches To find or not to find, that is the question. There are a few circumstances where you could log your own cache as a find or where you could find a cache more than once. When a cache is moved (yours or anothers) and you have to re-find it, it's a find. I took some friends to a cache I had previously found. The container was moved to a completely different spot about 70 feet away and in a small hole in the rocks. We had to re-find this cache. I logged it as a find. At the time I thought it would not change my find number. I thought the number was the number of caches with a find log, not the number of find logs themselves. However, it was still a find. Also, the Beat the Heat Happy Hour cache was a joint cache by CBX2 and myself. They set up the location and gave me the coordinates and I entered the cache page. I logged that as a find because that was the first time I was there and had to "find" the resturant. My opinion is that the log itself should reflect what happened. If you found the cache, then log it as a find. Perhaps Jeremy should change the way the find number is generated to only count the caches with finds and not the find logs. However, this would complicate the situation where there is a moving cache which does have to be re-found whenever it's moved. It all boils down to what you're looking at. If you're looking at the logs themselves for the insight to what the hunter was thinking when he visited the cache, then the type of log should reflect what happened. If you're just looking at the numbers and not reading all of the logs, then the numbers need to be modified to only count the caches and not the logs. If geocaching.com didn't report the find number, this topic wouldn't even exist. ALL finds (your own or a re-find) would be logged as finds. I tend to put a little more information into what I did and saw during the hike or drive, and what I thought about the location. I also try to read all the logs of all the caches in Arizona. It helps me decide which caches I want to visit next. I don't care that much about my numbers. Sure it was nice to be number one. But it just showed, to me at least, that geocaching was something that I enjoyed. It was a way to show me new places I hadn't been to before. I enjoyed the challenge of finding something that someone left for me to find and in a location they thought was interesting. The numbers should only reflect the interest a person has in geocaching and should not be scrutinized for the exact value of that number. Someone with 1-5 finds is a neocacher and is just getting started. Someone with 15-20 finds is an experienced cacher and obviously knows how to hunt. Someone with 50+ finds is a seasoned cacher who has passed the novelty stage and definately enjoys the sport. Someone with 100+ finds within a few months can't control himself and his wife probably thinks he's obsessed ;) But he's probably having a great time. As far as the stats pages on Snaptek's web page - keep them there. Some people enjoy seeing them and they will find some way to calculate them. However, I don't think we need to argue over what is and what isn't a find. If someone wants to inflate their numbers, there are numerous ways this can be done other than the two mentioned here. I'm just trying to express what I did and pass on the information to the next person looking for the cache. Bob Renner Seasoned geocacher _______________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list Az-Geocaching@listserv.snaptek.com http://listserv.snaptek.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching