One of the issues
I've been wrestling with as we approach The Meeting on Friday is how the growth
of Geocaching increases the probability of things happening on cache hunts that
I think we'd all agree are undesirable. I'm talking about everything from
trailblazing to failing to properly re-hide a cache.
I think that many
times these types of things happen not out of malice but out of inexperience. I
can think of many things that Judi and I did or didn't do on our earlier cache
hunts that still make me shudder with embarrassment. One of the things one gains
from experience is the realization that you once goofed, but you're sure not
going to goof that way again in the future.
But more beginners
means more goof potential. Here's a couple of stats I just pulled of azgeocaching.com:
There
were 209 teams with one AZ cache and no out of state finds. Besides those, there
were 478 more teams with 5 or fewer AZ finds AND 5 or fewer Out-of-State finds
(trying to eliminate experienced cachers who find one or two while vacationing
here). Now, even if we assume that half of the finds in the second group are
locationless caches based in Arizona (Yellow Jeep Fever, Carousel, etc.), that's
still over 400 "Neocachers" that are or have been caching in our state. As a
point of comparison, I think when we started caching about a year ago, finding
your first cache automatically put you into the top 300 in
Arizona.
Unlike many of
you, I can't even remember how we learned about Geocaching. But how many of you
can remember how (or when) you learned about azgeocaching.com? (Brian and Jason
excepted, of course.) Or the list server?
I'll bet that the
subscribers to this list server (counting the untold numbers of you who read and
don't post) have hidden somewhere between a quarter and a half of all the caches
in the state. Here's what I propose (and it wouldn't surprise me if some
of you are doing it already): Every time you get a notification that someone's
logged one of your caches, check out the team name. If you don't recognize it,
go to the log page and check out their find count. If they're Neocachers (let's
say five finds or fewer), send 'em an email! Welcome them into the fold, thank
them for finding (or hunting) your cache, let them know about azgeocaching.com,
invite them to the listserv, and offer to help them with any questions they
have. If they wrote about anything in the log that seems as though they were
struggling, mention it to them and offer to help them out with it. Send them
your email address, so they don't have to go back through geocaching.com.
(If you
want, check out their other finds first, and email those cache owners to see if
they've beaten you to it, but it's probably better if they get two or three
welcomes than none.) In other words, become a Geomentor.
I'd love to have
us able to tell the land managers on Friday that this is one of the things we do
to promote responsible Geocaching. Please let me know what you
think.
Steve
Team Tierra
Buena