[Az-Geocaching] You can audit your caches if they are "Member s Only" caches (and other benefits)

[Ford, Denny]

Ken,
I agree with you on encouraging other to become Charter Members, but your view of keeping the authorities at bay I have
to strongly disagree.  If a cache is in a spot that the land managers disagree, it should be removed.  This is their
right as the land managers to allow certain activities or not, when we do not abide by this we can endanger our sport by
leaving us up for criticism and supporting some past claims that we are vandals.  
 
The reasoning to keep vandal from destroying caches I do not believe are done by Cachers, I feel they are done by others
who stumble onto them.  Unless they are hidden (or buried) there is very little way of stopping this.
 
Therefore, I agree to help support the website we should join, but for your other reasons I do not think they would
solve the problem and making caches members only just limits newbies from enjoying some caches.  We as cachers, need to
be aware not to bring attention to ourselves when we are looking for caches and use common sense of when it is just not
wise to grab or replace the cache if we are at risk of being caught.  In some cases this might reduce or eliminate the
problem of caches being plundered by using common sense and by using stealth.
 
Just my opinion and No personal attacks are intended in this response.
Denny

-----Original Message-----
From: ken@highpointer.com [mailto:ken@highpointer.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 11:27 AM
To: listserv@azgeocaching.com
Subject: [Az-Geocaching] You can audit your caches if they are "Members Only" caches (and other benefits)



I have tranformed my easily accessible urban non-virtual caches into "Members Only" caches.  I did this to reduce the
chances of these caches being stolen or plundered.  All of my virtual caches and caches that are more difficult to get
to are still available for access to all.

If we make more caches "Members Only", then this would encourage more people to acquire Charter Memberships.  This may
potentially keep the authorities at bay, because some of them may remove caches from parks or other public lands that
they manage, even if the cache is in a good place for a cache to be. This happened to me with the one cache of mine that
was removed, "Pinnacle Peak Park".  I may reactivate this one soon, but I will change its name, use a small container of
little or no value (such as a coffee can), and make it "Members Only" to keep it as low-profile as possible.

Another cache that was removed by parks authorities was a cache located near the highest point of Arkansas, Magazine
<http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=22675&decrypt=y> Mountain Mother Lode.  Magazine Mountain is now
in an Arkansas state park, and an Arkansas Parks Department Ranger removed this cache during the summer.

I found a new feature with "Members Only" caches - the ability to audit your cache so you can see who has read it.  Here
is an example of what I saw when I audited "Angels Spring Training World Championship Edition":

Audit Log for 
Angels Spring Training World Championship Edition

12/5/2002 10:11:52 AM    Highpointer <http://www.geocaching.com/profile/default.asp?A=32381>   

What do other Geocachers think about making more caches "Members Only"?  In my opinion, it's a good way to manage urban
caches and those with easy access, because those are the most likely to be stolen or plundered.

Ken