MnGCA

[Marsha and Silent Bob]

My recently placed cache "Blackhawk Down" has been logged a handful of times. One of the loggers are a nice couple that noted that they trashed out some Geocaching printouts from the area presumably around the final cache.

Discussing it with another MNGCA'er I decided to email this particular team through the website and ask them to edit their log to not include that they specifically trashed out geo-junk. The other MNGCA'er and myself felt that it would put geocaching and geocachers in general in a bad light and it would be better left unsaid.

I received this response from them this morning:

However, I am not going to change my posting, for a few reasons.

1) It is the truth.
2) I believe geocachers should be more respectful of the public property on which we hide and find our caches, so I believe the posting is a reminder to geocachers to clean up the areas we visit, and definitely NOT to leave extra trash.
3) We cleaned up the trash, which will show park officials that geocachers care about litter.
4) Had a park official found the printout, then your cache would be at the same risk as it is now, plus the geocacher who left the litter would have some explaining to do, since his/her login name was printed on the litter.

I really believe that cachers need to be more respectful of property than they sometimes are, and I do not believe hiding the truth about this situation will help to improve our habits, so I will keep the posting just the way it is.

While I agree with everything that they said I still don't believe it is best to leave the comment in there as is. Asking other geocachers (outside of MN) has only given me the answer to delete their log and tell them tough. I am not into alienating cachers out there, especially ones that CITO.

What do you guys think?

Silent Bob

[King Boreas]

I went through something similar with posts telling future 'cachers how to bypass park admission fees. I didn't care if they did it, I just didn't think advice should be posted on the cache site. I gave up on it after awhile, and I guess it never really mattered.

I have found "litter" in a parking lot, that could have been anybody's, but I'm 90% sure it was probably from someone with a GPSr. I won't say what or where, but it gave me a new idea for a cache. I guess I'd better step up the R & D on that one, and get it posted.

If you were to ask an ADMIN, you'd probably get the answer I got:

Deleting is rather harsh for the offense.
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Joined: 16 Dec 2002

arrive...raise heck...leave (SCSA)

[hardware]

interesting question which brings to mind my thoughts of related and non-related issues.

i'm far from a tree-hugging environmentalist. i do, however, take a small amount of pride in helping improve the parkways and nature preserves that serve as the playgrounds for the game.

i haven't always been concerned with trashing out, but for whatever reason, i have made it a conscious effort in recent months to do so, even if it is generally on the small scale. while i don't often carry a trash bag in my pocket for return trips from cache sites, i try to find a nearby garbage can to place an item of two that i carry with me. in my recent expedition through purgatory park in minnetonka i'm sure i could have picked up a nice variety of garbage during my journey. what i do recall is that i picked up a half-full water bottle and a bagged, yet abandoned, collection of dog poo, and carried them with me for several minutes until i reached the next available garbage can.

in the past, (and i'm sure in the future as well,) i've had days that for whatever reason i didn't take the time to pick something up on my way out. perhaps i was in a hurry because i spent too much time searching for the cache. or perhaps i was just lazy that day.

but perhaps it was because i was disgusted, disgusted by the geocachers that preceded me. when i'm the 30th person to visit a cache site, and there are obvious signs of garbage that has been been festering for months, perhaps long enough that it requires carbon dating to determine its age, it's clear to me that the cache was either placed in the middle of a garbage dump, and the previous 29 groups have nearly eliminated the heaping piles of garbage that once existed, or that the majority of geocachers don't care about cleaning up the parks they scour. i'd bet on the latter of the two. (an actual example of this occurred in october, when i visited "plumber's wonder."

there's certainly the chance that all 29 of the groups that preceded me took the same approach as i sometimes do, picking up a can or bottle and carrying it back to the parking lot garbage can. but that's not likely the case.

the reality: of the hundreds of participants in minnesota, there's an undeterminable percentage that doesn't care. period. that's why they leave their cache print out in the cache, (i've seen that more than once,) or leave it laying around on the ground somewhere, for others to find and pick up at a later date.

should cache logs be edited or expunged because they don't reflect the nature-loving goodness of geocachers worldwide? i don't think so, because that's not an accurate representation of the game players as a whole. it may not make us all look like saints, but such a log might actually be viewed by the responsible party, or one like him/her/them, and give him/her/them something to think about.

[RJ]

If you feel strongly about it, delete the log. It is your cache and you have 100 percent control over the cache description page.

With that said, I agree with what kingboreas said about the punishment being harsh for the offense, or something like that. Obviously these are responsible geocachers and the truth can't hurt.

My first thought was maybe the person who left behind the geo-junk did so on accident. I know I've left behind things at cache sites, like my gps unit!

[Moe the Sleaze]

It would never have crossed my mind to delete the log or ask the finder to edit it. I think one finder showing the initiative to clean up the mess left by another more than makes up for the mess being left in the first place. I also agree that the log is a reminder to other cachers to not only "trash out" but to not leave messes of their own.
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"Hi, I'm Moe, or as the women know me - Hey! You in the bushes."
-Moe, The Simpsons

[Moe the Sleaze]

double post
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"Hi, I'm Moe, or as the women know me - Hey! You in the bushes."
-Moe, The Simpsons

[bobhiker]

Wow, this looks like a neat cache. I would just leave this one alone. It looks like there was only one cacher out to this one before it was visited by the one who made the comments. I didn't think they were too severe. I am disappointed also when I visit caches and find lots of old garbage.
However this cache is pretty new so it explains why there is so much old garbage in the area. The cacher that visited before may have accidently dropped a cache printout. The person is fairly new, with more finds than even me in the last two months than I have had in the last two years. If I was this active, I think I would accidently lose a copy of a cache page too once in awhile. Great job on trashing out!