Exploring Life

Geocaching, geocoins and the many roads of life.

This is made up of stories from my caching and my reviewing.  It is a collection of those along with comments and thoughts.  Photos, and maps of some adventures and lists of some of the oldest caches.

Filtering by Tag: Maintenance Sweep

Long time since last posting

I was looking at my notes this last week, and the numbers of caches that I have published.  Soon I will go over 2,000.  It is surprising that there have been that many.  Sometimes I have vast numbers in my review list, and other times it is just a trickle.  I look forward to the coming of fall & winter and the inevitable slowdown of listings. 
    Thanks for all the help many of you give me, for the advice, and kind words.  A few days were filled with a flood of angry emails, so a simple email thanking you means a lot.  About six weeks ago I placed notices on 250 caches that had been disabled for 6 or more weeks.  For those that are interested,  50 were archived within 24 hours by the owners.  another 50 were fixed in the following weeks.  Still over the 4-5 weeks owners archived another 25.  That left about 125 caches.  As I skimmed through them a bunch of them had plans listed from the cache owners, I left those alone.  The cache owners were taking the time to work on them, or had a plan to do something.  In the end a lot of caches were archived.  I hate archiving caches.  The few days that followed were spent unarchived caches that owners went out and fixed and a few angry people.  It is funny how someone can ignore a cache for a year, with Needs Archived Notes and Needs Maintenance notes then multiple DNF's then get mad that I archived their cache after a 4 week warning.
    My time with you has been fantastic.  Periodically I help in other states, It has been fun to work with other areas.  The people here in Utah are really nice, or you don't send your complaints to me.  Thank you.  You make caching in this state.  You place them, maintain them, and watch over them. 
    Befor
e I end, I wanted to throw in one thing.  If you have a problem, concern, issue, dislike, or whatever, feel free to contact me.  I have made a number of concerned emails and posting on the reviewer forums, and most of them are your ideas.  Things you have told me, I have read on the UTAG forums, or at different events over the years.  I also take listen to critique.  If you feel I am wrong, or that I should do something differently, please let me know.  Sometimes I ask another reviewer to look at my decision, I have taken some decisions to all the reviewers to get input.  That does not mean that you will get the answer you want.  I don't always get the answer I want, but I will deal with you fairly. 
    
If you look at the statistics page you see I deal with about 15 caches a day that are published, about another 5 are troubled and I have to work with you to find a way to get them listed.  I have had up to 150 caches for me to review (one time-recently) and a few times in the 40-50 range.  If I don't get back to you email me or post on your listing.  On that note.  If you give me 10+ caches you will move to the bottom of my list.  Plan on them taking a while.  It is not fair to other cachers for me to deal with one persons listings for 2 days, and ignore them.  So if you have something that you need done plan ahead and have me look at them.  The few caches for Geocoinfest were planned 3 months ago, they have just been waiting for later today for me to publish.  Another cacher contacted me and spoke to me in detail about her listings. 
    Sometimes I don't have options.  Sometimes there are policy decisions that I don't like, but that's part of the reviewers job.  I don't have to like policy or the guidelines at times, but I do have to follow them, and I do my best to be fair.  When in doubt ask me, I will try and answer.


Mass review

    Well hopefully this puts me at the end of my mass review process before winter starts rolling in.  Thanks to everyone.  A few sent me messages of troubled caches in their area, and some pointed out caches with issues.  I sent notice out to hundreds of caches that had been disabled over 4-6 weeks.  About 1/3 were archived or repaired in a few days time.  Many others posted notes letting me know what their plans were for repairing a cache.  I figure there are a few that are on vacation, and have not had a chance to post anything. 
    Thank you for fixing issues, and taking pride in your caches.  Good luck and keep on caching.


The quick review

Well I am trying to skim through 14000 caches as fast as I can. I had set a goal to get it done by mid month.  I am doing a quick look for problem caches. Caches that appear to be missing.  I don't look to hard or evaluate 10+ DNF if the difficulty is high.  But most the others just get ignored and I wanted to flag them so people can go and check on them before the snow flies. 
If you get the message, don't panic.  You can post a note saying that you are going to get to it in 3-4 weeks.  I would like some info that you are checking on it.  If someone has flagged your cache as "Needs archived"  that is almost like me letting you know. If you have not logged on in 6+ months and I see a Needs Archived I may let it go away.  I always give you time.  Time to get home from your vacation and let me know that you are going to go out.  Just throw a note up.
On the outside chance that it gets archived.  Let me know soon.  As soon as it is up and running and as long as it meets current listing requirements I will unarchive it.  Some people swoop on the sites, so let me know what you are doing so I do not publish a new cache there.  As allways let me know the GC code for the cache you are communicating to me.


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