Just an FYI, but geocaching.com does take it a step beyond posting guidelines for cache placement. Before any cache listing becomes active it is subject to an approval process. Geocaching.com has appointed approvers in charge of specific regions who do their best to make sure that all geocaching guidelines as well as local park guidelines have been met before making the listing active. Some approvers utilize satellite imagery with the coordinates plotted onto photos in order to aid them when appropriate.

As with any system there is always room for improvement. The geocaching community is very aware of how detrimental problem caches can be to the whole sport and many cachers take advantage of a feature called a “should be archived note”. This allows cachers who have come across an inappropriate cache to make direct contact with the appropriate approver in order to communicate any problems with the cache and to recommend that it be disabled or removed from the website.

Happy Caching

cheers.

I can’t speak for other States but here in Minnesota, the geocaching community does go above and beyond the call of duty when a cache is placed in an unacceptable area or has been “archived” (delisted) and hasn’t been removed.

I have met with members of both the Three Rivers Park District and the Minnesota DNR and had lengthy discussions with them regarding various issues that were of concern when geocaching originally was in the spotlight (2001/2002).

Three Rivers, for instance, has noticed no negative impact in their parks even though one of their *biggest* concerns in 2002 was the possibility of “cache litter” due to cache owners not picking up cache containers after they were delisted. In fact, the MnGCA Board suggested in December of 2005 that their limit of three caches per park be raised — while we have no specific number of what the new limit will be it does appear that the numbers will be increased per park when the Three Rivers Board meets in late January to discuss this proposition.

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To reply to jeanfid’s comment that it has come up more than once in Scott County — I’m surprised as there aren’t all that many geocaches located in Scott County as Shakopee, Belle Plaine, Savage, and various other towns (minus Prior Lake which has a handful or so) just don’t have the park land available to hide caches in (Shakopee is especially limited due to the National Wildlife Refuge running through it).

If someone in Scott County would like to speak to someone point them to me — I’d be happy to help out in any way I can.

The ethical issues, as well as most all other concerns are covered in depth within the gc.com forums: http://forums.groundspeak.com/gc/
which are pretty heavily read by cachers across the Nation/World.

Local groups suchs mngca are an extension of that – and also discuss similar concerns.

Remeber, you cant instill ethics into an un-ethical person tho.

Guidelines are super, but I hope the geocaching community (which is obviously quite strong and organized, from the article and this thread) is aware that as it grows (and I would expect it to rather quickly in the years ahead) it needs to be very proactive in instilling good ethics in their membership.

There are guidelines against burying, using glass containers, and Hiding under bridges so it should Not Be A Worry for you.

Become informed before getting all worried about possibilities that dont exist