TAG :: Toronto Area Geocachers » grandfathered

Interesting development last week. You might have just found a Locationless cache, even if you started geocaching after 2006. Moun10bike made a small change to a cache listing, with an interesting side effect.

The cache in question is one that was common to log as an “armchair” find – GCF55a “Four Windows”, by Faxenmacher. This cache had a riddle about a house with four windows on it. If you answered the riddle correctly, you emailed the cache owner and you could log a find. 9,682 people did just that. The cache is no longer loggable, as it was archived and locked back in 2003.

Only one small issue, that the recent addition of “Souvenirs” brought to light. The cache was posted at N 55° 57.000  E 4° 00.000, in Niedersachsen, Germany. That meant 9,682 people got the Niedersachsen Souvenir, and many of those people had never travelled to Germany!

So, on the weekend, Moun10bike changed the listing from a Virtual to now be a Locationless type. This will also have an effect that the Stats tab coming tomorrow (and the MyGeocachingProfile.com site) – it won’t be telling a bunch of  Torontonians their farthest East cache find was in Germany (unless, of course you’ve been to Germany geocaching). Of course, when a change like this is made to a grandfathered cache or cache type, forum drama is sure to follow.

Since the cache is now locationless, it has no co-ordinates to mess with the stats programs. If you logged this cache in the past, you now have the locationless icon. On the flip side, you may have lost the Virtual icon if that was your only virtual find.

UPDATE: 2:00PM – Moun10Bike has changed it back to a Virtual:

Okay folks, I heard your concerns and have changed “Four Windows” back to what it was originally, a virtual. Since the Niedersachsen souvenir has already been retroactively awarded, this change back won’t affect that aspect of the souvenir.