by Michael Malvick (Greatland Reviewer) and Sarah Pace (RSPace)
Hello Fellow Alaskan Cachers:
It has been way too long since I have posted about what I am doing with respect to cleaning up the Alaskan gameboard.
Owner Attention Requested (formally known as “Needs Maintenance”): I posted Reviewer Notes on 203 caches with the “Owner Attention Requested” attribute showing for which I had not previously posted a note. There are a total of 509 caches with “Owner Attention Requested.”
Cache Owners are requested to check their Dashboard at www.geocaching.com/play/owner to quickly view which of their cache pages have the “Owner Attention Needed” attribute set, which cache pages are “Temporarily Disabled,” which cache pages have recently had a “Reviewer Note” posted to them, and which cache pages have a low “Health Score” as calculated by the Groundspeak algorithm.
There are currently 186 temporarily disabled cache pages in Alaska. Alaska is well into summer, so now is a good time to perform cache maintenance while the most people are in the field looking for your caches and the caches are accessible.
Overlapping the temporarily disabled caches are caches with a Low Health Score. Many of these caches are already temporarily disabled and those that aren’t are tracking toward being disabled unless the Cache Owner performs maintenance, posts an “Owner Maintenance” log on the cache page, and enables the cache page (if applicable).
Some cache pages receive a Low Health Score due to a growing string of “Did Not Find It” and “Owner Attention Requested” logs because they have a high degree of difficulty, NOT because there is a problem with the cache. Cache Owners can “reset” the Health Score by periodically checking on their difficult caches and posting an “Owner Maintenance” log assuring the local Reviewer and cachers that all is actually well with the cache and the cache is still ready to be found.
The “Temporarily Disabled” and “Low Health Score” cache numbers are about half of what there were in late 2021, so the playing field has improved, but can be better when compared to other regions.
Regular communication with the local Reviewer and the caching community using the appropriate notes on the cache pages goes a long way toward maintaining a healthy playing field. Let’s all do our part!