mirabilos<p>Groundspeak celebrates 25 years of <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/geocaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Geocaching</span></a>… with their own, edited, commercialised whitewashed history.</p><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040129232636/http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20040129232636/http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/</a> lists some parts of history they’d like to forget or which they may even censor people for. (At least they got the <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/gps" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GPS</span></a> Blue Switch Day right.)</p><p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/navicache" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Navicache</span></a> and <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/gpsgames" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GPSgames</span></a> are now defunct and I never managed to find <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@radioscout" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>radioscout</span></a></span> ’s GE caches. Even the <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/opencaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Opencaching</span></a> network, while historically strong, never was able to get into users’ minds especially after Groundspeak made it into a mainstream-ish hobby (to get more money), let alone <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/terracaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Terracaching</span></a>. They did try again to subsume the much older <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/letterboxing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Letterboxing</span></a> but it also persists independently. The <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/xkcd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>xkcd</span></a> <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/geohashing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GeoHashing</span></a> activity levels are also rather low these days, unfortunately. See <a href="https://mbsd.evolvis.org/cvs.cgi/www/mk/wp.inc?rev=HEAD" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><code>wp.inc</code></a> (or <a href="https://mbsd.evolvis.org/cvs.cgi/www/files/wp.pm?rev=HEAD" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><code>wp.pm</code></a>) for quite the list of known <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/waypoint" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>waypoint</span></a>-like præficēs (contributions welcome) and what became of them… although almost nobody laments the loss of <code>opencaching.com</code> (which was even <em>less</em> open than the CC-BY-NC-SA Opencaching Network). I did have quite some fun with <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/geodashing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GeoDashing</span></a> and <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/geovexilla" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GeoVexilla</span></a> while it lasted, though never managed <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/shutterspot" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Shutterspot</span></a> nor even looked at <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/geogolf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GeoGolf</span></a>.</p><p>Meanwhile, Groundspeak has not only hidden their brands of <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/hitchhikers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Hitchhikers</span></a> (<a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/travelbug" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Travelbug</span></a> and <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/geocoin" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Geocoin</span></a>) on the ISS but also a cache, which obviously cannot be true as it’s not even geostationary. At least <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/geokrety" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GeoKrety</span></a> got a revival recently.</p><p>Groundspeak’s own (or maybe bought then EEE’d?) <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/wherigo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Wherigo</span></a> almost didn’t survive the end of the PocketPC era and, like their lab caches (now styled "adventure labs" in groups, with quite the lack of useful APIs), is dominated by people reverse-engineering them to get their found count into the ten-thousands. Their <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/waymarking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Waymarking</span></a> seems to be forgotten as well but I noticed dozens of new ones around <code>::1</code> in a granularity fine enough to compete with virtual munzees, so I guess some people still do use it. Many things are now hidden behind commercial smartphone äpps instead of being hackable (or at least scrapable; I remember getting <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/expedia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Expedia</span></a> maps with <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/mobac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>MOBAC</span></a> for <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/cachewolf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>CacheWolf</span></a>; none of the other GPS Stash Hunt software I’ve seen has such a great database of waypoints as CW had…) and always requiring more mobile internet than is sensible (especially <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/munzee" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Munzee</span></a> is).</p><p>Have I forgotten anything other than the country-specific sites (like <code>GA</code>) I cannot comment on?</p><p>Ah. <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/bessercacher" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>BesserCacher</span></a> ("better cacher"), a list of supposedly good caches. They changed their URL scheme from their own WPs to Groundspeak’s and completely lost entries. I think they’re gone. And <a href="https://toot.mirbsd.org/tags/extremcaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Extremcaching</span></a> (similar but for really extreme expensive exhausting caches) which probably is still going but not really what I’m looking for in a hobby I use to balance all my computer-using (and the other balance hobby, music, singing and playing some instruments).</p><p>Anyway, contributions welcome! (And please boost to larger instances.)</p>