Flame On.

One of the problems with the internet is that it's always open season for
the thin-skinned to take offense. Jokes are interpreted as affronts, friendly ribbing is a stab in the side. Direct criticism is punishable by electrocution.

One of the problems with a geocache rating system, the opponents argue, is that it's open to flaming. Ppl who don't like you will rate your caches into the toilet. If that's all they do, rather than actually stealing your cache containers and physically chucking them into a toilet, that's preferable, I say. But the worry is there.

I don't see why, geocaches don't care if they're winning a popularity contest. Their owners do, though. Place a cache and hover over it like a proud parent, expecting the world to queue up and coo over your baby.

All of my (active) cache babies are available for review. Not an hour after they were up, someone [read: the only other Kern cacher with reviewable caches on the site] rated a couple of mine as lowly as possible. Granted, they're pretty sucky, but maybe not meritorious of the worst possible. Am I gonna cry? I haven't yet.

I'll take my licks at the bottom end, and try to take the best ratings with a grain of salt too. The idea is to see what's trending, what kind of caches are making ppl happy or getting just a lukewarm response. The worst, I'm predicting, will be if they get no review at all - that's mediocrity at it's uh, most mediocre.

Next up: a rubric to check before cache placement - hopefully to ensure that it's not absolutely flammable. Or, to ensure that they're the type of caches I like to find. Your opinion? Blow it out your @ss.