Geocaching taking a beating from Government Officials and the media as of late! (Part 1 of 3)

File this post under current events in Geocaching. We highly recommend all Geocachers subscribe to a Google news alert for the word Geocaching. Or alternatively, you can come read this blog, and look at the RSS feed we have of the 5 latest Geocaching news stories on the internet in the sidebar. Two "negative" stories came out this week, one regarding the mass removal of caches on BLM land in Oregon, and another with a negative headline about Geocaching and North Carolina State Gamelands, although the article itself is quite balanced and generally favorable towards Geocaching. But there is a 3rd "negative story" this week, that didn't show up on a Google news alert (yet), and  it's a big one. Here you see a parcel map of the State of Arizona. Everything shown in blue (light or dark) is State Trust Land. Although it's been said for years Geocaching is not an authorized recreational activity on these lands, State officials have apparently taken it to the next level. This week, Geocachng.com HQ archived over 4,400 caches on State Trust Land property. We do have an explanation from The Arizona Assistant Director of Natural Resources Division (via an email an Arizona Cacher received from them, and has given us permission to post and/or quote from). Originally intended to be one post touching on all three news stories, we've decided to cover all three of individually, beginning with the situation in Arizona.

Law enforcement officials express concern over Geocaching (Allegedly)

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We have not made any sort of announcement, but here at the OCNA blog, we have resolved to post more "Geocaching in the news" content in 2014. Considering the very popular Geocaching blog that normally covers current events (Notaboutthenumbers.com) hasn't been posted to in 4 months, save for a single guest blog post in November. No, we have no idea what's going on over there either. Unfortunately however, we're going to have to ring in 2014 with an absolutely preposterous negative news story on our hobby.

Bad Ideas, Bomb Scares, etc.

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It's no secret that many, many Geocaches have caused bomb scares in the U.S. and Canada since our game was invented in 2000. Elsewhere in the world too, of course, but we are a North American based blog, and the majority of these incidents occur in the United States. We doubt that anyone keeps statistics on the number of bomb squad incidents, but the Blogger, who has checked in and read the Geocaching.com forums several times a week for almost 10 years (where almost every incident is reported), would estimate the average to be between two and three per month.

A Google search of the phrase "Geocaching Bomb Scares" generally returns two Geocaching.com bookmark lists in the top results, both of which we at the blog have been aware of for several years. Bomb Scares and Other Fun Stuff, is the older of the two. However, this list has essentially been abandoned, and a quick scan of it tells you it hasn't had any new caches posted to it since 2007, although the adopted owner of the list is still an active Geocacher. The other top result, Bad Ideas, Bomb Scares, etc. is a very well maintained and regularly updated bookmark list, and is is the subject of this Blog post. The bookmark list owner, David Brierley (Geocaching.com Username: dbrierley), has graciously agreed to be interviewed by this Blog.

RSS Feeds, Geocaching in the News, a failed experiment, and a new experiment (be a BETA tester!)

Above is a (rather large and nicely done) RSS Feed icon. Might as well go with the Wikipedia definition, as follows: 

"RSS Rich Site Summary (originally RDF Site Summary, often dubbed Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship."

Here is an excellent article from Google support, titled Feed 101, should you need to read up more on what RSS feeds are, and how they work (in layman's terms). Now this blog post could be about just about any subject. But in Geocaching, we do in fact have new web content just about every day of what is bolded in the quote above: blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video.

EDIT: This has become the most viewed post on our blog over time. Hopefully the short overview and links above are helpful to all you search engine visitors!!