A great reference to read on Geocaching etiquette can be found here, referenced as the Geocacher's Creed .
This series highlights a few etiquette issues, the first of which is the issue of First To Find.
This aspect is not officially recognised by Groundspeak and as such no formal rules exist on it. We are however a very close-knit community and everything we do in this wonderful game of ours directly or indirectly affects other players.
A simple motto to follow is "Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself".
That said, here are the simple expectations when chasing a first to find:
- Log the FIND immediately online as soon as you have found it. You could save a life, believe it or not! Or at least a lot of petrol, some people drive far for an FTF!
- Do not use a "write note" - this is not a find log and as a result it still appears as not-found in searches.
- You may not think you are taking part in the FTF chases, but if you are monitoring new caches and immediately go to a new cache once published, you are part of it.
- There are many players (members of the close knit community) who do make this part of their game. Be considerate and fair.
- There is a difference between a help-to-hide (HTH) and a first-to-find (FTF). First-mentioned is and can never be considered an FTF.
- A birthday cache is ALWAYS the right/privilege of the birthday boy/girl to FTF!
- Read the whole listing, important info may be hidden somewhere like in the source code.
