2007 GOWT Favorite Cache Awards

Tuesday night I got word that the winners of the 2007 GOWT Favorite Cache Awards were posted. I didn't nominate any caches this year, but I was interested in the results because I knew my friend jbgreer had won an award.

As I looked over the list, I noticed two things: 1) The majority of the winners were members of the Leadership and Advisory Committees, and 2) bitbrain won two of the twelve awards.

The first was not surprising as I suspect that not many members participated in the selection process. The second, however, struck me as odd. I went back and reviewed the rules (which were posted earlier in the same thread) and sure enough bitbrain did not qualify.

I was certain that he was not a paid member in 2007 because I have a copy of the membership list dated just prior to the anniversary party.

At first, I wasn't going to say anything... After thinking about it I realized that most members would never know anything was wrong unless somebody spoke up.

I posted on the thread a comment: "Technically, bitbrain was not a paid member in 2007 so he did not qualify for an award."

Pcsenn replied shortly after: "You are correct, but since we are human, and sometimes we make mistakes, we ask that those who are perfect not be too harsh on us... But then again it does say "should" and not "must". I guess technically there was no foul... So HAPPY GEOCACHING!!!"

This is a typical response from GOWT leadership. Do not hold yourselves accountable or responsible in any way.

I responded: "Tell that to the person who came in second place...."

Chibongo simply ignored my comments and responded: "My congrats to all the winners!!!"

I was going to leave it alone because there was not much else I could say, but at this point the "Father of Tennessee Geocaching", JoGPS posted a comment: "I was the one that came is second place and it was a real pleasure to get beat by bitbrain who is da man in the Memphis area , will have to try harder next year"

I knew this was a bait, so my final response was: "I wasn't aware that you had any caches in West Tennessee (another requirement). Thanks for playing."

JoGPS then tried one last bait: "you only think you know all of my login names, but then again you pretend to know a lot of things"

Ok, whatever dude.

I expected at some point for a moderator to ask for comments to be on-topic and even noticed Moderator 1 and Moderator 4 logged onto the site at different times during the day. They did absolutely nothing.

At 8:43pm on Wednesday, the entire thread disappeared courtesy of the "webmaster".

What the overall effect of this was:

Members of GOWT can continue to have little to no confidence in the integrity of a voting system administered by the GOWT leadership. Whether voting for club officers or cache awards, you can't just say "Oops, no harm no foul" when rules are obviously violated. This appears to be lost on pcsenn and no doubt others as well.

A secondary effect was that the moderation process in GOWT is still ineffectual and the "webmaster" can still make what appears to be unilateral decisions on what content is allowed.