Tutorial Chapter 1
From TCki
Contents |
Sponsorship Overview
Terracaching is unique in that two sponsors are required for each member in order to have full access to the site.
What is a sponsor?
Sponsor is...
- One who assumes responsibility for another person or a group during a period of instruction, apprenticeship, or probation.
- One who vouches for the suitability of a candidate for admission.
In Terracaching, your sponsors vouch for you. They also become your cache reviewers and approvers. You can choose your sponsors and you can fire them if you aren't satisfied with their performance (disputed rulings, timeliness of approvals, etc.). They can also withdraw or revoke their sponsorship at any time. This encourages everyone to play nicely.
The sponsorship network looks somewhat like a family tree or a genealogy pedigree chart. One player at the top, sponsoring one or more players, each sponsoring one or more, and so on.
Your sponsor, and everyone above them on the hierarchy are known here as your "upline," (think of ancestors on your family tree.) The players you sponsor, and everyone below them on the tree, are known as your "downline," (think of descendants on your family tree.)
The sponsorship tree, like your family tree, cannot loop back on itself. For instance, if you withdraw from one of your sponsors, you cannot be sponsored by someone (anyone, anywhere) on your downline. (think for example about your family tree, how your daughter cannot give birth to your father).
The sponsorship system allows Terracaching to have more local review over the legality of placed caches, and a more fair system of appeals when a reviewer/approver/sponsor makes a decision you don't agree with.
By the way, "Sponsor" is correctly spelled S-P-O-N-S-O-R. There is no "E" or "C" in Sponsor. (There is no I in Team, either, but there is an M and an E.)
Getting Sponsored
Getting sponsored here is not difficult, but it does often take a little effort from you to get the ball rolling. Here's some tips on what you can do.
- When you register with the site, one item on the form you'll fill out asks for your location. Putting a city & state or country here will greatly help you get offers. Note that the offers may not necessarily come from people in your area, but giving a location shows that you're at least interested in playing enough to tell us something about yourself. If you alread signed up and forgot to fill in that field, you can still do so by editing your profile.
- Once your account is created and you've confirmed your email address, you can log in and get to the "Applications for Sponsorship" section of the forums. Post a quick message here asking for sponsorship. No lengthy bio is necessary. Something brief like, "I'm from __________, just bought a GPS and would love to get involved in this community" is often plenty to get the sponsors you need.
- Once you receive a couple offers (might take a few hours), you can log in, go to TerraCentral and accept any two you like (See "Selecting Sponsors" below.)
Staying Sponsored
Sponsorship is not permanent. You could lose it at any time, for many reasons. Some of them might be beyond your control (such as one of your sponsors getting busy with life and deciding to cut some people loose). But, here's a few tips to make sure you don't unnecessarily lose sponsorship.
- Log in occasionally. If your sponsors see you've logged in and looked around in in the past couple weeks, they at least know you're alive and well and still interested. If you've found (or even placed) several terracaches, your sponsors will likely be much more tolerant to you not logging in for a while, since you've already demonstrated that you're serious about playing.
- Be nice to your fellow cachers, both online, and in life.
- Don't post illegal caches.
- Cross posting caches is generally frowned upon, so if you are convinced that your cache needs to be here and on some other site GCRTNO, please contact your sponsors first. Some will approve them, some won't. Depends on your area, and the cache in question.
Things to consider when
Selecting a sponsor:
- Location: Will your sponsor be familiar with the terrain, laws, language, culture and customs of the area where you will be placing caches?
- Familiarity: Does your prospective sponsor know you? You might have a better rapport with someone you know. On the other hand, "familiarity breeds contempt..." and you wouldn't want to jeopardize a friendship over a disputed cache listing.
- Availability: When you submit that cache, you usually want a quick review of it. No one wants to see their cache languish un-reviewed for a week. Check the terracaching.com profile of any prospective sponsor and see when they last logged in. If they haven't logged in for a month, you might want to choose someone else.
- Workload: Some sponsors have sponsored one or two members, others have fifty or more. Will your sponsor be overworked when people start placing more caches? Maybe you like a more personal touch instead of being one in a crowd.
Changing Sponsors:
- Tangled Tree: The sponsorship network looks like a family tree. No one in your downline can sponsor you, just as no child of yours could father your parents. So be careful before you fire any given sponsor. Depending on who is in your downline, you may find that you can't get re-sponsored locally.
- Cut and Run: If you get into a situation where you need to fire a sponsor and can't get responsored because everyone who would likely re-sponsor you is somewhere in your downline, you can "Cut and Run," or withdraw sponsorship from your entire downline as well as your sponsors. At that point, you're a free agent and anyone could sponsor you.
- Communicate: When making any kind of sponsorship change, be sure to communicate the change in advance to everyone affected. Your sponsors, and especially your immediate downline. Unless you explain your actions well in advance, you'll likely upset everyone in your downline when they suddenly find themselves without a sponsor, and unable to post new caches.
Offering Sponsorship:
- Location: It may be necessary from time to time to sponsor someone out of your area to get a new area (country, state) jump-started. In these instances it is a courtesy to let the sponsoree know that you will not be offended if they later opt to withdraw from your sponsorship in order to draw on more local sponsors.
- Familiarity: Does your prospective sponsoree know you? You have to balance rapport against the possibility that you will lose a friend if they don't like the way you review caches.
- Availability: Will you be available to review and approve caches in a timely manner?
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