edexter
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Posts posted by edexter
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Hard to know what someone intended, but when I dnf a cache I log a dnf and if I later go back and find it, I log a find. This is the usual process. If someone logged a dnf, then instead of logging a find, changed the original dnf to a find with no other change to the log as you have described, I would delete it as bogus. If the logger actually found the cache, they can easily relog a find and describe it. Occasionally someone will report a dnf in the text of their log and but show a smilie find. I assume this is a simple mistake and email them requesting they change their log to a dnf or note. So far, folks either change the log or ignore the mail, in which case after a week or so I delete the log. It's just book keeping, but they are your books, so you get to decide. Be polite.
It's a similar issue to someone posting a find but not signing the log. I match up the physical logbook with the cache page and delete those missing, add an OM note mentioning I've done so, and invite folks to go back and sign it. Since this only seems to happen on the few P&Gs I have placed. some folks actually do go back and sign in.
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I use a handheld Oregon 600 with a Dakota 20 for backup but carry a cellphone for taking pictures and for better (larger screen) detail for maps when in cell range. My phone geotags all photos and I generally get a good laugh when reviewing the locations: they are close about half the time. How effective a cellphone is for geocaching depends on it's software, it's GPSr and compass, satellite availability and being within cell range plus battery life. For me, it's the third string...
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Well, I have to agree with both dprovan and narcissa on this one: the "new logging experience" does show promise of making the maintenance situation worse. Removing the NM log option is a bad idea as it makes it easier for both the CO and everyone else to overlook a problem. It's bad enough already. With the present system about half of all NM logs are ignored by the CO. They simply never respond to it. Eighty percent of caches that get a NM log are eventually archived, two thirds by The Reviewer after an NA log is also ignored by the CO. (About half of NA logs get a CO response with fewer than half getting fixed and the rest being archived by the C0). COs get notified of NM logs so ignoring them is a conscious choice...
Anyway to return to the original issue: Clearly the suggestion to "contact headquarters" needs to be deleted. If you think there is a maintenance issue with the cache post an NM log and spell out your reasons. You will get some responses (some folks will even fix the cache) but expect this to be ignored by the CO most of the time as noted above. Wait a month, and then post a NA log, citing your reasons and the fact that the CO ignored the NM log. Eighty percent of the time the cache will be archived and almost 20% of the time it will be fixed. Once in a while a CO will delete your log or insult you or say everything is ok (typically without posting an OM log) but what can you do...Overall about 3% of caches I've searched for have turned out to be really missing. With 3 million geocaches out there, roughly 90,000 caches are missing and at least as many NM at any given time, so you'll want to decide on a process for dealing with it...
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For caches placed far from home it seems reasonable to provide a maintenance plan if requested. When I place caches far from home I make an arrangement with a local cacher to do cache maintenance and provide their name to the reviewer. For single stage caches placed in a waterproof container maintenance is pretty minimal anyway.
I can understand why the CO is resistant to doing this (why should I have to prove I have a plan when so many caches go unmaintained?) especially when most caches in need of repair are not maintained. I tracked Needs Maintenance logs for several years in my local area and found that fewer than 20% of caches that get a NM log are ever repaired and two thirds are Archived by the Reviewer, not the CO. Most have been abandoned. And the new logging system even removes both NM and NA logs for the logging options, reducing them to a "note"...we'll see how that helps the situation.
On the other hand, if the CO says they'll do the maintenance themselves and "that's the plan, Stan", I'd believe them and expect to hold them to it just like everyone else.
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The new "logging experience" now assigns Needs Maintenance and Needs Archive to a "note" giving no indication that there is a problem with the cache unless you read the details of the note. This makes it even easier for the CO to ignore problems with the cache and harder for the rest of us to see that there is a problem. Not helpful at all.
edexter
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As some other folks have noticed, even with Garmin Express open, you can get an error message that Garmin Express is not detected when you click on the Send To Garmin from the list page. (The error messages is in error...) Going to the Garmin Express shows that the caches are ready to load...
edexter
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The time for a new cache listing to get approved is totally controlled by your local volunteer reviewer. I place caches several states and have had caches reviewed by a half dozen reviewers. In SE Mass it typically takes a week for one reviewer and a couple days for another. I've had caches approved in 24 hours and others that took several weeks to "negotiate". If you have a time constraint it's probably worth reaching out to the reviewer and explaining the need for speed. They may or may not respond, but if you need something, it's probably better to ask than to hope.
edexter
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"The ability to load onto an SD card must come from Garmin - they have to add that to the Garmin Express software."
Once you have the cache loaded in the GPSr internal memory you can easily move it to the SD card...
edexter
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I've used it a couple of times and so far it is working for me. The process has several additional steps compared to just clicking "send to gps" (for instance you need to have Garmin Express open) but it eventually does the same thing. Well, a similar thing: Instead of sending a .gpx file with one cache in it using the GC code for the cache, it creates a .gpx file using the name of your list. I've been using a Garmin Oregon 600 for a while so I'm used to most of the common quirks of the .gpx files and the need to connect to the computer to load or delete caches but if you are not there is a learning curve. For instance, the next time you send your list this way it will overwrite the first list using the same name. The original file has been replaced with the new one. If you don't want this to happen, you'll need to rename the list. I use an sd card in my GPSr and the Send to Garmin process doesn't give you the option to select that as a destination; if you want it to go there, you'll need to move it over using your computer. For folks comfortable with using pocket queries and GSAK to send multiple caches there is no particular advantage to this process. For sending one or few caches that are geographically separate from each other, it is another, and somewhat quicker process, I believe. Ah, the good ole days, when it only took one click...gone for now.
edexter
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Few folks seem to be interested in the decline in Cape caches, which certainly fits. As of the first week of April, I count a total of 613 caches on Cape Cod proper (east of the Canal, excludes the Islands) and since I last checked near the end of 2016, 6 new caches have been placed and despite the low terrain ratings onlt a couple appear to be park and grabs. On the other hand, 13 caches have been archived, so the decline continues.
edexter
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Most of the folks contributing to this thread are concerned about finding quality caches, not simply numbers, and one big issue is how do you tell the good stuff from the pointless as quickly as possible. Filtering by fav pt, cache size and d/t combos are helpful but are made less reliable as noted above (roadside power trail micros placed identically every .1m with ratings of 2/2.5 are particularly obnoxious to me).
So filtering has to be followed up by reading the cache page, looking at the map location and making judgements about the CO and the loggers. These judgements are often described as "subjective", which they are for the group, but they are highly objective for the individual who wants to "do caches that I like". Make a list of qualities you desire in a cache: for me these minumum qualities include: a hike, in a pretty and/or interesting place, with some variety of terrain (ideally near water) with a physical cache bigger than my thumb, rated 2/2.5 or higher with a descriptive cache page and a location hint. If I see all this on the cache page and know of the CO and their maintenance practices I generally have a pretty good time. Your objective list may differ of course, but will fit you. This takes a fair amount of time. The shorthand form is to know what the CO puts out there, but this tends to only work locally as noted above. One thing that Groundspeak could do to decrease the effort for folks who are being selective is to make the "ignore" feature more powerful. Allowing you to ignore caches by common name (power trails and geo art) and distance from the road would go a long way towards de-cluterring the map for those who want to.
If anyone knows of a way to filter for distance off the road I would be interested to hear it. I have in the past created bookmark lists based on distance off the road manually (one at a time as they re published) which is useful for me but very time consuming and attempts to share the information have not been well received (listing a micro on a sidewalk in the middle of a city, or a countryside guardrail, as a "hide" or "curbside" rather than as a "real cache" or "off road" upsets some people). At any rate, there are a number of more or less useful ways to drill down to your preferred cache type, but my experience is the more selective you are the harder (in terms of the amount of time it takes) it is. For the record (fact, not opinion) in my area more than three quarters of all new caches are placed on or within 200 feet of a paved road or parking area. This appears to be true elsewhere as well (observation, not quantified fact)
edexter
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For an understanding of what has happened in geocaching, think about Gresham's Law for a few minutes.
Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good." In currency valuation, Gresham's Law states that if a new coin ("bad money") is assigned the same face value as an older coin containing a higher amount of precious metal ("good money"), then the new coin will be used in circulation while the old coin will be hoarded and will disappear from circulation.
A P&G roadside micro has the same value (one smilie) in the game as an eight stage multi through a forest, or a single stage half mile walk in the woods, etc. Since Groundspeak makes no attempt to maintain quality, the only measure of value is the smilie, (AKA the Find). Folk who care about placing or finding quality caches can do so by expending more effort (sorting through the power trails and guard rails) to find the stuff they want, but you have to hunt for them as they are more rare and are being added at a much slower pace. (It takes little effort to place a nano on a sign post; it takes considerable time and effort to create, place and maintain a quality cache)
Now some folks say "it's all good" and it's just a matter of taste and nothing has really changed, there's just more of it. Think about that for a while, too...
edexter
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So let's say you actually wanted to know if "interest in Geocaching" was changing over time. On a person level, a little self reflection would answer the question. On a local level, talking to your caching buds would tell the tale. But on a state, national or global scale you would first have to define "interest" a bit more closely. Basically all counting clicks can measure is that. As noted above, everything else is just speculation, which in and of itself is more interesting than the numbers, but those numbers do make it clear that they are declining.
Now if Groundspeak were a public instead of a private company, the answer to "is geocaching growing?" would be evident. You would look at the quarterly report and it would all be laid out. Still subject to interpretation, but the numbers would be clear. But without the details, no way to tell, really. Which just leaves speculation and reasoning from too few facts. On the other hand as the Great Yogi says "You can see a lot, just by looking..." If the goal is more, then quantity matters. If the goal is better, then quality matters. Geocaching overwhelmingly focuses on quantity over quality. Indeed, caring about and improving cache quality is considered a "niche interest" in this discussion about declining interest in geocaching. When you primarily focus on quantity, average quality inevitably declines. And when more and more caches lead to fewer and fewer "clicks", well at some point, even the staunches defenders of "all is well", may want to reflect on the reality of competition: Munzee et al. which have eliminated the cache and are designed for free use on a smart phone. Twice as many in a third the time. Click city...Frankly I can't think of a single sport or game that has survived long term by focusing on more over better.
edexter
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To actually try to capture the interest in the game you would need to "define your terms" in a way that might capture say "time spent geocaching" or "how much I like geocaching" and do a survey of folks who actually spend (or spent) time playing. The graph shows that website traffic varies a lot but says nothing about how individuals feel about the game (it's like saying the number of caches you log determines your interest in the game). I understand that many people see "traffic flow" or "clicks" as meaningful which it may be if you are designing a website but to me it's just another way to look at something based on quantity not quality. Just off the top of my head, much better quantitative ways to measure interest would be to assume that folks who pay to play are "more interested" and then look at trends in: 1, the percentage of folks who open a membership who then become premium members. 2, The total number of premium memberships and 3, the annual renewal rate for premium memberships. That data would tell the tale in a limited but more useful way. As for why interest might be increasing or decreasing, a fairly straight forward answer could be had by a simple survey of the membership...My own personal bias is that ignoring qualitative aspects of the game is detrimental to it's long term health. A survey would likely clearly reveal a schism between those who like more and those who like better (and those who believe more is better). Among folks I know who were "really into caching" most have essentially dropped out coincident with both "doing all the caches within an hour's drive" and the proliferation of P&G micros, power trails and Geo-Art, but as they say "correlation is not causation"... Understanding the reason these folks gave up the game will reveal a lot more than click counting and speculation.
edexter
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End of the year summary: 39 new caches (below replacement level) were placed by 21 different caches, most placed only one, but two cachers accounted for 16 of the placements. Continuing the trend of "I'm just in it for just the numbers", none of the caches were multis and 18 of the 39 caches (46%) were P&Gs less than 50 feet from parking. Once a hiking activity, geocaching is now mainly drivebys...While there are any number of interesting caches on the Cape, it's mighty slim pickings for those of us who have been around for a while and like to walk about in the woods, as only about a dozen of the caches require even a short hike...
edexter
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12/27/16 So here's an (almost) year end update for SE Mass and RI (50 mile radius from my home in Plymouth, MA): For caches where the location coords are given (excludes most puzzles): There were 653 caches placed. More than half (364 or 56%) were park and grabs which I define as an object (most are micros) placed within 50 feet of the road. 234 or 36% were placed directly above pavement. Another 100 (15%) were between 51 feet and two hundred yards from the roadway. This is a total of 464 caches or 70% of the caches placed. These caches are much more popular in terms of finds (roughly 90% of the total finds), though much less popular in terms of favorite points (only 40% have even 1 fav pt) and 25 of them have 5 or more fav pts (5%) The caches that are further off the road are less popular in terms of finds, but much more popular in terms of fav pts (53% have at least one fav pt and 15 have 5 or more (13%). While fav pt totals are an imperfect measurement of quality, the fact that fewer than half the recent caches could garner even one fav pt suggests that the overall quality is quite low. As an adjunct to fav pts as a stand in for quality consider the following: Of the 464 caches that require little or no walking to find, only 9 had a d/t rating of 2.5/2.5 or higher, 6 of these had at least one fav pt and the average was 3.75. Of the 189 hiking caches, 19 had a d/t rating of 2.5/2.5 or higher, and all but one had a fav pt and the average was 3. This suggests that the harder the cache, the fewer people find it and the more those that do, like it. I realize there is some self selection going on, but the numbers suggest that quality caches require some work. Given that two thirds of American adults are overweight, this strategy could be a win/win.
edexter
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I can confirm that the process outlined by StefandD (just above) works on both a PC and a Mac using Foxfire and their version of the plug in (as of 2/26/16).
I tried On4bams solution and here's what I found: Opening the cache page and right clicking gives you the option to "Save As" but on my computer the only options were to save as an HTML file or a Webpage, Complete, not as a .gpx file. Left clicking showed a .gpx file in the lower left screen corner, right clicking that and chossing "show in folder" revealed the .gpx file which you can then drag and drop into your GPSr .gpx file location on your computer. This is slightly more effort than "send to my GPS" but has the advantage of eliminating the communicator plug as stated.
edexter
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I was a little dismayed by the latest map change: the cache logos are blah looking, they no longer distinguish between premium and non-premium and the grayed out look to the disbabled caches was actually helpful. On the other hand, the ability to filter by type is nice start. Now what would be really useful on the map is a way to filter P&Gs, power trails and geo-art. And USGS based topos would be welcomed by a few of us...Ah, well. There's alotof fleixibilty in viewing overall.
edexter
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Sign the log to confirm the find is one of the pleasant "old school" rules that geocaching maintains. If you think aboutit, it's pretty much the only rule that a finder has to follow. As long as the rule exists, it's a defense against devolving into Munzeeville. Personally I wish the rule was the cache had to contain a pen or pencil ("forcing" the cache to be bigger than a pencil, but that ship has sailed).
I've done the burnt stick charcoal "signing" but mostly on those occasions when I've forgotten a pen or the log is too wet to sign, and I've remembered to bring the camera/cell phone, I take a photo of the cache log and post that with my log. Oftentimes the time the signatures listed do not match the cache page logs...When maintaining my own caches, I do match up the signatures with the logs, deleting those not on it and sending a reminder to ones that signed the log but didn't log it, in case they meant too. The closer to the road, the more often people "forget" to sign in. Go figure...
edexter
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Here is a link to your PDF map: http://tinyurl.com/zlo9ys2 That link worked just fine when I pasted it into the "Related Web Page" field of a cache listing.
Thanks. This link worked and I added it to cache page as a "related web page". Thanks for the help. Now if only my cache would get reviewed...
edexter
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Is there a reason why tinyurl.com would not work for getting a link shortcut?
Is there a reason geocaching.com can't support full size URLs? An abbreviated URL solves this specific problem, but doesn't help the next person that gets caught by this unexpected restriction, particularly if they don't notice that there's a problem.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Even if there is a workaround, why add an unecessary second step? So I posted this reviewer note:
"FYI: Imade numerous attempts to link this page:
http://www.town.duxbury.ma.us/Public_Documents/DuxburyMA_Conservation/ConAreas/pointsofinterest%20DuxOSMap14May.pdf'>http://www.town.duxbury.ma.us/Public_Documents/DuxburyMA_Conservation/ConAreas/pointsofinterest%20DuxOSMap14May.pdf
in the "related web page" section of the cache page. The address was truncated
to:
http://www.town.duxbury.ma.us/Public_Documents/DuxburyMA_Conservation/ConAreas/pointsofinterest%20Du
Similar things happened on background images. It appears that the cache page program does not allow addresses to contain more than a certain number of characters. This was not the case in the recent past. You may want to pass this on "up chain" in case it is not by design.
edexter"
Sent it 12/14/16. Got no response to that so I have no idea if it is a wider issue or not.
edexter
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Keystone and noncenric wrote "Is there a reason why tinyurl.com would not work for getting a link shortcut?"
Now this was something I was unaware of, so I tried it. Clicking on the link in noncentrics post did go directly to the map page I wanted, but inserting the link into a browser took me to asearch page, not the map, and inserting it into the "related web page" space in the cache page edit resulted in an error message telling me it was "not a valid url".
So it doesn't seem to work,though I have no idea why not. Thanks for the idea though. I appreciate the assist.
edexter
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do I put yet another one out that is only going to be found 3 or 4 times a year.[/size]
Well, if you are looking for feedback, Yes, Place the seldom found much loved cache rather than the often found forgetable P&G.
Here's my rationale: The great majority of geocachers are only going to do the quick and easy so they get the vast majority of finds and few favorite points. It's basically just for the numbers (both for the finders and the placers) and the cache is soon forgotten. But a small subset of finders and hiders enjoy the effort involved in creating and finding more interesting caches which end up with few finds and many favorites. And folks remember the good ones...Quality over Quantity any day.
edexter
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Well, to clarify: I attempted to use a url for a photo I posted on Google photos and I attempted to link to a town website. Both were truncated. There is no way I can switch the town website to a shorter version, so I can't post it as a "related website". I'm wondering if other folks are having a simliar issue.
edexter
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Percentage of Premium Members
in General geocaching topics
Posted
Does anyone know what percentage of geocachers are Premium vs Regular members? Or where stats on such things might be available.