Zuckerruebensirup

I think the point was that you could send the copy out in the event that your original travel bug went AWOL...not to have both out there at the same time.

Check out this thread.

If it were me, I'd post one find, but definitely mention the second cache in my log. Maybe you could even offer to move one of them, and make a second cache out of it. (Or maybe the owner will want to do so themselves.) On the other hand, as you pointed out, you did sign TWO separate log books. The consensus seems to be that if you find a cache location, even with a high degree of confidence that you have the spot, that if the cache has gone missing (or destroyed, and you've found pieces of it on the trail), that if you can't sign the book it's not a find. Using that logic, I could see how you could justify a second find. (I guess I'm not much help here. )

If it were me, I'd post one find, but definitely mention the second cache in my log. Maybe you could even offer to move one of them, and make a second cache out of it. (Or maybe the owner will want to do so themselves.) On the other hand, as you pointed out, you did sign TWO separate log books. The consensus seems to be that if you find a cache location, even with a high degree of confidence that you have the spot, that if the cache has gone missing (or destroyed, and you've found pieces of it on the trail), that if you can't sign the book it's not a find. Using that logic, I could see how you could justify a second find. (I guess I'm not much help here. )

Were there one or two cache pages?

It's a bit blurry, but I could swear that this is Wonder Woman.

It's a bit blurry, but I could swear that this is Wonder Woman.

geospotter makes a good point here.

quote:Originally posted by geospotter:My rating may not reflect your rating. So much the better. Ratings will be as individual as our log entries. Allow me to rate the cache when I find it. Eventually I'll know that if 'so-and-so' says it's a 5-star, I'll probably feel it is too, but if "what's-his-name" says it's a 5-star, well, he always says it's a 5-star. I agree. While the ratings are subjective, we'll learn whose votes to watch (just like which movie critics we pay attention to or not). Plus, even if the votes are subjective, and we each have different criteria and tastes...the averages should still be informative. quote:Originally posted by geospotter:1-star caches will quickly be weeded out, and more effort will go into new caches Ah, an excellent point I hadn't considered! While our opinions on 4 and 5 star caches will likely be all over the map, I'm guessing that the 1 stars will be fairly consistent. I'm sure there will be those who say that we don't want to hurt people's feelings...but is it better to give someone honest feedback, and encourage him to try harder on his next cache...or should we continue to encourage dozens of cachers to hunt the cache, only to feel disappointed that they wasted their time? (I'm going to put a pointer to this message in the Cache Ratings thread, because I think it's a good summary.)

quote:Originally posted by geospotter:My rating may not reflect your rating. So much the better. Ratings will be as individual as our log entries. Allow me to rate the cache when I find it. Eventually I'll know that if 'so-and-so' says it's a 5-star, I'll probably feel it is too, but if "what's-his-name" says it's a 5-star, well, he always says it's a 5-star. I agree. While the ratings are subjective, we'll learn whose votes to watch (just like which movie critics we pay attention to or not). Plus, even if the votes are subjective, and we each have different criteria and tastes...the averages should still be informative. quote:Originally posted by geospotter:1-star caches will quickly be weeded out, and more effort will go into new caches Ah, an excellent point I hadn't considered! While our opinions on 4 and 5 star caches will likely be all over the map, I'm guessing that the 1 stars will be fairly consistent. I'm sure there will be those who say that we don't want to hurt people's feelings...but is it better to give someone honest feedback, and encourage him to try harder on his next cache...or should we continue to encourage dozens of cachers to hunt the cache, only to feel disappointed that they wasted their time? (I'm going to put a pointer to this message in the Cache Ratings thread, because I think it's a good summary.)

quote:Originally posted by welch: sounds good [showing a tally of how many 'favorite' votes a cache has gotten], that way when you've found that cache page you can see how many are watching, and how many really liked the cache, but theres no way to find that cache without knowing something about it in the first place. 50 ppl could have given good ratings on it but there's no way of knowing it w/o just running random shearchs. My thoughts exactly!

quote:Originally posted by welch: sounds good [showing a tally of how many 'favorite' votes a cache has gotten], that way when you've found that cache page you can see how many are watching, and how many really liked the cache, but theres no way to find that cache without knowing something about it in the first place. 50 ppl could have given good ratings on it but there's no way of knowing it w/o just running random shearchs. My thoughts exactly!

quote:Originally posted by geospotter: Wouldn't it just be easier to allow each finder to rate the cache on the cache page? Then add a search feature to find all 5-star caches, 4-star, etc. The ratings could be averaged (like the ratings on this forum), or they could just be individual cachers' ratings (no calculations required). We did another poll on just that, actually.

quote:Originally posted by geospotter: Wouldn't it just be easier to allow each finder to rate the cache on the cache page? Then add a search feature to find all 5-star caches, 4-star, etc. The ratings could be averaged (like the ratings on this forum), or they could just be individual cachers' ratings (no calculations required). We did another poll on just that, actually.

quote:Originally posted by martinp13: Maybe split list into 'categories'? One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is that caches are often "great" for different reasons. There would never be enough categories to keep up with the clever people thinking up new and innovative ideas. Either that, or we'd have whole categories with only one or two caches listed in them. (Unless you're talking about voting, and only showing the "top" cache in each category. As I've mentioned in a couple of other responses, I think turning this into a contest would complicate things too much.) What I think might be helpful in separating out the different types of nominees would be to have a short 'explanation' field for the nominators to fill in. Perhaps, in addition to being able to filter the list by state, cacher, nominator, etc...we could also be allowed to sort by key word.

quote:Originally posted by martinp13: Maybe split list into 'categories'? One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is that caches are often "great" for different reasons. There would never be enough categories to keep up with the clever people thinking up new and innovative ideas. Either that, or we'd have whole categories with only one or two caches listed in them. (Unless you're talking about voting, and only showing the "top" cache in each category. As I've mentioned in a couple of other responses, I think turning this into a contest would complicate things too much.) What I think might be helpful in separating out the different types of nominees would be to have a short 'explanation' field for the nominators to fill in. Perhaps, in addition to being able to filter the list by state, cacher, nominator, etc...we could also be allowed to sort by key word.

quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: One thing I'd like to see is some kind of a general summary link that people could easily go to from the main page...just for getting ideas and such. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:I suppose you could list, say, the 10 caches with the most “votes”. The problem is that this will still be heavily weighted towards urban caches in the most heavily populated areas. Because of this, I’m not sure this method, or any other I can think of will give you a true “global” representation of the top caches. Frankly, since we all like different things, I’m not really sure there is such a thing as “top caches” anyway. What you’re going to end up with here is just a really big list of easy-to-do urban caches. What I had in mind wasn't something that people would vote on...just a list of honorable mentions (with maybe a quick note of what the nominator enjoyed about it). If I try to nominate a cache that's already on the list, it wouldn't get a 2nd "vote", I'd get a message telling me something like, "Thank you! This cache has already been nominated." quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: I'd like to see a method where we wouldn't have to stumble across a cache by accident to find out that it was really unique or clever. I'd like a way that flags them for us, so we can find them more easily. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Those “sound” like good goals, but the reality is that caching is a local phenomenon. I’m not at all in favor of people voting for any caches they haven’t found, so this means any list of “bests” is going to be a localized thing. I don’t see any way of comparing “our” bests to “yours”, for example. You have not done the cache here, and I have not done the caches there. Any comparisons are moot. Plus, I don’t think because a cache gets lots of votes because it happens to be in a popular area, that it is somehow “more worthy” than one in a less popular place. Again, I don't think we should "compare" them...but just have a method for giving public 'atta boys'. If there was a filtering method, so we could narrow the list down to caches by state, zipcode, cache owner, nominator, etc...each person could look for specifics that interested them, rather than having to scroll through the entire list. quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: And to get a list of 50 caches, you might have to sort through a dozen or more profiles...meanwhile running into ones that didn't share their list (or have one at all), or duplicates from previous users lists, etc. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Not at all. You’d simply have to look at the caches in your area to see which ones are the most popular. Even then, I think for any meaningful information, you’d need to know who is voting for a particular cache. My comment above was in reference to looking at specific people's profiles to scan their list of "Favorites"...not in looking at ratings for specific caches. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:I suppose, if you want a really quick reference, Jeremy could put something like: _“xx Favorites”_ for each cache on the “nearest caches” page. Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about that as I really think you’d need to know _why_ a cache was voted for to understand a particular score. Again, my fear is that we end up with a list of easy-to-do urban caches as our list of “bests”. Again, I wasn't suggesting tallying votes for each cache, but only to allow ONE nomination for each. (My comment about the fact that it would be nice to see the ratings was in response to your suggestion of the idea. And, actually, I did a completely separate poll on cache ratings. I think it's a good idea, but the implemenation would be pretty complicated...and it would definitely be subjective.) quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup:Also, a link on the front page to some really well done caches might pique additional interest in new or first time visitors to the site. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:If this is the goal, I think a better way to handle that would be simply to have a dedicated place here on the forums to nominate caches via polls. Anyone could nominate a cache by setting up a poll. That's not a bad idea. I think, instead of a poll, maybe just a forum to share honorable mentions on. (And obviously, we could write as much as we wanted about why we liked it.) I've seen individual threads for caches that people have wanted to tell the community about for one reason or another. But maybe a single thread, where a person could specifically go to browse might be a good idea. On the down side, it seems that only a small percentage of cachers actually participate here, so I think a lot of people would still be missing out. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Once listed, forum users could then go and evaluate the listing and vote on whether they think it should be included among the “elite”. I still think it’s not really perfect because I don’t think just reading a listing is truly adequate to evaluate a cache. I agree with your second statement. In most cases, we can't really judge a cache we haven't visited. Some (like those with clever themes, or puzzles, etc.) are fun to read about, even if we can't visit them ourselves...but those are the exception, not the norm. Plus, I think if we turn this into a 'contest', it'll lose a lot of its value. quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: Finally, I think a rolling list that simply dumps the link of each new nominee onto a list...without tallying votes, or having to update each cache page with the number of votes, etc...might be a lot less complicated to code. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Yes, it would be somewhat simpler, but I’m not sure what it accomplishes. Since there are no criteria involved to determine if a cache is really worthy of being called “great”, plenty of not so worthy caches will end up being spotlighted. Maybe it would be a good idea to limit people's ability to nominate...like at a rate of one nomination per every 10 finds, as you suggested earlier. That would force us to be choosier about which ones we recommended. (As well as forcing newbies to widen their experience with what caches can be like, so they can more easily differentiate the 'awesome' from the 'every day'.)

quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: One thing I'd like to see is some kind of a general summary link that people could easily go to from the main page...just for getting ideas and such. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:I suppose you could list, say, the 10 caches with the most “votes”. The problem is that this will still be heavily weighted towards urban caches in the most heavily populated areas. Because of this, I’m not sure this method, or any other I can think of will give you a true “global” representation of the top caches. Frankly, since we all like different things, I’m not really sure there is such a thing as “top caches” anyway. What you’re going to end up with here is just a really big list of easy-to-do urban caches. What I had in mind wasn't something that people would vote on...just a list of honorable mentions (with maybe a quick note of what the nominator enjoyed about it). If I try to nominate a cache that's already on the list, it wouldn't get a 2nd "vote", I'd get a message telling me something like, "Thank you! This cache has already been nominated." quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: I'd like to see a method where we wouldn't have to stumble across a cache by accident to find out that it was really unique or clever. I'd like a way that flags them for us, so we can find them more easily. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Those “sound” like good goals, but the reality is that caching is a local phenomenon. I’m not at all in favor of people voting for any caches they haven’t found, so this means any list of “bests” is going to be a localized thing. I don’t see any way of comparing “our” bests to “yours”, for example. You have not done the cache here, and I have not done the caches there. Any comparisons are moot. Plus, I don’t think because a cache gets lots of votes because it happens to be in a popular area, that it is somehow “more worthy” than one in a less popular place. Again, I don't think we should "compare" them...but just have a method for giving public 'atta boys'. If there was a filtering method, so we could narrow the list down to caches by state, zipcode, cache owner, nominator, etc...each person could look for specifics that interested them, rather than having to scroll through the entire list. quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: And to get a list of 50 caches, you might have to sort through a dozen or more profiles...meanwhile running into ones that didn't share their list (or have one at all), or duplicates from previous users lists, etc. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Not at all. You’d simply have to look at the caches in your area to see which ones are the most popular. Even then, I think for any meaningful information, you’d need to know who is voting for a particular cache. My comment above was in reference to looking at specific people's profiles to scan their list of "Favorites"...not in looking at ratings for specific caches. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:I suppose, if you want a really quick reference, Jeremy could put something like: _“xx Favorites”_ for each cache on the “nearest caches” page. Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about that as I really think you’d need to know _why_ a cache was voted for to understand a particular score. Again, my fear is that we end up with a list of easy-to-do urban caches as our list of “bests”. Again, I wasn't suggesting tallying votes for each cache, but only to allow ONE nomination for each. (My comment about the fact that it would be nice to see the ratings was in response to your suggestion of the idea. And, actually, I did a completely separate poll on cache ratings. I think it's a good idea, but the implemenation would be pretty complicated...and it would definitely be subjective.) quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup:Also, a link on the front page to some really well done caches might pique additional interest in new or first time visitors to the site. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:If this is the goal, I think a better way to handle that would be simply to have a dedicated place here on the forums to nominate caches via polls. Anyone could nominate a cache by setting up a poll. That's not a bad idea. I think, instead of a poll, maybe just a forum to share honorable mentions on. (And obviously, we could write as much as we wanted about why we liked it.) I've seen individual threads for caches that people have wanted to tell the community about for one reason or another. But maybe a single thread, where a person could specifically go to browse might be a good idea. On the down side, it seems that only a small percentage of cachers actually participate here, so I think a lot of people would still be missing out. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Once listed, forum users could then go and evaluate the listing and vote on whether they think it should be included among the “elite”. I still think it’s not really perfect because I don’t think just reading a listing is truly adequate to evaluate a cache. I agree with your second statement. In most cases, we can't really judge a cache we haven't visited. Some (like those with clever themes, or puzzles, etc.) are fun to read about, even if we can't visit them ourselves...but those are the exception, not the norm. Plus, I think if we turn this into a 'contest', it'll lose a lot of its value. quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: Finally, I think a rolling list that simply dumps the link of each new nominee onto a list...without tallying votes, or having to update each cache page with the number of votes, etc...might be a lot less complicated to code. quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason:Yes, it would be somewhat simpler, but I’m not sure what it accomplishes. Since there are no criteria involved to determine if a cache is really worthy of being called “great”, plenty of not so worthy caches will end up being spotlighted. Maybe it would be a good idea to limit people's ability to nominate...like at a rate of one nomination per every 10 finds, as you suggested earlier. That would force us to be choosier about which ones we recommended. (As well as forcing newbies to widen their experience with what caches can be like, so they can more easily differentiate the 'awesome' from the 'every day'.)

quote:Originally posted by boreal jeff: Along with this idea, how about the ability to put a link to your favourite cache in your profile. Each cacher gets to have one favourite cache and those caches with the most "votes" are the highest rated caches. Another good idea.

quote:Originally posted by boreal jeff: Along with this idea, how about the ability to put a link to your favourite cache in your profile. Each cacher gets to have one favourite cache and those caches with the most "votes" are the highest rated caches. Another good idea.

quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason: We’ve talked about this type of thing many times over the past year, but my favorite methodology would be the “favorites list”. Those are good ideas! One thing I'd like to see, though, is some kind of a general summary link that people could easily go to from the main page...just for getting ideas and such. Yes, it would be cool to see how many votes a cache had, once you opened the page. But I'd like to see a method where we wouldn't have to stumble across a cache by accident to find out that it was really unique or clever. I'd like a way that flags them for us, so we can find them more easily. Newer users might not think to go to people's profiles to check for Favorites Lists. (Actually, as far as that goes...I have already seen at least one profile where the person shared some of his favorites. Of course, it's just something he did on his own...not a standard option like you're suggesting.) And to get a list of 50 caches, you might have to sort through a dozen or more profiles...meanwhile running into ones that didn't share their list (or have one at all), or duplicates from previous users lists, etc. Also, a link on the front page to some really well done caches might pique additional interest in new or first time visitors to the site. Finally, I think a rolling list that simply dumps the link of each new nominee onto a list...without tallying votes, or having to update each cache page with the number of votes, etc...might be a lot less complicated to code. (But, not being a programmer, I could be way off with my guess.)

quote:Originally posted by Scott Thomason: We’ve talked about this type of thing many times over the past year, but my favorite methodology would be the “favorites list”. Those are good ideas! One thing I'd like to see, though, is some kind of a general summary link that people could easily go to from the main page...just for getting ideas and such. Yes, it would be cool to see how many votes a cache had, once you opened the page. But I'd like to see a method where we wouldn't have to stumble across a cache by accident to find out that it was really unique or clever. I'd like a way that flags them for us, so we can find them more easily. Newer users might not think to go to people's profiles to check for Favorites Lists. (Actually, as far as that goes...I have already seen at least one profile where the person shared some of his favorites. Of course, it's just something he did on his own...not a standard option like you're suggesting.) And to get a list of 50 caches, you might have to sort through a dozen or more profiles...meanwhile running into ones that didn't share their list (or have one at all), or duplicates from previous users lists, etc. Also, a link on the front page to some really well done caches might pique additional interest in new or first time visitors to the site. Finally, I think a rolling list that simply dumps the link of each new nominee onto a list...without tallying votes, or having to update each cache page with the number of votes, etc...might be a lot less complicated to code. (But, not being a programmer, I could be way off with my guess.)

quote:Originally posted by welch:but then youll end up with thousand of mentions, wouldnt you?? or at least a few hundred. Are you going to link them all? Sure, why not? There are thousands of messages saved here on this forum page. Why can't we do the same thing for a list of cache links? (Or maybe we just have a scrolling list of the most recent 50 or something. How do the New Cache List and the Recent Travel Bug Activity lists work?) quote:or sift them out to find the better mentions? Which are 'better' is a subjective choice. In the poll I followed up my note here with, I mentioned that it would be great if we could have a way to filter the long list...like by state, by cache owner, or by nominee, etc. (And yes, I realize all of that is work. But hey, it doesn't hurt to have a wish list. With all that money Jeremy's going to be raking in, he'll likely be hiring assistants, right? ) quote:(I would hope that people would vote on ones they thought "sounded" good)<< i didnt realize that you didnt have to actually make a visit to the site to nominate or vote for it I've seen many examples of caches (for example, ones mentioned here on these discussion threads) that sound very creative, and I think deserve a public "atta boy". If one of the main goals is to give people idea sparkers for what makes a good cache, I think caches from all over could be valid examples. (On the other hand, if a cache is nominated, not for its cleverness with clues or theme, but for the great views or something that you have to see or experience first hand to appreciate...it wouldn't make sense to vote on it without having made a visit.) Those kinds of issues are exactly why I decided that a simple "Honorable Mention" system would be more practical (and easier to implement) than a competition for "Overall Favorite Cache".

quote:Originally posted by welch:but then youll end up with thousand of mentions, wouldnt you?? or at least a few hundred. Are you going to link them all? Sure, why not? There are thousands of messages saved here on this forum page. Why can't we do the same thing for a list of cache links? (Or maybe we just have a scrolling list of the most recent 50 or something. How do the New Cache List and the Recent Travel Bug Activity lists work?) quote:or sift them out to find the better mentions? Which are 'better' is a subjective choice. In the poll I followed up my note here with, I mentioned that it would be great if we could have a way to filter the long list...like by state, by cache owner, or by nominee, etc. (And yes, I realize all of that is work. But hey, it doesn't hurt to have a wish list. With all that money Jeremy's going to be raking in, he'll likely be hiring assistants, right? ) quote:(I would hope that people would vote on ones they thought "sounded" good)<< i didnt realize that you didnt have to actually make a visit to the site to nominate or vote for it I've seen many examples of caches (for example, ones mentioned here on these discussion threads) that sound very creative, and I think deserve a public "atta boy". If one of the main goals is to give people idea sparkers for what makes a good cache, I think caches from all over could be valid examples. (On the other hand, if a cache is nominated, not for its cleverness with clues or theme, but for the great views or something that you have to see or experience first hand to appreciate...it wouldn't make sense to vote on it without having made a visit.) Those kinds of issues are exactly why I decided that a simple "Honorable Mention" system would be more practical (and easier to implement) than a competition for "Overall Favorite Cache".

We could do it however the majority (and Jeremy, obviously) wanted to. But they way I envision it is as follows: 1How many you can nominate: (Originally I was thinking it would be cool to have a “contest” where people could nominated, and then everyone vote on. But it was brought to my attention that it might be difficult to come up with equitable voting guidelines so that all nominees had a fair chance of winning. (Caches in heavily populated areas might be more likely to get votes, just because more people would be able to visit them, and have an opinion.) On top of that, I got to thinking that it would be difficult to have a ‘contest’ be an ongoing thing…plus it seems that there would be too much potential for hurt feelings, etc.) So then the idea developed into just an “Honorable Mention” list. I was picturing an ongoing “rolling” list, kind of like the ones where you see the most recent travel bug activity, etc. I think we should let people nominate as many as they want to. My thought of putting the name there was two-fold: It would keep people a little more “honest” about which caches they choose to nominate, plus it allows the cache owner to know who appreciates their work. Another benefit would be for those following the reviews. Since what makes a cache ‘great’ is such a subjective thing, there really no way to make a simple ‘rating’ system. But, similar to movie critics, etc., I think many of us get a feel for who’s opinions and tastes tend to most closely match our own. So if I see a cache that “GeoBob” (or whoever) nominated, I’ll know that’s one I’m likely to want to check out. While in the beginning, the list would likely turn over very quickly…since we all know of same really great caches that deserve nomination…once we’ve caught up to date, I imagine the turnover would slow down dramatically. The point would be to highlight particularly outstanding caches…and do we really run across those on a terribly frequent basis? (Plus, if the archive list got really big…maybe we could add a sortability feature, to filter by cache owner, nominator, a specific state, or within certain distance of a zipcode, etc., like on the main ‘Find’ page.) 2What is required to be nominated? ANY currently approved cache could be nominated. Multi, virtual, ‘moving’, etc. I was picturing a “Nominate this cache for an Honorable Mention” button on each cache page. (As for the ‘qualities’ of the cache: Just that YOU like it enough that you’re not ashamed to have yourself listed as its nominee.) I was toying with whether we should have a place to leave a few comments as to why we like it, or if that would get too complicated. (What do you think?) 3who can nominate? Anybody with a Geocaching ID. If you can post a log, then you can nominate a cache. (I was going to say that I don’t think that there should be a minimum number finds before you can nominate. But what do you think? Would the list get loaded full of ‘common’ average caches, since the new people are still excited about ANY cache find?) 4Can you nominate your own cache? Sure. If it’s a really great cache, nobody should fault you for patting your own self on the back. If you continually nominate your own trash caches, just for the 'publicity', everyone will start laughing at you behind your back, and avoid clicking on those links. Obviously, this is still a rough enough idea that there’s lots of room for change and fleshing out. That’s why I posted it here…to get feedback, and to hear people’s ideas and suggestions.