Curly_McWurly
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Posts posted by Curly_McWurly
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Why don’t you re-visit the Cache sites and obtain information for new / updated questions?
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A quick way of weeding out abandoned Caches with maintenance issues would be to disable all Caches with a needs maintenance icon. Active Geocachers can easily re-enable their Cache listing and it will act as a reminder that their Cache is in need of some maintenance. Caches owned by people who have left the game can then be archived.
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We would appreciate your answers to these questions:
In your mind, what is a high quality geocache?
- It brings people to either an interesting location, unique feature or nice view.
- The container is suitable for the environment it is placed in and is able to keep the log book / sheet dry.
- The coordinates are accurate. If it’s hard to get a good GPS signal due to tree cover or buildings etc. then a detailed hint is given.
- For urban or overlooked Geocaches a detailed and unambiguous hint is provided.
- Some effort has been put into the Geocache description, describing the reason for bringing Geocachers to the location.
- The correct Difficulty, Terrain, Cache Size and Attributes have been selected.
- The owner quickly responds to any maintenance issues. They also check on the Geocache if it has not been found in a while or has a number of DNF logs.
In your mind, what is a low quality geocache?
- No thought has been put into the location or the reason for bringing people there.
- There are dangerous items such as broken glass, barbed wire nearby.
- The container is not suitable for the environment it is placed in and is unable to keep the log book / sheet dry.
- The owner doesn’t responds to DNF’s, maintenance issues or reviewer logs.
- The coordinates are not accurate and no effort is made to improve the coordinates.
- No effort has been put into the Geocache description.
- No hint has been given for urban or overlooked hides.
- Incorrect Difficulty, Terrain or Cache Size have been selected.
- No or incorrect Attributes have been selected.
What steps can the community take to improve geocache quality?
- Prioritise maintaining their existing hides over hiding new ones or finding Geocaches.
- Make sure the container used is suitable for the environment it is placed in and is able to keep the log book / sheet dry.
- Archive and remove their Geocaches if they are unable to maintain them or have lost interest in the hobby.
- Post DNF logs when they are unable to find the cache.
- Post maintenance notes when they experience maintenance issues.
- Post needs archived logs when they feel the owner is not responding to maintenance issues.
What steps can Geocaching HQ take to improve geocache quality?
- Prevent members from hiding Geocaches until 30 days after their 1st find.
- When a Geocache owner has an outstanding needs maintenance icon on one or more of their Geocaches a reminder pops up when they switch on the app or log onto the website.
- Prevent Geocachers from hiding any more Geocaches until all needs maintenance icons are cleared from their existing Geocaches.
- Before being sent to publish a detailed description and a photograph of the hide must be uploaded to help the reviewer when reviewing the Geocache.
- Automatically disable Geocaches that have had an outstanding needs maintenance on them for 100 days.
- Recruit more volunteer reviewers, who focus on clearing up the growing number of un-maintained Geocaches.
- Make it easier and clearer how to report a problem and post a needs maintenance note.
- If a Geocacher uses key words / phrases in their logs such as Logbook Full / Wet, Container Damaged, Cache might be missing then a popup asks if they want to report a problem.
- Re-name “Needs Archived” to “Needs Reviewer Attention” to help reduce the stigma of these log types.
- Introduce an adoption or please remove icon for Geocachers that are no longer able to maintain their Geocaches.
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This archived cache GC2TJKV needs locking. Despite repeated logs form the Cache owner asking people not to look for it, people are still logging it and have now turned it into a Virtual since the cache itself is now gone.
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I agree in my area Premium Caches earn around twice as many Favourite Points.
Comparing the 100 nearest Basic Caches with the 100 nearest Premium Caches to my home location.
Total Number of Favourite Points:
• Basic = 231
• Premium = 468Average Number of Favourite Points:
• Basic = 2.31
• Premium = 4.68Number of Caches with No Favourite Points:
• Basic = 33
• Premium = 51Number of Caches with 10+ Favourite Points:
• Basic = 7
• Premium = 17Cache with Most Favourite Points:
• Basic = 22
• Premium = 39 -
How do you create a new List using the new Dashboard?
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Again, not a Groundspeak issue. It's a community issue. Nobody needs to be specifically burdened with this task. We need to address the culture problem in the game that makes people hesitate to report issues.
It’s in Groundspeaks interest to minimise the amount of unmaintained Caches listed on their website, because finding unmaintained caches could put customers (Cachers) off the hobby.
Recruiting more volunteer Cache Police is a much easier way of dealing with the problem than trying to change a culture problem in the game.
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This is a community issue, not a Groundspeak issue. The system works pretty darn fast when community members use the NA log on neglected caches. People just need to follow up on their own NMs. We don't need to burden more reviewers with a task that can (and should) be done by responsible geocachers.
Every few weeks I scan through caches I've DNFed, and caches I have NMed. If I see DNFs accumulating after mine, and it's not a high difficulty cache, I'll use NM. I also use NM for obvious maintenance issues in the field. If more than a month has gone by on a cache I've NMed, with no response from the owner, I use NA. From there, reviewers usually give the owner a month (sometimes they archive immediately).
The problem is most Cachers won’t post a Needs Archived, so the process stalls.
Someone like yourself would make a perfect Cache Police Officer.
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I think the current system just needs speeding up. Maybe Ground Speak should recruit some more volunteers to act as the Cache Police. If they just focused on Caches with the needs maintenance icon, they’d have plenty to do.
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Pokeman Go could lead to more people Geocaching. App stores usually suggest other apps based on your purchase history or other apps customers who also downloaded Pokeman Go purchased.
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I don't think there is one, because it would require the checker to have access to all logs on all caches your finders have ever found and I don't think that has been available to Project-GC in the past - whether that will change in the brave new world remains to be seen.
Thanks for the reply, hopefully someone will create one as it’s a pretty common challenge.
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I own a Challenge Cache which requires Cachers to find a Cache that has not been found for at least 1 year (365 days) before the date they found it.
I would be happy to add a checker to this cache, does anyone know if there is a checker for this please?
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Clarke9414 Logged GC2MDV5
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What do you like most about challenge caches?
•The motivational factor and having a realistic goal to aim for.
What do you not like about challenge caches?
•There doesn’t seem to be a quick way to filter them from Puzzle Caches.
What would you like to see changed about challenge caches?
•I would like to see them given their own Icon, similar to how CITO Events are a sub category of “All Event Cache Types”.
If you could describe your favourite challenge cache type, what would it be?
•Challenges that encourage Cachers to attempt Caches they wouldn’t have bothered with had it not been for the Challenge (e.g. Lonely Caches, Difficulty / Terrain Combinations, Date Hidden etc.).
What types of challenge caches do you avoid?
•Complicated ones that are hard to check if you qualify.
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We found 1000 Caches before upgrading from Basic to Premium.
The best thing about Premium membership is the ability to create Pocket Quires which lets you download lots of Caches at once. You can still download Caches as a Basic Member but each Cache has to be downloaded individually and only the Difficulty, Terrain, Cache Size & Hint are sent to your GPS.
The improved statistics are pretty poor to be honest; in my opinion websites such as project-gc.com give you much more detailed statistics and are available to Basic Members.
Premium Caches are no better than Basic Caches. You just get more mag nanos, film cans, clip top boxes as well as some very creative and clever caches. The advantage of upgrading after finding all the local ones is it means you have lots of new Caches to find locally and don’t have to travel 20 miles to find the nearest Cache.
We’ll continue to renew our membership as it feels like we’re giving something back to a hobby that’s given us a lot more in return.
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What's everyone's impression of the new Virtual caches?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
The Virtual Rewards I’ve found have been more interesting than the old Virtual’s I’ve found. That’s probably because the Virtual Reward owners were only awarded one each and in the majority of cases used their Virtual Reward wisely. It also helped that Groundspeak were very selective when allocating the Virtual Rewards.
I feel the Virtual Rewards have been a success and a second batch should be allocated to the next set of worthy cache owners. Again keeping them to one per cache owner and excluding anyone who was awarded one last time.