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Cache Quality


Teasel

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Every now and then on the forums, someone highlights a really poor cache, placed by a newbie, and the question is asked whether beginners should be expected to find a certain minimum number of caches before placing one themselves. Thanks to the hundreds of cachers who have entered tens of thousands of cache ratings into G:UK, I thought I'd plot a graph or two... :blink:

 

Each blue dot on the graph below represents a UK cache. On the Y-axis, I've plotted the average score awarded to that cache by G:UK users. The X-axis shows the number of caches the cache owner had found before they placed that particular cache. The yellow dots show a smoothed average of the blue dots.

 

image002.gif

 

Personally, I was surprised how little pattern there is. Both new and old cachers alike place both good and bad caches and, on average at least, people don't seem to get much better at placing caches as they find more. Only for cachers who have found at least 200 caches is there any noticable rise in the quality of caches they place, and even then it's small.

 

The picture's about the same if you judge a cacher's experience on how many caches they've placed previously. People don't seem to get much better with practice, but nor do they seem to run out of ideas and lose steam...

 

image001.gif

 

So, don't blame the newbies for poorly placed caches! :(

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There's not really any reason why newbies should have a certain number of finds before placing a cache, some of the caches set in our area are fairly poor yet some of the best caches we have done have been set by people with less than 100 finds. I reckon it's more about local knowledge and knowing a good spot and a good hiding place. :blink:

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In Agreement with skippy and pingu. its all about local knowledge and the brains to exploit the hiding places.

 

But remember the G:uk ratings are for your enjoyment in finding the cache and as such i enjoy every cache to a certain degree but the location i.e by coniston water is the big plus factor in my enjoyment

 

i find it very hard to mark the caches objectively, as each cache has taken me somewhere even if the place/hide wasn't spectacular.

 

All in all just enjoy it and don't worry if you have missed a good one because there will be plenty more to find :blink:

 

i mean all cheshire cachers are enjoying MN's series (i missed out and are watching from afar) and we don't know his/her/their experience! :(

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We have done/found a few caches.

But we have done one or two caches by 'experienced' cachers that were absolutely abysmal.

Whilst a few by 'newbies' have been some of the best.

 

After all the rating system is based on personal opinion and what I think is a great cache another cacher may think it is bad.

 

If people want to place them, then it is all good for the sport.

If they are bad let the setter & other cachers know your opinion.

 

All that said we feel that learning from others cache placements , we are now in a position to place our own.

Edited by Rebel Alliance
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The correlation between score and service doesnt tell you how well hidden the cache is

 

What would be interesting is to find out how many caches placed in the 10 cache honeymoon period survive.

 

My experience tells me that while the location may be excellent and deserve a (and get) a great score the hiding place may not be very good and the cache goes missing more regularly or gets archived.

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Of course these figure wont say much, the premise for your querie is flawed.

 

Turn it on its head, put the rank of the cache on the X axis and the experience on the Y

 

And dont forget to remove the three Mutato Nomine caches from you analysis, since there are few who believe that MN is a genuine newbie, as his/her statistics would suggest!

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I have an explanation for why the zero caches found figure is higher than expected. If I look at our profile on GCUK, it appears that 7 of our caches were placed before we found a cache. In fact, we adopted these caches, because they were worth saving.

 

In North West England alone, there are at least 20 caches that appear to be hidden before the hider has found any. It's just the result of people adopting established caches that are worth keeping. These caches probably have a higher than average score, which balances out any cr*p caches placed by people who really haven't found any. It would be interesting to see the average score once the adopted caches are removed.

 

T

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to be quite honest havent you/we all set a cache that as an after thought we thought was naff

 

i have just set one for the durham meet which has brilliant views, but you can park within 25ft of the cache and not too dog friendly

 

it was a good idea at the time, but im sure after the meet you will all let me know what you think of it, cos i know you are all brutally honest, but i am a hard woman and can take the criticism lol , basically if i get a few saying it is chit i will remove it after the meet

 

have any of you done that before set a cache as a godd idea then realised it was naff and removed it?

 

mandy

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I have followed this thread with interest, and have a question to pose:

 

What criteria are used to judge a cache? Should not the aim of the person who places the cache be part of this?

 

What I mean is - if someone does a fiendish puzzle cache, it should be marked on how good the puzzle is, as well as whether the cache was in a good place.

 

If someone places a series of easy caches to highlight local parks and green

areas, then should not the rating of the cache reflect how well this is done?

 

I am not convinced that any rating system can be other than completely subjective until some sort of agree criteria can be established.

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No no, Lady Fairfax, you have the wrong idea... you are not supposed to build some feature out of concrete to create your own earthcache! :D

 

I must admit to not having rated many caches using this new tool, although I did di a few when it was new. Discussing caches with people at events, it is apparent that one person's brilliant cache is another person's absolute dog of a cache. I try to enthuse greatly in my logs if I really enjoy a cache.

 

Conversely, if I hear that a cache is pretty dreadful, I will probably still visit it, mainly because I don't like little blue dots in my sea of red dots on the excellent GC:UK interactive map!

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No no, Lady Fairfax, you have the wrong idea... you are not supposed to build some feature out of concrete to create your own earthcache!  ;)

 

Aaha ha ha ah..... :D

 

No, not the featureless boring wastes that are Leicester City, but a brilliant council run site on the outskirts that encompases all the things that the Earthcache rules state :D

 

Back to Leicester, perhaps I should plan a curry house trail multi-cache....mmmmm....could murder a curry right now..... :D eeew, not even midday yet!

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What criteria are used to judge a cache? Should not the aim of the person who places the cache be part of this?

I don't think you can take into account the caches setters aims or objectives. The variation are just too many. I spent quite a while rating all the caches I've so far found , reading all my logs and trying (with limited success in some cases) to remember them. The only realistic way I came up with was 'How much did I, personally, enjoy the hunt for this cache?' and I rated them on that.

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What criteria are used to judge a cache?  Should not the aim of the person who places the cache be part of this?

I don't think you can take into account the caches setters aims or objectives. The variation are just too many. I spent quite a while rating all the caches I've so far found , reading all my logs and trying (with limited success in some cases) to remember them. The only realistic way I came up with was 'How much did I, personally, enjoy the hunt for this cache?' and I rated them on that.

I agree.

We did it as a team. As we print off every log we make remembering them was easy.

Basically we know which caches we enjoyed the most so these got 5 stars. Our least enjoyable got 1/2 and we worked top down for the rest.

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What criteria are used to judge a cache?  Should not the aim of the person who places the cache be part of this?

I don't think you can take into account the caches setters aims or objectives. The variation are just too many. I spent quite a while rating all the caches I've so far found , reading all my logs and trying (with limited success in some cases) to remember them. The only realistic way I came up with was 'How much did I, personally, enjoy the hunt for this cache?' and I rated them on that.

I agree.

We did it as a team. As we print off every log we make remembering them was easy.

Basically we know which caches we enjoyed the most so these got 5 stars. Our least enjoyable got 1/2 and we worked top down for the rest.

So it is completely subjective. It seems a shame that we have a system of rating caches that has no objective criteria by which we could standardise our scoring.

 

I don't want to sound too negative, but does it have any real value?

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So it is completely subjective. It seems a shame that we have a system of rating caches that has no objective criteria by which we could standardise our scoring.

 

I don't want to sound too negative, but does it have any real value?

The value is that if lots of people enjoy a cache (for whatever personal reasons) it gets rated highly, if lots of people think it's rubbish it'll get a low rating. If there's a mix of opinion it'll end up in the middle.

 

Sounds reasonable to me.

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I don't want to sound too negative, but does it have any real value?

Funnily enough, although I have not chosen to participate, I think it does have a a value. At events people are always asking about what other people think is a good cache. People are always requesting similar information on this forum. I think it's natural that people want to know that. Even if it is highly subjective, if people all rate a cache highly, then chances are that it's going to be a good cache.

 

One of my worries is that I have set a series of caches but have deliberately kept the difficulty level down. This is because I wish to encourage cachers to have a nice day out walking the route, and I do want them to find all the caches. If one was to rate one of these caches, I dare say they would not rate highly alongside some of the classic caches, but my hope was that the overall experience, and enjoyment of having a numbers day, would be what the cachers visiting the series would derive from it.

 

Oh, I have thought of another point. many geocachers appear to be geeks and love stats, so no reason why we should not provide them for their geeky enjoyment! :D

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One of my worries is that I have set a series of caches but have deliberately kept the difficulty level down. This is because I wish to encourage cachers to have a nice day out walking the route, and I do want them to find all the caches. If one was to rate one of these caches, I dare say they would not rate highly alongside some of the classic caches, but my hope was that the overall experience, and enjoyment of having a numbers day, would be what the cachers visiting the series would derive from it.

What you said is the reason why I suggested that the setters aims should be a criterion.

 

If, when setting a cache, you explain its purpose - "This cache is designed to take you to a part of xxxxxx you may not have known. There are some lovely views from here." then it gives the finder an opportunity to assess it on an objective basis.

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So what is your expert's view on the following:

 

A cache in an easy to reach but very busy public place that is very hard to discreetly move?

A cache in a very hard to get place that is the equivalent of trying to climb to the moon via an active volcano [i'm sure you know what I mean]?

 

Basically, the first one could be one that takes little effort to find, but being in such a public place would you rate it as challenging as the one hidden in outer Mongolia with no muggles anywhere and lots of puzzles to solve?

 

*Clang* [spanner in the works]

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What criteria are used to judge a cache?  Should not the aim of the person who places the cache be part of this?

I don't think you can take into account the caches setters aims or objectives. The variation are just too many. I spent quite a while rating all the caches I've so far found , reading all my logs and trying (with limited success in some cases) to remember them. The only realistic way I came up with was 'How much did I, personally, enjoy the hunt for this cache?' and I rated them on that.

I agree.

We did it as a team. As we print off every log we make remembering them was easy.

Basically we know which caches we enjoyed the most so these got 5 stars. Our least enjoyable got 1/2 and we worked top down for the rest.

So it is completely subjective. It seems a shame that we have a system of rating caches that has no objective criteria by which we could standardise our scoring.

 

I don't want to sound too negative, but does it have any real value?

There will be a few at the top and a few at the bottom but the vast majority will get a 2.5 star rating because one person's treasure is another person's rubbish. People like different caches, if my caches are typical then the logs reflect the diversity from "I didn't think much of that" to "my favourite cache ever".

 

It's useful but not the be all and end all.

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We all like the idea of doing milestone caches

Cut down cache no 50

Alchemy Gold 100

Jonah's Jouney 200 (2 hour drive)

Number 250 ????

Number 300 ????

 

This helps with making that sort of decision.

It also helps with long distance (holiday) caching decisions.

as said above the ones in the middle will be the ones in the middle and all generally worthy of visiting.

we know from talking to people that one of our caches is one teams all time favourite it currently has 3 stars.

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Here are some stats for Oxfordshire. First a distribution graph showing skewed normal distribution. Skewed to lower end interestingly

 

oxon_ratings.gif

 

Here is the same data shown as a box and whisker plot, notice that 50% of the ratings (shown by box) fall within a narrow range close to 2.5. The median is 2.3.

 

oxon_bw.gif

 

Nearly two thirds of the ratings (65%) are between 2.0 and 3.0 and just 10% get an average rating above 3.0

Edited by jochta
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Here is the same data shown as a box and whisker plot, notice that 50% of the ratings (shown by box) fall within a narrow range close to 2.5. The median is 2.3.

That's partly due to the fact that you've plotted the Bayesian rankings, rather than the actual scores that people awarded. The Bayesian averaging process deliberately pushes the ratings towards the middle, to ensure that caches only make it onto the "top-N caches" lists if they consistently receive lots of high scores. Your graph shows that Mr Bayes got his sums right! :D It is in fact true that people's votes are quite clustered around 2 - 3.5, but not as much as this graph suggests. Once more votes are received for each cache, the ratings should start to spread out.

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So it is completely subjective.  It seems a shame that we have a system of rating caches that has no objective criteria by which we could standardise our scoring.

Objective criteria are necessarily statements of fact (distance from nearest car park, difficulty, terrain etc). These are best handled by the cache placer and there are various aids to help them (handicaching, GCRS etc). If you disagree with the cache placer's assessment, tell them in your log.

 

The G:UK ratings were deliberately designed to be subjective. They ask how much you the cacher enjoyed that cache. Other people looking at the scores can tell only how much other people enjoyed that cache. They don't know the reason why they enjoyed it (maybe they proposed to their girlfriend there, using the diamond ring she "just happened to find" in the cache; maybe a geotrasher had filled the cache with dog mess). But hopefully, given sufficient votes, a useful "average enjoyment" should start to emerge.

 

I considered providing lots of different criteria, other than "overall enjoyment". For example "physical challenge", "mental challenge", "uniqueness", "surroundings", "concealment", "quick-n-easy vs long-n-hard" etc. But the subjective nature of people's opinions means that a ratings system only has value if a large number of people contribute. So I opted for a single, overall rating. Better, IMHO, to get 10 people to quickly say how much they liked a cache, than get one person to answer 10 questions detailing exactly what they liked/disliked.

 

I don't want to sound too negative, but does it have any real value?

No more than a general election! Objectively, which is the best political party? (rhetorical question!!!)

 

Was "Independence Day" a good movie? Who can say? But the scores on IMDB.com, in conjunction with the written descriptions, are useful when deciding which DVD to rent next!

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Here is the same data shown as a box and whisker plot, notice that 50% of the ratings (shown by box) fall within a narrow range close to 2.5. The median is 2.3.

That's partly due to the fact that you've plotted the Bayesian rankings, rather than the actual scores that people awarded. The Bayesian averaging process deliberately pushes the ratings towards the middle, to ensure that caches only make it onto the "top-N caches" lists if they consistently receive lots of high scores. Your graph shows that Mr Bayes got his sums right! :) It is in fact true that people's votes are quite clustered around 2 - 3.5, but not as much as this graph suggests. Once more votes are received for each cache, the ratings should start to spread out.

My bad.

 

It'll be interesting to see if they do spread out over time...

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So I have looked and looked on G:UK but still can't find out how to rate a cache, come on i'm sure there is someone who will let me into the secret on how to rate one?? :):)

If you're logged on, go to the 'My Stats' bit. At the bottom of the page is a list of caches you have found but not rated. Click on how many stars you want to give for each one, then refresh the page to bring another load up.

 

Alternatively, do a search for all caches while logged in, then click on 'Remove not found' and 'remove hidden' to show all the caches you have logged. You can then fill in the stars there.

 

T

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Maybe I am blind, but I can't find how to actually rate a cache?? B)  :)

So I have looked and looked on G:UK but still can't find out how to rate a cache, come on i'm sure there is someone who will let me into the secret on how to rate one?? B):)

Go to GeocacheUK

Click on UK Stats, then click on My Stats.

Look down at the bottom left.

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I'm getting the same response as Haggis Hunter and I'm not listed under 2 names -in fact when I look at 'Cacher profile for civilised' I get an accurate listing for my statistics - it just doesn't seem to want me to rate any of my finds :)

 

civilised

If you log in an click the My Stats does it take you to the same profile ??

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No - it takes me to a page that says among other things :-

 

My Maps

A map of all UK geocaches, showing the ones I've found.

A map of all UK geocaches and trigpoints, showing the ones I've found.

A map of the UK, showing just those caches and trigpoints which I've found.

An interactive map of all UK geocaches, customised for me.

My Profiles

My GeocacheUK profile.

My geocaching.com profile.

My TrigpointingUK profile.

My Searches <New search>

 

caches, near to EASTBOURNE

caches, near to LONDON

caches, near to WEST DRAYTON

caches, near to SWINDON

caches, near to GREEN PARK

 

and thats about it - except for a completely blank map of the UK.

 

All of the links also return the same blank UK Map

 

civilised

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