Geocaching And The Masses

[+Geo-Kate]

Just a thought I had today;

 

I was thinking about all the media coverage caching is starting to get, with reports in papers and mags, and I have seen it mentioned in one or two TV programsat least. At first I liked seeing articles about it, but it has got me worried.

 

What attracted me to the hobby was that it was special, not many people knew of it and and that made it that much better. I am just worried that if everybody knows about it, and more and more people join in, will it lose it's charm?

 

Don't get me wrong- I am never against new people starting, and I would like to welcome them all, but I just don't want the whole world to know about our little game. Does that sound selfish?

 

I was wondering if anybody shared a similar opinion, or if anybody wanteto post their own thoughts on this.

 

GK

[+The Wombles]

We had this debate some time before you joined

 

Many of us felt that we shouldn't court publicity but that when approached by the press that we should respond to ensure that caching is correctly represented. Growth is inevitable because, as we all know, it's great fun!

[+The Mars Bars]

 

Many of us felt that we shouldn't court publicity but that when approached by the press that we should respond to ensure that caching is correctly represented. Growth is inevitable because, as we all know, it's great fun!

 

Agree with this entirely.

 

Whilst not wanting to discourage interested parties it would be detrimental to the game if all and sundry knew exactly what we were all up to!

 

Cheers

Dave

[+HazelS]

Yeah - if friends ask me - I tell them... if strangers giove me funny looks and ask, I tell them I'm doing a wildlife survey or checking oxygen levels "with my meter"

 

I don't like to tell too many people in case they all want to join in!!

[+Cryptik Souls Crew]

Its certainly changed a lot since we first started. I was looking over some of our early finds the other day and noticed we were FTF on an easy cache (a few days after it was placed) which then wasn't found again for about 6 weeks. I placed a cache last weekend and it had 3 finds within 24 hours.

 

I think we are still a long way from saturation point, and I don't think the growth of caching has become detrimental, but maybe in the future?

 

I don't think it will be long before there is a caching event happening almost every week in the UK, maybe caching will evolve into some kind of social club

[+Hillhappy1]

I agree with all that's been said so far. We like to encourage and maybe enjoy the baffled looks when people ask what our hobby (can i call it that now) is, but maybe feel uncomfortable with the thought of it becoming a mass activity.

When i first started there were only a couple of us in the area i live, very few caches and i hardly ever met a fellow cacher. Recently there has been quite an influx of cachers and associated caches and i have met a least six other cachers when out and about.

All in all i think it's good for the hobby and there's still plenty of room for lots more cachers and caching.

I wonder if footballers felt the same way when that hobby/game first stated?

[+kewfriend]

GEOCACHING GETS BETTER AND BETTER

 

There are far more puzzle caches to tease the grey cells ( over 50s need that! )

 

As the obvious locations are taken caches start to appear in interesting lesser known quarters and the pass-time becomes even more interesting

 

One occasionally actually meets fellow cachers these days!

 

Cache events get punters turning up!

 

 

and every now and then a real surprise: FewKinder and myself discovered that a cache has been placed in her Grandad's memorial playing fields - GOTTA DO THAT ONE haven't we!!!!

[+Kitty Hawk]

Funnily enough I was thinking today that there are many new names on the forums - this presumably is a small sample of a huge number of new cachers.

 

Kewfriend makes a point, more cachers will mean more of everything - more brilliant caches, more poor caches (and more puzzles).

 

Don't have an issue with it, as long as people manage not to bring the game into disrepute.

[+John Stead]

This topic has made me go all nostalgic - and made me look up my first find to see how long FTFs took then. It was hidden on 13th February, I was the first finder on 14th April and the next finder was on 4th June (incidentally it was the only cache he ever found) - and that was all five years ago! Mind you I should never have found it when I did as it was in an area closed by Foot and Mouth restrictions although I did not know at the time as I went in by the back door. Bit of a shock to come out past a notice threatening a £2000 fine for passing it, and I'd left my signature in the cache log.

 

I would not dare say whether caching is more fun now than then - just very different.

[+Get of Fenris]

As a newbie, I'm a bit ambivalent with respect to this topic.

 

I found geocaching by accident - and I'm so glad I did. I'd hate to deny the pleasure I've had geocaching to other people, but I'm worried about what the sport might become once it has become mainstream.

 

There are two factors involved in this:

 

1. The price of GPS units are coming down at a drastic rate. I picked up a new Garmin Etrex Camo for about £70. This is affordable for most people.

 

2. Information wants to propagate. The prevalence of the internet in people's homes allows access to sites such as www.geocaching.com. That coupled with increased media coverage and affordable gps units can only increase the number of people enjoying the sport.

 

So what can the community do? In other scenarios (such as adoption of desktop Linux or BSD), the old guard become hostile to "newbies" and refuse them help until they've proved themselves to be True to the Way. This is bad.

Alternatively, they can welcome the new members with open arms and allow what they do to become diluted to the point of extinction. This is also bad.

 

How does a community cope with a massive influx of new blood?

 

Darwinism - adapt or die. Harsh perhaps, especially to the founding fathers (parents?) of something special (like geocaching).

 

Is there another way? I hope so!

[+civilised]

I'm sure that this discussion also took place around the time I joined, with pretty much the same sentiments expressed.

 

In my just over a year of caching, I've met 4 other cachers. 2 of whom are still caching. The third never logged their activity on the site. The last seem to have stopped caching altogether.

 

I live in a reasonably cache-rich area and I'm aware of activity from many local cachers. But I never see them

 

I guess what I'm saying is that we have a long way to go before the activity becomes mainstream - or even for the majority of people to remotely interested in it

 

civilised

[+Kitty Hawk]

Good post & your GPS was good value!

 

I think as a rule we welcome newbies - see the adopt a newbie thread as an example, and apart from the odd rant infected thread, any post from anyone asking for help is well recieved and responded to.

 

Few people really get into it though - look at Deego's hall of fame. It will become slightly mainstream and fewer people will an explanation of what we do, but it's probably not going to be the most popular thing ever.

 

The other aspect is that people drift away, not just the people with only 10 or 20 caches found, but people drift away at any stage. We don't see many 'addicts' drifting away now, becuase there are comparatively few of them, however if you go back in time on this forum you see alot of names who were quite high profile who have dropped off the radar.

 

If the quality of caches drops, and some people think it is already, newbies will drop off faster, slowing caching's rate of growth. The only thing that might become a discussion point would be archiving caches from inactive cachers, but this again happens already as they need maintenance - the only point to change here is the phrasology that makes archiving a cache seem quite a bad thing.

 

I'm not too worried about growth as such. I am worried about cachers not following the guidelines.

[Deego]

Few people really get into it though - look at Deego's hall of fame. It will become slightly mainstream and fewer people will an explanation of what we do, but it's probably not going to be the most popular thing ever.

 

 

HoF 2004-2006

 

I don't think that 3174 (Jan active) or 2978(Feb active) really classes as main stream though

 

looking at the stats only 10,261 teams have logged a UK cache in the past 12 months and 20,764 in the past 5 years (That includes visitors to the UK as well)

[+Belplasca]

Like John, I went back and looked at my early finds...

 

I remembered that my first was a FTF, but I hadn't remembered the second as a second-to-find...

 

And then I looked for the Bucks cache meet that I attended a week or two later, where I met Tim & June and Robin Lovelock sitting at the same table (the work of The Hornet, I understood at the time )

 

So, happy memories - but only Summer 2003, so not that long ago, really.

 

Bob Aldridge

[+Kitty Hawk]

Few people really get into it though - look at Deego's hall of fame. It will become slightly mainstream and fewer people will an explanation of what we do, but it's probably not going to be the most popular thing ever.

 

 

HoF 2004-2006

 

I don't think that 3174 (Jan active) or 2978(Feb active) really classes as main stream though

 

looking at the stats only 10,261 teams have logged a UK cache in the past 12 months and 20,764 in the past 5 years (That includes visitors to the UK as well)

 

Thanks Deego, that demonstrates my point.

 

If we take tourists as a fairly low number - I'm randonly choosing 764 - then there have been 20000 teams take part in caching, 17000 of which don't bother after a while. So, if there are an influx of newbies, we can guess that, say,6 out of every 7 of them will drop out. In fact, those 3000 active cachers will include an element of cachers shortly to drop out as well.

 

I wonder if there is a theory that that ratio of 'stayers' is getting worse - eg, some of us liked the game becuase no-one knew about it - if everyone knows the attraction may diminish so people may be less inclined to get into it so much?

 

Or, maybe the people most likely to become addicted would have discovered the pastime already and there are fewer and fewer uninitiated addicts to come.

 

It may peak at a relatively small number of persistent cachers but with large numbers of people who have given it a go.

 

Advantage - to me anyway - people won't look at me and say 'Watch out every one, there's a man on his own, lock up your children and guinea pigs' they will say 'Oh, there's a geocacher'

[+sTeamTraen]

Geocaching will be mainstream the day when the media *don't* want to write articles about it.

 

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm expecting a call from a journalist...

Edited March 10, 2006 by sTeamTraen

[+kewfriend]

It would be interesting if 'Eck and Lac' had a private view Hornetish about any changes in the number of new cache applications and their perceived changes in the balance of different cache types and even - dare I say - their location quality.

 

In them olden days ( when I was a pre-pubescent geo-virgin ) I suspect that many caches were placed in the more 'obvious' locations - nice-ish but perhaps lacking in the historical or geographical quality that some seem to be today. In them oldie days there was a sudden plethora of truly awful Virtual and Locationaless caches ( OK mostly in the USA ) which quite rightly led to a moratorium on them. Putting Locationless into Wayfaring was the result. I really liked the arrival of Earthcaches ( and have set one up myself ) but again they quickly tuned into a flood of less than interesting 'Earth' locations.

 

So - provided a sensible watch is placed on the correct locating of new caches - I think its all going in the right direction. There's little evidence of a greater proportion of trashed or muggled caches these days, cache contents are variable and if anything a little more interesting than of old, there seem to be more micros around which I am ambivalent about: I like the challenge but hate the end result.

 

Lots of new geocoins - seems good. TBs occasionally get zapped but seem to travel well.

 

So NEWBIES - please sign up and ENJOY.

[Polar Explorer]

As a family of tadpoles, we are interested in finds in the wilderness of Dartmoor, as it gives us a new way to get into hiking about. The dog gets lots of exercise too! The point I am getting around to is that the more remote the locations, the less saturated they will become, but other caces near car parks will have morevisitors.

 

I just hope that newbies do not try and walk beyond their means, is there a link for newbies advising on walking essentials etc?

 

Glad to be a newbie anyway, even if i am a bit pants at locating the 3 caches i have tried to find!

 

Paul, Helen, and Hamish the mutant

[+BareClawz]

As a relative newbie I don't see Geocaching as mainstream yet. There may be lots of people that know what it is but there are a lot more that don't. Of those that do know I have yet to find another cacher apart from hunting a cache.

My partner, Jan, loves the walks we do together following the little yellow box (Etrex) and Patch certainly enjoys does. He's even getting brave and whilst doing Coal Post # 97 he quite calmly walked up the bridge ramp, bobbed up a few times to check where we were and rejoined us at the bottom of the other ramp as we walked along the river bank.

We both enjoy the fact that people are sharing places they know and enjoy almost as if sharing with friends. My cache After the Picnic had us baffled at first till we learnt that the 'offerings' in the tree are there for the local birds to collect nesting material from. But many times before the cache was there we walked that forest track, sharing is seems to have made it more special to us. To us it's a good way to get out and see new places, some that we had no idea were there. More people coming in will mean more people sharing their favourite spots.

I don't see anything as being mainstream till W H Smiths have a magazine on their shelves about it.

[+clotguy]

as a brand new boy I'm glad that I have found you. This will give a point to the walks i take my kids on

[+Geo-Kate]

as a brand new boy I'm glad that I have found you. This will give a point to the walks i take my kids on

 

Welcome! The addiction starts here....

[beanysquil]

Dare I say it - could the problem be cache not cacher saturation ?

 

Should new members be welcomed but a limit set on the number of active caches anyone can have?(assuming there isn't one already) Are people trying hard enough to make caches that inform, entertain or take you somewhere special ? For sure some people are, I've found some fantastic caches recently but then again I've found a whole load that seem to have been laid way too hastely will no real point. If you could only place 5 wouldn't you make them the best you could ?

[+TrailGators]

Dare I say it - could the problem be cache not cacher saturation ?

 

Should new members be welcomed but a limit set on the number of active caches anyone can have?(assuming there isn't one already) Are people trying hard enough to make caches that inform, entertain or take you somewhere special ? For sure some people are, I've found some fantastic caches recently but then again I've found a whole load that seem to have been laid way too hastely will no real point. If you could only place 5 wouldn't you make them the best you could ?

I think the problem will be be self-correcting. As the number of cachers increases the number of lame caches will also increase. This will cause many cachers to view geocaching as stupid and quit. My family is proof of this effect. Everyone in my family except me thinks geocaching is stupid. I try to tell them as I lift a lamppost cover up in the middle of a parking lot that "This is not stupid!!!"

Edited July 4, 2006 by TrailGators

[+PopUpPirate]

I personally hope more cachers doesnt equal more rules

[+TrailGators]

I personally hope more cachers doesnt equal more rules

Ever study entropy?

[+fat boy slow]

As a point of interest I don't see a problem.

 

I joined Geocaching.com in Oct 2002 while recovering from an injury and being bored silly decided to try this new fangled outdoor activity I'd heard about.

 

There was no way I could afford a GPS in thosse days but with a bit of map reading it soon became apparent that one of the closest caches to me at that time would be very easy to find with a map alone ( 1 - 25000 OS )

 

And sure enough it was, and I was hooked with a promise to myself to one day take it up properly,

 

Fast forward to Jan 2006 and Santa had been good to me, I had some spare cash at the end of the month so off I went and got a Magellan Sportrak, fine for my needs. There are now over 250 caches between me and that first find ( a 16.5 mile radius from home) so I think I'll be doing this a while

 

July 2006 and I now have over 60 finds to my name, and I've even placed a couple of caches. If my experience is anything to go by there is no danger of Caching becoming too main stream, most folks I know don't even venture out of town never mind leave the comfort of their cars.

 

No, I think that Caching will only really interest a small proportion of those folks who like the outdoors in the first place.

 

And as for Cache location, well my efforts to place them suggest that you have to be more and more clever all the time to find a location worth using.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

FBS

Edited July 5, 2006 by fat boy slow

[+Johnmelad]

I got into caching because I could no longer get out on the high and distant fells of my beloved lake district. Never did know what the Geocach picture on my Garmin was for, then decided to look it up and am now sort of hooked, did a few on my own and last week took "she who must be obeyed" she thoroughly enjoyed herself, we found two.

 

Am putting together one of my own, but will not place it until I have a little more experience, I already have a micro that someone at work gave me, not sure if I like micro's yet.