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What's A Good Found/laid Ratio?


Mr'D

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Found 458, hidden 6, so about 1.3% ratio.

 

I don't think there is a right answer to this as some people get great enjoyment out of just finding the caches and some out of setting them, some both. It's all down to how you want to play the game.

 

Personally we'd like to set a lot more caches as we really enjoy the research and design of them. We've got a few ideas on the go but it all involves a lot of work before the cache gets released and thus things don't happen as quickly as we may like.

Edited by The Bolas Heathens
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<rant>Naturally we know there is no right or wrong answer and I believe some comments are being made to belittle the original post! Personally, I think it's a great topic. If it wasn't, I wouldn't respond to it. Why can't responses be conducive to the OP?

 

Anyway, rant over, on to my reply.</rant>

Sorry Jon.

;)

 

I have always thought that it would be good to have either 1 cache for every 25 or 50 found. At the moment it seems as though I can have a rest. Going along my line of thought I should have hidden 21.64 or 10.82 respectively. My tally is 38 plus 3 others not on my profile.

 

1:13.1

 

I think that's fair.

:D

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I'm struggling to see what the quadruple <rant> has to do with the OP.

 

Wow - this is a friendly place today isn't it? What ever happened to that nice forum about geocaching I used to enjoy visiting?

 

I've already answered the OP and hope others will do without being <rant>ed at further for no particular reason!

Edited by The Bolas Heathens
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I'm struggling to see what the quadruple <rant> has to do with the OP.

 

Wow - this is a friendly place today isn't it? What ever happened to that nice forum about geocaching I used to enjoy visiting?

 

I've already answered the OP and hope others will do without being <rant>ed at further for no particular reason!

The quadruple rant was due to the fact that I didn't know that the 1st / 2nd / 3rd / or 4th actually posted!

 

As you can see from another thread it took me 2 hours to make ONE post.

 

So it was just ONE ranty post and WAS on topic.

 

How long will it take to get this one to post?

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Seems to have worked this time :D Can't say as I've been following your posts particularly so did not know you were having problems posting.

 

I still do not follow your need for a <rant> though? I see some good replies to the OP which is what this thread is all about B) I don't see anyone being belittled unless I've missed something REALLY obvious....would not be the first time ;)

Edited by The Bolas Heathens
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Everyone takes part in the hobby in a different way - some of us collect coins, some of us enjoy hiding caches, some folk will log a coin they've been shown in the pub, some enjoy getting FTFs, some like to play the numbers game, some people like to set/break records.:D

 

There is no right or wrong way to take part in the hobby, if you want to hide a cache well go out and do it, if you just want to find 'em - well that's ok too...;)

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found to laid : 506 to zero

 

Anyone worse than that? :anibad:

Yep :blink:

+-------------------------+-------------+
| name					| found_total |
+-------------------------+-------------+
| The Haywood Hornet	  |		1705 |
| rodz					|		 842 |
| Herts_Skip			  |		 559 |
| SK MK TK PK			 |		 501 |
| xbox xplorers		   |		 488 |
| darrach				 |		 484 |
| The Fewston Finders	 |		 442 |
| scottandsam			 |		 418 |
| macroderma			  |		 414 |
+-------------------------+-------------+

(usual restrictions: UK / RoI only, and only "proper" caches - no premium or locationless)

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Ah! well er..... the xbox xplorers have actually placed caches, but THEY don't enter COTM :anibad:

Nothing to do with COTM! The "xbox xplorers" really have placed no caches on geocaching.com

 

Now, possibly some or all of the people in "xbox xplorers" may also happen to be members of another team or teams. I don't know. And possibly one or more of those teams may have placed some caches. But that's a different matter entirely... :blink:

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I have 1218 caches found and 42 hidden/adopted of which 9 have been archived for one reason or another. The 33 active caches have a total of 64 hidden elements (not counting virtual stages) and it takes at least 25% of my available caching time to maintain them to a standard that I'm happy with. I don't just leave them until a problem occurs or hope that someone else will sort them out for me :lol: One cache in particular takes a whole weekend :anibad: and I try to get round it once every couple of months or so. I've been quite lucky with my caches in that I've had very little problem with muggles (reaches out to touch wood) so usually it's just a case of topping up any clue sheets etc. and re-hiding them (they seem to get 'un-hidden' very quickly somehow :huh::blink: ). Don't know how you guys with 100 or more hidden cope with the maintenance side of it :huh:

Edited by Pharisee
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Don't know how you guys with 100 or more hidden cope with the maintenance side of it :anibad:
Well, personally I hope that someone else will sort them out for me :blink::lol:

 

Actually I do have a lot of help from understanding cachers on some of my further-flung cachers. Bekandian, The White Family, Nebias and Zensunni amongst others have all been kind enough to fix or replace caches for me. I tend to have offers rather than need to ask for help though, which is lovely. I've recovered muggled caches, collected archived 'geolitter' caches and generally try to make myself helpful too, so I guess it's reciprocal. Of my 118 'live' caches, just four are currently unavailable to be found. It's not ideal, but it's a long way off a crisis. 'Don't set more than you can look after' is good advice though, unless you plan to rotate many short-lived caches every 3+ months (as per Groundspeak setting rules).

 

More thoughts OT: I do like to see finders setting too, but accept not everyone stays in one place for long so can't place, or just don't want to. There's no rule to say you have to give anything back to the sport. Oh, and I saw Sensei this morning and we talked about this thread and his rant. I think he'd taken something to be a negative comment, but having talked about it, he seems a lot calmer :huh:

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There's no rule to say you have to give anything back to the sport.

I agree: but actually I think that finding caches IS giving something back to the sport, particularly from those who write interesting log entries. There's absolutely no need to feel obliged to set any caches at all: wait until you feel inspired to set one (if ever!).

 

HH

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How do all - well I thought I'd break my duck on the forums by voicing on this post. I've been caching a little while now - but only occasionally get the chance to get out there.

 

So far I've only been finding - mainly because I could be moving in a little while (hopefully not too far) and also because I'm still learning from the clever caches people are hiding locally (around Dorking, Surrey) all the time.

 

As long as you keep to the guidelines about swapping and replacing caches where you found them, you are in a way helping to maintain existing caches.

 

What has amazed me is the increase in interest in this hobby/sport in the last few years - I first heard about it in 2002/03 when there were just a small number of caches in my local area. Looking at the number that are going up every week, I don't think we are in danger or running out or reaching saturation soon!

 

Thanks to all of you who do place caches - it makes a great reason to go out and find new places. <_<

 

Mark

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So for those mathematicians out there...

 

What if every cacher laid one cache only?

 

How long would it be before we reached saturation point and found every cache that exists?

 

<_<

 

I don't think that'll ever happen, well I hope not, otherwise I'd have to find another hobby or attend every event going and just get drunk <_<

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Havn't hidden any new ones in quite a while myself, partly because I've not been doing much cache hunting either (it's taken me almost six years to get to 100 finds). Way back when there were fewer than a couple of hundred caches in the entire UK, some folks still got upset when other folks hid "too many" or "too few". :ph34r:

 

These days, with so many caches out there, it's probably a good idea to find a reasonable number before hiding your first, though. Who's to say whether "a reasonable number" is nearer 5, 50 or 500... :(

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Thanks to everybody for all the input over the last few days.

 

My original question was really out of curiosity as I had been feeling a little bit guilty about my found/laid ratio.

 

Now I see I am not alone (not in my guilt feeling but my ratio...) I don't feel so bad :(

 

Be prepared for a new series of caches in my territory.

 

:ph34r::(:P

 

Jon

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