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Less Traffic Then Last Year


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I don't know if it is the area or just my caches, but I have noticed a big drop in caches being hit this year compaired to last.

 

Last year (during this time of year) I had cachers finding my caches several times a week. This year there are only a few a month.

 

Has anyone noticed this happening to them? I wonder what's up

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I don't know if it is the area or just my caches, but I have noticed a big drop in caches being hit this year compaired to last.

 

Last year (during this time of year) I had cachers finding my caches several times a week. This year there are only a few a month.

 

Has anyone noticed this happening to them? I wonder what's up

 

Unless placed near a big tourist spot, such as an airport, convention center, or attraction, most caches taper off after the 'area cachers' find them.

 

Last year your caches were all placed in august, so you had the rush of the area cachers all finding them during august.

 

This year, you mostly placed caches in may. I imagine by now, all the area cachers have found them. So this august, they are only being hit by visitors.

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I don't know if it is the area or just my caches, but I have noticed a big drop in caches being hit this year compaired to last.

 

Last year (during this time of year) I had cachers finding my caches several times a week. This year there are only a few a month.

 

Has anyone noticed this happening to them? I wonder what's up

 

A new cache usually has a surge of finds by the hot and heavy cachers, then it tones down to the normal traffic. Depending on the location a cache may only be found once a month.

Edited by BlueDeuce
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Go picke them up, archive the listings, refurbish the containers and put them back out in new locations as new caches.

 

I expect you'll see that the traffic is still there, it's just that most folks in the area have already found them.

 

I know that people disagree with the above strategy, but it is also the way I see it and approach placing caches. All caches are is essence temporary. Personally, if people have had fun finding mine, I am satisified, and once interest tails off (locals all found it), it makes good sense to archive and place something new. Keeps the sport fresh. I would not mind seeing an expiration date for all caches.

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I'm not seeing a lot of visitors coming thru this year, and that could be due to the cost of fuel. As for my caches in the hills, one or two finds a year is the norm. And I'm not about to archive them or move them for there was alot of work involved in setting them up. Its the final location that is tantamount to a quality cache.

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I would not mind seeing an expiration date for all caches.

This has been brought up a few times. There are strong arguments against expiration dates. I would hate to see that happen.

 

On the other hand, one idea that has merit--that you'd never see here--is a type of cache that solves one of the issues of automatically expiring caches and that is dealing with geotrash. This is "take something, leave nothing" cache. Last person to take something also takes the cache, but does leave something to indicate the cache is gone. Biodegradable surveyor's tape, a tepee of sticks, etc. will let folks know the cache is over and not tear up the area looking for it. Plus, the last finder gets a cache container. Hopefully the last finder will also return the logbook to the owner.

 

Or...

 

As the GPStheGame, um, game was played, a cache was only good for the first 10 finders. It was kind of cool how it work in that it did use codes in order to be able to log online. Because of the limited slots I saw little code sharing because knew it wouldn't be fair to those who actually found the cache.

 

But...

 

Both of the above violate the "temporary cache rule." I doubt reviewers are eager to publish a cache that in some areas might last 2 days.

 

As for the OP, I'm wondering if the weather might be affecting the traffic. What folks have been saying about the initial surge is true. It kind of looks like you have a small but active community, enough folks to be active, but no enough to have overwhelming numbers of caches to choose from. This may show the surge more than a less active community or a more large and dense one.

 

My best advise is to not get discouraged. As new cachers come into the hobby in your area they will want to find those caches, too. If you do go the archive-and-replace route, work up from your less than best efforts and do those first leaving the better ones for more folks to enjoy.

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With the heat alone hitting a 100 before the heat index no wonder less people are caching right now. I actually would welcome a string of drive-up lamp posts right now

Adding in the humidity, I would need someone to ride along, hop out of the Jeep, get the cache, and bring it back to me to sign. :(

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I have noticed a bit of a drop this summer as opposed to earlier in the year. I can't speak for anybody else, but personally it's just too hot and muggy lately for me to go find any, though I have a huge hitlist. I'm kind of disappointed so few people have found my latest cache but then it is a 4/4 puzzle, maybe that skeered 'em off.

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I don't know if it is the area or just my caches, but I have noticed a big drop in caches being hit this year compaired to last.

 

Last year (during this time of year) I had cachers finding my caches several times a week. This year there are only a few a month.

 

Has anyone noticed this happening to them? I wonder what's up

 

It's probably as stated, the hard core have been there already. It's certainly not a worldwide phenomenon, our caches are getting visited like crazy out here.

 

If you want to generate traffic to your caches, you can always drop the coins and TBs you collect in them.

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On the other hand, one idea that has merit--that you'd never see here--is a type of cache that solves one of the issues of automatically expiring caches and that is dealing with geotrash. This is "take something, leave nothing" cache. Last person to take something also takes the cache, but does leave something to indicate the cache is gone. Biodegradable surveyor's tape, a tepee of sticks, etc. will let folks know the cache is over and not tear up the area looking for it. Plus, the last finder gets a cache container. Hopefully the last finder will also return the logbook to the owner.

 

Or...

 

As the GPStheGame, um, game was played, a cache was only good for the first 10 finders. It was kind of cool how it work in that it did use codes in order to be able to log online. Because of the limited slots I saw little code sharing because knew it wouldn't be fair to those who actually found the cache.

 

But...

 

Both of the above violate the "temporary cache rule." I doubt reviewers are eager to publish a cache that in some areas might last 2 days.

 

 

I did have one something like this that got approved. It "expired" after 25 finds. I then archived it, moved it and it was reborn as a new cache. After three, maybe four, cycles I got tired of it and left it archived.

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I've been talking about this with a more experienced geocaching friend of mine. Our consensus is that something like a soft-state protocol would be satisfactory. Caches would get an automatic expiration date. However, the owner could reset the expiration date by indicating that the cache is still active. This would prevent people from placing more caches than they can maintain. It would also take care of the phenomenon of someone finding the hobby, placing a bunch of caches, and then leaving right away.

 

Instituting this policy for existing caches would not be fair, so they would have to be grandfathered in with an infinite lifetime. For this reason, our proposed policy may not work all that well. It is a little like closing the barn door after the horses have left. On the other hand, it would prevent the problems of overcrowding and unmaintained caches from getting any worse.

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I've been talking about this with a more experienced geocaching friend of mine. Our consensus is that something like a soft-state protocol would be satisfactory. Caches would get an automatic expiration date. However, the owner could reset the expiration date by indicating that the cache is still active. This would prevent people from placing more caches than they can maintain. It would also take care of the phenomenon of someone finding the hobby, placing a bunch of caches, and then leaving right away.

 

Instituting this policy for existing caches would not be fair, so they would have to be grandfathered in with an infinite lifetime. For this reason, our proposed policy may not work all that well. It is a little like closing the barn door after the horses have left. On the other hand, it would prevent the problems of overcrowding and unmaintained caches from getting any worse.

I don't understand how this would work. I would think that it would cause more geolitter, not less. Also, it would not necessarily result in caches being better maintained, since one would just have to reset the expiration date, not go check on the cache.
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I don't understand how this would work. I would think that it would cause more geolitter, not less.

 

I guess it depends on what your definition of geolitter is. The proposed mechanism would result in more archived caches. If you classify an unmaintained archive cache as geolitter, then the proposed mechanism would indeed create more of those.

 

However, there are plenty of caches out there that are neglected yet still listed without problems. I classify those as geolitter. The proposed mechanism would work against this phenomenon by requiring the cache owner to at least think about their placements periodically.

 

Also, it would not necessarily result in caches being better maintained, since one would just have to reset the expiration date, not go check on the cache.

 

It forces the cache owner to think about the cache when they reset the date. Ideally a cache owner makes physical visits to their caches whether or not the cache is logged as needing maintenance. However, there is no way to force periodic physical maintenance.

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I don't understand how this would work. I would think that it would cause more geolitter, not less.

 

I guess it depends on what your definition of geolitter is. The proposed mechanism would result in more archived caches. If you classify an unmaintained archive cache as geolitter, then the proposed mechanism would indeed create more of those.

 

However, there are plenty of caches out there that are neglected yet still listed without problems. I classify those as geolitter. The proposed mechanism would work against this phenomenon by requiring the cache owner to at least think about their placements periodically.

 

Also, it would not necessarily result in caches being better maintained, since one would just have to reset the expiration date, not go check on the cache.

It forces the cache owner to think about the cache when they reset the date. Ideally a cache owner makes physical visits to their caches whether or not the cache is logged as needing maintenance. However, there is no way to force periodic physical maintenance.
There are people that have hidden hundreds of caches. It would take weeks for them to visit all of their caches. By the time they got done checking they'd have to start checking them again. So I think those people would just toggle the date on the proposal and nothing would be any different other than having to toggle dates.
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I don't understand how this would work. I would think that it would cause more geolitter, not less.
I guess it depends on what your definition of geolitter is. The proposed mechanism would result in more archived caches. If you classify an unmaintained archive cache as geolitter, then the proposed mechanism would indeed create more of those.

 

However, there are plenty of caches out there that are neglected yet still listed without problems. I classify those as geolitter. The proposed mechanism would work against this phenomenon by requiring the cache owner to at least think about their placements periodically.

My definition of geolitter would be an archived cache that the owner has no intention of continuing to maintain or remove.

 

I don't consider non-archived caches to be geolitter, even if maintenance is not done by the owner.

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There are people that have hidden hundreds of caches. It would take weeks for them to visit all of their caches. By the time they got done checking they'd have to start checking them again. So I think those people would just toggle the date on the proposal and nothing would be any different other than having to toggle dates.

 

I think it would deter people from hiding hundreds of caches, because hiding would cease to be a fire and forget activity. For those who have already placed hundreds of caches, their hides would be grandfathered in. Like I said, it wouldn't be fair to change the policy for existing caches -- only new ones.

 

Perhaps filtering by the last time the owner read the log, or even logged in at all, would be a less invasive way to accomplish essentially the same thing.

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My definition of geolitter would be an archived cache that the owner has no intention of continuing to maintain or remove.

 

I don't consider non-archived caches to be geolitter, even if maintenance is not done by the owner.

 

That's fair. My definition of geolitter is a cache that the owner has no intention of continuing to maintain or remove whether or not a bit is flipped in some database. In a sense, I think a cache is a cache whether or not it's registered in any given cache database, and can become geolitter just the same. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

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... most caches taper off after the 'area cachers' find them.

 

Last year your caches were all placed in august, so you had the rush of the area cachers all finding them during august.

 

This year, you mostly placed caches in may. I imagine by now, all the area cachers have found them. So this august, they are only being hit by visitors.

 

This is normally sound logic but TeamOrville lives in an area where there have been no more than about five active local cachers at any given time over the past six years. Mendocino County, CA is larger than Rhode Island, by quite a bit, but I've only seen two other county cachers that did not taper off after about six months, or less, and then drop off the face of geoearth.

 

But it is a big tourist destination and pass-through. US Highway 101 and State Route 20 intersect in TeamOrville's Ukiah Valley and that's what brings the geocachers into the area. Traveling and tourist cachers have been the mainstay of caches in that county and the cache hit rate has been relatively stable for the last five years. It doesn't usually vary much between March and November. Maybe there is an actual slowdown in activity there. We just moved away from there and archived about 25 caches so I don't have them as a reference anymore.

 

TeamOrville and two other cachers have been decorating the inland portion of the county very nicely over the past two years and there have never been so many new caches at one time. But still, people don't usually go to Mendocino County to geocache – they go to visit once or twice a year, or once ever in their lives, so I think it has more to do with the number of travelers traveling through than anything else.

Edited by Team Sagefox
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Using today's geocaching.com and archive.org copies of geocaching.com from previous years for this date.

 

Today - In the last 7 days, there have been 326983 new logs written by 46740 account holders

1 Year Ago - In the last 7 days, there have been 215067 new logs written by 34658 account holders.

2 Years Ago - In the last 7 days, there have been 135575 new logs written by 23679 account holders

 

Very interesting to go back to the old geocaching.com pages. Here is the oldest I can find, from Nov 2000

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20001109140600/...geocaching.com/

 

There were 8 new caches posted on geocaching.com for the week by then. It will still quite referred to as the GPS Stash game.

Edited by gpsblake
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I don't know if it is the area or just my caches, but I have noticed a big drop in caches being hit this year compaired to last.

 

Last year (during this time of year) I had cachers finding my caches several times a week. This year there are only a few a month.

 

Has anyone noticed this happening to them? I wonder what's up

 

I don't recall last year being this miserably hot! I know that when you get out of the car and you can't breath, you better get back in the car before you go hiking and having a heat stroke. Even my boys (all 6 of them) who count the days until summer, haven't been able to stand the heat more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time before they're back in the house, red-faced, and begging for ice water and a cold shower. This is saying a lot for my boys as I've seen them wrestling in 100 degree weather in the yard for almost an hour and never really even getting tired. We've done most of our geocaching in the evening or early morning to be able to withstand the heat. The thermometer in the shade on the side of my house read 105 yesterday. Add in the humidity and you might as well stay inside.

 

Tracy

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Interesting numbers, which (to me ) show that things are about the same based on the account holder numbers, around 6 to 7 logs. I'd wager that what the OP is seeing is a dilution effect. As the number a caches increases in an area the likelihood on a particular one getting logged goes down. However, this is not a random sampling to bias will drive people to certain caches more than others, factors like location, size, presence of trackables, maybe even the name/placer of the cache. In our area of Missouri I've noticed lots of hits on park caches and almost none on the forest caches. People just don't want to deal with hiking in the heat and battling ticks and chiggers. Can't blame them. Fall is coming.

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Wow everyone's ideas on this subject has been very interesting.

 

All that I know is that even my new caches havent been hit by local cachers yet. There are 2 that I can count on to make the hite right away. But I know there are others in the area that have not yet.

 

As Team Sagefox said, this is town in the main Hwy way to the Redwoods and Coast. We get a lot of passers by.

 

It has been hot this year, but not as bad as last year. I know that when it's going to hit 100+ I go out real early in the a.m. Although gas prices have been high (& luckly dropping) that has personally not detered me from caching.

 

My main concern is that Caching is dropping off! I personally love it, and I don't want to see it become a fade! You know like a hula-hoop, or 3D movies. LOL!

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All that I know is that even my new caches havent been hit by local cachers yet. There are 2 that I can count on to make the hite right away. But I know there are others in the area that have not yet.

 

 

Im savin them!... :( Really though, with all the caches in my area being grabbed I like to save a few if I didnt have the chance at FTF. Ill spread em out a bit so I always have at least somethin to grab.

 

As far as Caching tuning down a bit, Id say Thraks idea is where its at...GAS PRICES! Oh and the idea that there are more and more caches to grab. I recently visited an old cache and couldnt believe the frequency of logs back in 03 and 04 compared to the present, but that relates to the ammount of caches present I assume.

 

Dont think its fading yet, just think people may be traveling a little less, and able to grab more caches with out going the distance.

 

I cant really relate to my caches, because most are off the beaten path and 1 has yet to be found after months of being listed, while others have only been found once or twice in the 6-8 months listed. I expect this here, Like Team Sagefox has said, there arnt really too many active cachers here, but the area is a nice place to visit.

 

COME TO MENDO...FIND OUR CACHES, SO Team Orville can sleep at night! :blink:

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