Caching Karma

[+kwikstix]

This discussion was sparked in another topic, but in the interest of not going off-topic in that thread, I'll start this one to continue the conversation. I was introduced to the concept of "Caching Karman" through the GSAK macro FindStatsGen3 by lignumaqua. For those not familiar, Caching Karma (as defined by that macro's creator) is simply a ratio of finds made on caches you own to finds you've made on others' caches. My current Caching Karma is .41 (95/233). I only have four placed caches (I just started caching in June of this year), so I'm basically just getting started. Of course, my primary goal in placing caches isn't to increase my Caching Karma, nor is it to simply accumulate cache hide numbers. Like most others, I place a cache for one of three reasons: to draw people to a certain area that I believe has some significance in the area, to give seekers an experience that I believe will enrich them in some way, or because I want to provide a challenging search that will end with a very satisfying find.

 

Caching Karma may be one attempt to quantify contribution, but as egami pointed out in the above referenced topic, Geocacher A could have several very thoughtful, well designed, challenging hides (resulting in fewer finds), but numerous finds themselves, and have a very low Caching Karma ratio. On the other hand, Geocacher B could have several urban micro hides, each with numerous finds, and have a similar number of finds themselves as Geocacher A did, and have a fairly high Caching Karma ratio. Arguably, Geocacher B hasn't contributed significantly more (if any more) to the sport than Geocacher A has.

 

So, my question is: Is there (or should there be) a way to quantify one's contribution to the sport of Geocaching?

Edited January 2, 2008 by kwikstix

[+StarBrand]

Many ways to give back to this activity of ours without ever hiding a cache.

 

Hold Events, attend events, always trade up, do cache maintenance when you can, CITO, write helpful FAQs, create resources for others, participate in the forums, write nice descriptive logs, start a local Geo group, speak to Geo groups, teach others about GPS, become a reviewer, work with local land managers, trade/Move TBs quickly - etc.....

 

Can't imagine a way to measure all of that.

[+egami]

So, my question is: Is there (or should there be) a way to quantify one's contribution to the sport of Geocaching?

 

Should there be? Probably not because you can probably never automate it well enough to do it justice.

 

If I were going to I would think that you'd want to include:

 

- CITO work

- Approver's should get some love

- Hidden cache quality / uniqueness

- Events coordinated or helped with that taught about geocaching

- Finds, just because of the fact that getting out should be given credit

 

Probably things I am forgetting.

 

I just thought the way you described it, or rather the way I interpreted it, seemed lacking...it'd be tough to truly gauge something like that. Maybe the input would largely have to be external from other cachers to get true karma number. In other words, you couldn't artificially boost it easily.

[+kwikstix]

Many ways to give back to this activity of ours without ever hiding a cache...

 

You are so right, StarBrand. Those types of contributions can't be quantified (easily, anyway), yet they are essential to the sport. Still, is there merit to considering such a measurement as the Caching Karma? Even if it is just one of a multitude of statistics that can be generated out of one's geocaching data? As a sports fan (and admitted geek), statistics such as the QB rating in football, handicap in gold, and any of the numerous statistics in baseball have a certain draw. An attempt to mathematically quantify something that is qualitative is interesting to me. It must be to at least some others too, since it was included in a GSAK macro and called Caching Karma.

[+StarBrand]

Many ways to give back to this activity of ours without ever hiding a cache...

 

You are so right, StarBrand. Those types of contributions can't be quantified (easily, anyway), yet they are essential to the sport. Still, is there merit to considering such a measurement as the Caching Karma? Even if it is just one of a multitude of statistics that can be generated out of one's geocaching data? As a sports fan (and admitted geek), statistics such as the QB rating in football, handicap in gold, and any of the numerous statistics in baseball have a certain draw. An attempt to mathematically quantify something that is qualitative is interesting to me. It must be to at least some others too, since it was included in a GSAK macro and called Caching Karma.

I came up with some wacky formula to sort of "rank" geocachers some years ago before I really understood that it isn't fruitful to try and make such comparisons in such a diverse activity. I was limiting the "score" too much to my own bias.

 

I threw it away but it went something like: (cache finds/20) + (hides*2) + (months with at least 1 find*4) + events hosted + (events attended/5) + cito events*5 + (travel bugs moved / 50) + (finds rated 3 or higher/10) + (finds with difficulty of 3 or higher /10) + (caches found within 10 miles / total caches within 10 miles) * 100 + (caches found more than 100 miles from home/20) + (averge number of words in logs*2)

 

All silliness I have come to understand - although part of me wants to calculate it - just because.

[+Snoogans]

Many ways to give back to this activity of ours without ever hiding a cache...

 

You are so right, StarBrand. Those types of contributions can't be quantified (easily, anyway), yet they are essential to the sport. Still, is there merit to considering such a measurement as the Caching Karma? Even if it is just one of a multitude of statistics that can be generated out of one's geocaching data? As a sports fan (and admitted geek), statistics such as the QB rating in football, handicap in gold, and any of the numerous statistics in baseball have a certain draw. An attempt to mathematically quantify something that is qualitative is interesting to me. It must be to at least some others too, since it was included in a GSAK macro and called Caching Karma.

 

 

Okay, this thread is far different than what I thought it was going to be. I almost rolled my eyes and moved on without opening the topic.

 

My understanding of actual Karma would be ruined by trying to quantify it and I'm the most self promoting guy I know other than Vinny & Sue.

 

It would be interesting to see what my number is though, but I'm not interested in doing the tally myself.

 

I'm more interested to know the actual criteria for quantification. Can you spell it out clearly?

Edited January 2, 2008 by Snoogans

[+KBI]

As long as finders are kind to my – and others' – caches when they find them, I really don't care how many caches they hide themselves. If a person is not already inclined to take on the responsibility of appropriately locating, creating and maintaining a cache, I don't see any reason to require or even encourage them to do so. Such a policy can only result in the kinds of efforts that tend to generate the already-chronic "lameness" complaints.

 

I think there is plenty of room in this hobby for well-behaved cachers who only find and never hide, and vice-versa.

[+tozainamboku]

I came up with some wacky formula to sort of "rank" geocachers some years ago before I really understood that it isn't fruitful to try and make such comparisons in such a diverse activity. I was limiting the "score" too much to my own bias.

 

I threw it away but it went something like: (cache finds/20) + (hides*2) + (months with at least 1 find*4) + events hosted + (events attended/5) + cito events*5 + (travel bugs moved / 50) + (finds rated 3 or higher/10) + (finds with difficulty of 3 or higher /10) + (caches found within 10 miles / total caches within 10 miles) * 100 + (caches found more than 100 miles from home/20) + (averge number of words in logs*2)

 

All silliness I have come to understand - although part of me wants to calculate it - just because.

I like the GSAK Caching Karma number because its simple to understand - the number of finds on caches you own divided by the number of your finds. Like any other statistic in geocaching its most useful as entertainment and to set personal goals and not for comparing cacher A to cacher B. You want you caching karma to be close to 1. If it much bigger than 1 you're not finding enough caches and if it is much smaller than one your are not hiding enough caches. My geocaching karma is smalller than 1 because I have relatively few hides compared to finds and all of my hides are higher terrain and thus get fewer finders.

 

Since I like harder higher terrain caches more, I might come up with a number that awards that. I think one of the other geocaching site provides a challenge score where each cache gets one point for each day it has been in place and the challenge value is that number divided by the number of find on the cache. So a difficult cache that is seldom found is worth more than a lamp post hide. Of course your challenge score changes everyday even when you're not finding caches. And there are problems, for example if a cache is disabled for a long time, do add a point or not for each day while it is disabled?

 

It's fun to make up these statistics (and if your good a programming, modifying the GSAK macro to calculate them).

[+Snoogans]

Many ways to give back to this activity of ours without ever hiding a cache...

 

You are so right, StarBrand. Those types of contributions can't be quantified (easily, anyway), yet they are essential to the sport. Still, is there merit to considering such a measurement as the Caching Karma? Even if it is just one of a multitude of statistics that can be generated out of one's geocaching data? As a sports fan (and admitted geek), statistics such as the QB rating in football, handicap in gold, and any of the numerous statistics in baseball have a certain draw. An attempt to mathematically quantify something that is qualitative is interesting to me. It must be to at least some others too, since it was included in a GSAK macro and called Caching Karma.

I came up with some wacky formula to sort of "rank" geocachers some years ago before I really understood that it isn't fruitful to try and make such comparisons in such a diverse activity. I was limiting the "score" too much to my own bias.

 

I threw it away but it went something like: (cache finds/20) + (hides*2) + (months with at least 1 find*4) + events hosted + (events attended/5) + cito events*5 + (travel bugs moved / 50) + (finds rated 3 or higher/10) + (finds with difficulty of 3 or higher /10) + (caches found within 10 miles / total caches within 10 miles) * 100 + (caches found more than 100 miles from home/20) + (averge number of words in logs*2)

 

All silliness I have come to understand - although part of me wants to calculate it - just because.

 

Dang it Starbrand. You blew my set-up to make the exact same point, but in my own obscure Snooganesque way.

 

Just for kicks, I'd actually like to know what my score is in your system too.

 

In either case, HOW do you quantify the locations a cacher has shared into their karma?

 

And after you quantify that, I have a list as long as my arm of other obscure but equally important things that no one thought about that need to be quantified. You'd need a CRAY computer to figure out all of the variables.

 

Folks, trying to quantify Karma is a Chinese fire drill IMO. The best one can do is to balance their positive contributions to the community with any that could be perceived as negative. That's all you can do. In life as in geocaching, that's all I strive for.

[+KBI]

As I’m reading this thread I’m having a vision:

 

Cacher dies.

 

Cacher ascends to Geocacher Heaven.

 

Cacher slowly moves along the conveyer queue toward the pearly-gated entrance where an eighty-foot-tall Saint Jeremy reaches down, picks up the cacher, and scans him across the Karmatron, which emits a *boop* as the cacher’s score appears on the display.

 

Cacher is then dispatched to his computer-selected Eternal Caching Ground where he proceeds to spend the rest of eternity either:

1. Hiking to beautiful waterfalls and mountain summits with endlessly full PQs, a shiny new Garmin loaded with never-die batteries, and a hot supermodel,
   
2. Lifting lamp post skirts in hot parking lots next to idling cars with an intermittent Magellan and an incontinent Chihuahua, or
   
3. Moderating forum threads which are packed with people endlessly arguing the merits of hiking to beautiful waterfalls and mountain summits with endlessly full PQs, a shiny new Garmin loaded with never-die batteries and a hot supermodel – versus – lifting lamp post skirts in hot parking lots next to idling cars with an intermittent Magellan and an incontinent Chihuahua.
   

Edited January 2, 2008 by KBI

[+Deliveryguy428]

Yes, it is called don't worry about the numbers and get out and educate people who might not know about geocaching and could also lead to CITOs, and very positive connections with local business owners, local gov. officals, and even higher then that.

 

Point in case--An entire county in GA wants to embrace geocacheing and has asked our local group to come in, educate people about geocaching, host events in the area, CITOS, and even has provided us at least 17 different locations they would love for us to hide geocaches...to me that validates geocaching to me more then finding a 100 caches in a day.

[+briansnat]

So, my question is: Is there (or should there be) a way to quantify one's contribution to the sport of Geocaching?

 

No. First off quantifying would be impossible. How can you compare someone who drives down the road throwing film canisters out the window every .1 mile with someone who places fewer, well thought out caches.

 

If there actually was a way to quantify this, what would happen is that people would fall all over themselves to place more caches to raise their "karma quotient".

 

For those of us who aren't thrilled with the explosion in thoughtlessly placed caches, the current situation will pale compared to what this would engender.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I find 'caching karma' to be a well intentioned, but sadly ill-conceived concept. Hides versus finds encourages 'throwing film canisters out the window.' My QC department would never approve! Quality never enters into this calculation. Sure. I could put out a hundred lamp post and guard rail caches, and get a great caching karma rating. But, I won't. Want a nice mile or two hike in the woods to a beautiful spot? Or a challenging mystery cache? It gets me a low caching karma, but some very nice caches!

I'm still trying to get my QC department to approve what I think is an historically interesting site, but which QC disapproves as being 'ugly'.

Edited January 3, 2008 by Harry Dolphin

[+Miragee]

My Caching Karma is seriously impared because of where my caches are located -- at the end of long drives for most local cachers and involving fairly-long hikes. Additionally, a couple of my caches are never going to be found by more than a handful of cachers . . . In four months, one has been found by three people; in almost two months, the other one has been found by only two people. I have gotten great feedback on those two caches, however.

[+kwikstix]

(cache finds/20) + (hides*2) + (months with at least 1 find*4) + events hosted + (events attended/5) + cito events*5 + (travel bugs moved / 50) + (finds rated 3 or higher/10) + (finds with difficulty of 3 or higher /10) + (caches found within 10 miles / total caches within 10 miles) * 100 + (caches found more than 100 miles from home/20) + (averge number of words in logs*2)

All silliness I have come to understand - although part of me wants to calculate it - just because.

It would be interesting to see what my number is though

I like StarBrand's attempt at a formula - this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about! (I don't suppose you created a GSAK macro, did you?) The "just because" curiosity is what drove my initial query. My desire is to quantify my own contribution - something that I can "see" increase or decrease; something that I can use to self-measure and challenge myself to outperform.

 

How can you compare someone who drives down the road throwing film canisters out the window every .1 mile with someone who places fewer, well thought out caches.

Well, ideally, there would be some way to quantify the quality of the caches and include that in the formula. That would take care of the gratuitous hides of low quality. I realize that given the current system, there really isn't a way to quantify cache/hide quality. I know there have been suggestions regarding some kind of rating system, which I'm aware has been discussed in numerous forum posts. (BTW - I would be in favor of such a system - it works with eBay, lots of discussion forums, product review sites, etc. But that's another discussion for another topic.)

 

I find 'caching karma' to be a well intentioned, but sadly ill-conceived concept.

...I have gotten great feedback on those two caches, however.

And your great feedback should be part of the equation. That's what's flawed about the simple HideFinds:MyFinds ratio, and why it would be great to be able to quantify other aspects of my contribution.

 

Anyway, thanks for the discussion! I know that in some people's minds overly glorifying stats cheapens the natural appeal of geocaching, but there's just something satisfying about the self-evaluation that viewing my statistics provides.

[+Team Cotati]

This shouldn't be done unless there is going to be some really really nice and expensive prize for the one who contributes the most.

[+MaplessInSeattle]

So, my question is: Is there (or should there be) a way to quantify one's contribution to the sport of Geocaching?

 

I think your reputation itself is a quantification of your contribution.

The way others talk to you, about you, about your caches, etc.

These things can say a lot about what you have contributed.

Albeit sometimes there are always going to be morons who feel the need to speak/type poorly of others.

But you get that everywhere I guess.

I'd like to think we've contributed a bit to the sport. We've got a few people started on geocaching since we took it up in late October. Since we've been caching(3 months Jan 26), we've met a number of amazing people. Many are kind and complimented us on our camo and our obvious love of the game. We recently won the WSGA Cache of the Month for our Multi-Cache.

We're holding our first CITO event tomorrow and managed to get our local parks dept behind geocaching as well, they are actually supplying many materials for the CITO tomorrow.

These things are all great to us, and some of the local cachers, but do they signify anything? I mean, you can't put certain stuff in numbers. You can look at our stats and say "well they have a Karma rating of 95%!" Does that mean we've done well, by providing others with opportunities for stars, or just that we haven't found a lot of caches?

Numbers can lie, but the things you do, and the way you conduct yourself cannot.

I figure as long as people are leaving great logs, complimenting the hides, and they seem happy when they meet us, then we're doing our job to contribute to the sport.

[+sbell111]

The problem with this idea is not that it kind of promotes easy hides over challenging hides. The problem is how this idea and others like it handle finds.

 

Imagine a cacher going out and finding a cache. He is careful to not give away the location. He trades fairly. Hereplaces the log book or puts it in a baggie so it doesn't get damaged. He replaces the cache carefully. He then logs an honest, but not rude, experience online.

 

The 'Karma' theory would mark this find in the negative column and expect the cacher to hide a cache to balance it out.

 

The simple truth, however, is that if this hypothetical cacher never hid a cache, but continuedd to find thousands of caches, he would still land well into the positive column because he had 1) caused no harm and 2) improved caches when he could.

Edited January 12, 2008 by sbell111

[+joranda]

I think just going out and enjoying geocaching is what it is all about. Placing caches where you are allowed to and giving the site a good name.

[+Monterry]

As I’m reading this thread I’m having a vision:

 

Cacher dies.

 

Cacher ascends to Geocacher Heaven.

 

Cacher slowly moves along the conveyer queue toward the pearly-gated entrance where an eighty-foot-tall Saint Jeremy reaches down, picks up the cacher, and scans him across the Karmatron, which emits a *boop* as the cacher’s score appears on the display.

 

Cacher is then dispatched to his computer-selected Eternal Caching Ground where he proceeds to spend the rest of eternity either:

1. Hiking to beautiful waterfalls and mountain summits with endlessly full PQs, a shiny new Garmin loaded with never-die batteries, and a hot supermodel,
   
2. Lifting lamp post skirts in hot parking lots next to idling cars with an intermittent Magellan and an incontinent Chihuahua, or
   
3. Moderating forum threads which are packed with people endlessly arguing the merits of hiking to beautiful waterfalls and mountain summits with endlessly full PQs, a shiny new Garmin loaded with never-die batteries and a hot supermodel – versus – lifting lamp post skirts in hot parking lots next to idling cars with an intermittent Magellan and an incontinent Chihuahua.
   

It takes many types to suit all cachers. You do the ones you like and don't go where you don't like. You place them in interesting places and in areas that need stelth. That way all are happy.