Virtuals, allow them back in Business?

[+The Blue Quasar]

There have been 69 Virtuals in Ontario, and a majority of them are fantastic. Truth is though that they also make great Waymarks. Whatever you want to call them all Virtuals or Waymarks are simply a location to see and possibly learn something about when you are there.

 

Maybe "Project Phoenix" will clean up some of these and other issues. To me, and just my opinion, a Groundspeak 'portal' if you will is long overdue and could compartmentalize several GPS variations in one tidy package.

 

Geocaches are the hidden containers that you write on a logbook/sheet

Waymarks are the public locations where you sightsee and possibly has an educational aspect

Wherigos are fantasy adventures or tours played out in the real world

Events are the social gatherings where Groundspeak members can meet up

 

You pick which layer(s) you want to explore whenever you log onto www.Groundspeak.com

 

That would be cool, IMHO.

 

But on the negative side, Events and CITO's are no more of a cache than Benchmarks, Virtuals, WebCams and EarthCaches.

 

Since Locationless were killed off, it seems only fitting that when Project Phoenix (whatever that completely entails) is set for official release that it should usher in the planned re-organizing of these other 'errant children'. Migrate them all to the more suitable sections of Groundspeak and remove them from geocaching.com which should be strictly home to the physical hidden containers. Again, IMHO. Yours likely would vary.

 

BQ

[+ChileHead]

If Groundspeak ever includes waymarks in the "total found" count everybody is obsessed with, I wonder how long it will be before people rush to the site and say it's the greatest thing ever.

[+tozainamboku]

Wrote this reply to a question in the thread that got lock up above as a duplicate of this one.

 

I agree and I enjoy virtuals very much but being fairly new to the sport (right at a year and only 610 finds) I'm curious as to what the reason for doing away with virtuals was. Does anyone remember?

There were several problems with virtuals. The main one was determining which locations were really interesting enough to justify having a virtual there - the so-called "wow" factor. Prior to institution of a wow requirement it was just to easy to create a virtual. There was a story that someone hid a virtual cache that was a sneaker that was hanging from a tree. But certainly we didn't need to have a virtual cache at every historic marker or grave of a famous person.

 

The determination of "wow" was left to the volunteer cache reviewers. The forums were filled with threads about caches that some review turned down for not being "wow" enough. And these threads were far more angsty than ones today when a cache gets turned down for pushing an agenda or being commercial. In the end, we essentially had a ban on new virtual caches anyhow as the reviewers considered almost nothing was "wow" enough to be a virtual cache. Perhaps they knew that Waymarking was coming.

 

Waymarking allows for there to be a waymark for every historic marker, grave of famous person, and even sneakers hanging in trees. What some people miss is that catch-all category for "wow" places. The volunteer reviewers got nothing but grief trying to define "wow". But if you have a definition of "wow", you could start a category for these places on Waymarking.com as well.

[+Sagefox]

Oops! Strike that. I missed an entire page.

Edited February 11, 2008 by Team Sagefox

[+Team Cotati]

A geocache is something hidden somewhere that you find.

 

A virtual geocache is something that already exists somewhere that that you find.

 

A waymark is something that already exist somewhere.

 

You don't find waymarks? Then what are the coordinates for?

 

[soapbox]

The point is you know what you are going to find even before you get there. As to what are the coordinates for, apparently nothing since rarely, if ever, do they get visited. Looking at about a 30 mile radius of me, there is a huge number of waymarks, mostly McDonalds, Gas Stations, etc. with a few historical places. In there are a 4 or 5 that have been visited in early 2007, mostly the McDonalds. The rest have not been visited since 2006, many 2005 and quite a few, never.

 

What is irritating is that every time someone asks about virtuals, someone inevitably avoids the obvious and correct answer (GC made a decision, for whatever reason, to eliminate them) and try to send them over to Waymarking, which makes as much sense as sending them to http://www.whirlyball.com which would at least be more fun.

 

My feeling, from what we all saw transpire, is GC saw that virtuals were broken and abused, which they were. They attempted to fix them with the "WOW" factor which turned out to be too subjective and cumbersome. Then in an attempt not to alienate a sizable portion of their userbase, Waymarking was introduced. Unfortunately it had none of the characteristics of the virtual and has proven to not be well received.

[/soapbox]

 

Virtuals no longer appear to be in Groundspeak's business plan and all indications are there will be no attempt to re-introduce them. Should you have a place that does not support a container type cache, a good suggestion would be to make it part of a larger multi or puzzle cache.

 

Have they been listing telephone poles, fence posts and manhole covers over there? I think that is what some in here are waiting for so that they can jump in with both feet..............so to speak. You know experience Waymarking with full vigor and extreme excitement.

Edited February 11, 2008 by Team Cotati

[+TrailGators]

Waymarking allows for there to be a waymark for every historic marker, grave of famous person, and even sneakers hanging in trees. What some people miss is that catch-all category for "wow" places. The volunteer reviewers got nothing but grief trying to define "wow". But if you have a definition of "wow", you could start a category for these places on Waymarking.com as well.

Shoe trees are cool! The best thing about Waymarking is that you can hide any category (like McDonalds) that you think is stupid. So when you go to your Waymarking page, all you see are the Waymarking categories that interest you. There are some good ones. I wish I could do this for LPCs, which are worse than any virtual I have ever done.

 

Anyhow, from what I understand they are going to be merging the three sites togethe with V2 of the website later this year. If they decide to let people earn smileys for waymarks, then waymarks will be the hottest thing since sliced bread.

Edited February 11, 2008 by TrailGators

[+Glenn]

I agree and I enjoy virtuals very much but being fairly new to the sport (right at a year and only 610 finds) I'm curious as to what the reason for doing away with virtuals was. Does anyone remember?

 

Waymarking allows for there to be a waymark for every historic marker, grave of famous person, and even sneakers hanging in trees. What some people miss is that catch-all category for "wow" places. The volunteer reviewers got nothing but grief trying to define "wow". But if you have a definition of "wow", you could start a category for these places on Waymarking.com as well.

 

Here is some info from posts made in 2004 and 2005. If you are interesting in reading the entire thread where these post came from then simply click on the snapback icon that is on the same line as the posters name.

 

It might be helpful to point out that prior to the more stringent review process for virtuals, there was some really absurd submissions. While they have not all been made public, a couple that have been mentioned include the rotting bird carcass ('take a picture so we can track its decay') and the old tennis shoe abandoned in the woods ('e-mail the brand...')

 

Add to these ridiculous 'virtuals' the well-meaning attempts by some cachers to turn every roadside historical marker into a virtual (even when the entire text of many is already on-line). In a nutshell, the approval process for virtuals was broken. Something had to change.

 

You might not agree with the required level of quality now insisted upon by the approvers, but I'd personally rather have that control than the alternative. I like virtuals but I don't want to go out of my way to find one, only to learn that the 'special object' I'm hunting for is an old washing machine...

The rules were changed some time in 2003, so this isn't a new thing.

 

One reason for the change was because people were marking every roadside marker, no matter how mundane, as well as fence posts, manhole covers, debris in the woods and even a rotting animal carcass and submitting them as virtuals. It basically was getting out of hand

 

Another and more important reaso was that when negotiating with land managers about allowing geocaches, they often pointed to virtuals as an acceptable alternative. This threatened the future of traditional geocaching in many areas. By taking virtuals off the table, negotations could center on getting real caches into these parks.

[+Sagefox]

That's one of the biggest detriments in this game, everything is ruled by exceptions and self-interest, no matter how ridiculous. No one is responsible enough to make and enforce reasonable and rational rules for the benefit of the larger good.

 

That may happen some day, but my observation is that things will have to get significantly worse first. That is really too bad.

 

I believe that you might be thinking too much about geocaching.

 

Edit: When I read the quoted section I wondered how, exactly, does this affect us when we are out geocaching. Is there a shortage of caches? Was the exclusion of Virtual Caches a "big detriment" to this game? Am I having less fun now because "everything" (or even anything) is a result of administrative self-interest? Are the rules (guidelines) ridiculous?

 

When I am out geocaching alone, or with my wife, or with 80 other people (twice in the past six months) I don’t see much evidence of irrational management at this site. I just see people having fun.

Edited February 11, 2008 by Team Sagefox

[+TexasGringo]

***If Groundspeak ever includes waymarks in the "total found" count everybody is obsessed with, I wonder how long it will be before people rush to the site and say it's the greatest thing ever***

 

This is true...Its all about the numbers...

[+DanOCan]

Or is it because you can't get smilies for one of the "Best Kept Secrets," but a grandfathered historic marker virtual geocache gets finds logged every week?

 

That's what does it for me.

[+TrailGators]

"Best Kept Secrets" has been a Waymarking category for close to two years now. It has 23 waymark entries.

 

Why is that? Is it because there's really very few places that are complete surprises, of the "I had no idea this was here, and it took a GPS and this listing for me to discover it" variety?

 

Or is it because you can't get smilies for one of the "Best Kept Secrets," but a grandfathered historic marker virtual geocache gets finds logged every week?

There is little doubt that it is because of the smiley factor for many people.

 

Although for me there are no "Best Kept Secrets" close to where I live and I'm not going to create one so I can find one. That's like finding your own cache. Also not being able to add waymarks to PQs is hurting their popularity as well.

Edited February 11, 2008 by TrailGators

[+Renegade Knight]

"Best Kept Secrets" has been a Waymarking category for close to two years now. It has 23 waymark entries.

 

Why is that? Is it because there's really very few places that are complete surprises, of the "I had no idea this was here, and it took a GPS and this listing for me to discover it" variety?

 

Or is it because you can't get smilies for one of the "Best Kept Secrets," but a grandfathered historic marker virtual geocache gets finds logged every week?

There is little doubt that it is because of the smiley factor for many people.

 

Although for me there are no "Best Kept Secrets" close to where I live and I'm not going to create one so I can find one. That's like finding your own cache. Also not being able to add waymarks to PQs is hurting their popularity as well.

What do you get for a waymark? A winkie? If you can 'find it' er... visit it. It's a smilie. If you can't log it then there would be even less point to them than waypoint.org ever had.

[+Dryphter]

Interesting read. I personally like virtuals if they are something neat to see. I haven't found many of them but a few that have been better than most caches I've come across:

 

GC12F8

GCD499

GC6CE7

GC2A39

 

If virtuals don't qualify as they aren't a container somewhere with a log to sign, why are event caches allowed? Seriously - is a bunch of cachers meeting for breakfast once a month really a cache? Or simply another way to log a smiley?

[+ar_kayaker]

 

The only real difference is the smiley.

 

Actually there are quite a few other differences, most notably the clunky search engine and a total lack of PQ's. If I go on a trip someplace it is well neigh impossible to get a list of waymarks that I might want to visit without sorting through a morass of "here is a McDonalds" "here is a manufacturing plant" "here is where I saw a turtle crossing the road" etc etc... (And yes, each of those is a category on Waymarking.com along with more than 650 others.)

 

Another issue is the average persons' desire for "one stop shopping." Nobody wants to visit two or more websites to get their caching data. It's one of the reasons sites like Navicaching and Terracaching have never caught on, despite all the clamour for some of the features those other sites provide that GC doesn't.

 

Waymarking.com is improving, in slow, millimeter increments, but due to the basic "no-waymarks-barred" set-up it will always suffer from having hordes of the "lame virtual" waymarks that got the good virtuals kicked off GC in the first place.

 

AK

[+The Blue Quasar]

You guys are right about many of things that you've said.

 

Waymarking not having PQ's, the 'visit' stats not showing in your "Goecaching" profile and of course there are many, as you say, lame Waymarks all can cast a shadow on it.

 

BUT...

 

Geocaching did not have PQ's right away (although I wish Waymarking had PQ's now) either.

Both sites currently do show statistics for each game/hobby or whatever you want to call them.

There are many lame Geocaches out there too, and many more lame Caches each day just like lame Waymarks. But good Caches and good Waymarks are being put out too. It's amazing how similar some things are when you actually look at them both with an open mind.

 

You may not like that the two sites are separated but at least be fair, both have many examples of what is lame and while Geocaching has had 7 years to develop the first few years were not that much different from how Waymarking is growing today. Not all of the features and options were there, but it will come in time.

 

Remember, we only had a few cache types at first, no additional waypoints, no send to gps, no caches along a route, and the list goes on. Dislike it all you want, but Waymarking is here to stay and is improving all the time. After Project Phoenix I certainly hope it gets more attention than it has in the last few months. But it's still fun for many people, and we are building!

 

The Blue Quasar

Edited February 12, 2008 by The Blue Quasar

[+ultimaterockhounds]

One of the best things about geocaching is that there are multiple ways that it can be played. Depending on my goals at the moment, I might challenge myself or a friend to see how many micros we can find in an area for a certain amount of time; race to a first to find; attend an event; or go and check out a fantastic area because fellow geocachers have recommended it. Virtuals for me in National Parks were the best. Here are places that just scream to be discovered. It is my choice really how I want to "play". I do feel it was a loss when gc no longer permited new virtuals to be created. Yes I personally feel that if a container/log could be placed then it doesn't need to be a virtual. I don't know how many virtuals I did not log because by the time I could email the CO the additional logging requirements I had misplace/forgotten/lost the information. The key issue was that I was there whether I logged it or not. Because Geocaching relies on us to basically make the whole thing possible it would be nice to see new virtuals allowed in places that do not allow actual containers and logs. I have found the Wherigo cartridges more frustrating than a nano hidden in a grove of trees but because of its infancy I am willing to give it time to mature. Is there a place for virtuals? I think that this could easily be answered yes. Is the system perfect? Heavens no and thank goodness it is flexible enough to allow us to make it better. Eliminating the option for new virtuals I feel is myopic. Bring them back but only for areas that do not allow logs and make it easier to provide the CO with the ALR's i.e. an additional text box that is emails the info to the CO once the find is posted. So again, my vote is to bring them back but only for places that an actual log is not permitted.

 

One man's trash is another geocacher's cache container/swag.

[Keystone]

Closing improvidently bumped thread, as the discussion is no longer timely.

 

Since the time of this discussion, "Challenges" were introduced as Groundspeak's latest attempt to bring back virtual caches. You can discuss Challenges in their own forum section.