Premium member cache questions.

[+Crash & Sunshine]

Hi...we are preparing to hide our first cache and have some questions about "subscriber only" caches.

 

First...the closest one is over 28 miles from home. How rare are these?

 

How many premium members are there in my area? Is there a way to find out?

 

How many premium members should there be within say 25 miles to make this worth a premium member only listing?

 

We want to put some pretty cool stuff in our cache and keep it well maintained and loaded...hence the idea about "subscriber only". What are your thoughts about this?

Edited September 2, 2008 by Crash & Sunshine

[+pigpen4x4]

Hey Crash,

Look at some cache pages close to you and go to the logs. Click on the names of the finders, and it will say if they are premium members.

I may be too biased, as I have made and will continue to make all my hides PMO's. Anybody can create an account with the intent of mischief, but I doubt anybody will pay for an account to do the same. My hides take a good bit of work and time, (been working on the next one for two months) and I don't want them trashed.

Making them PMO does NOT guarentee they won't, but I think it puts the odds MUCH better in my favor.

Your milage may vary.

PP4x4

[+pigpen4x4]

I love your avitar.

L-Z II. First album I ever bought, and I still have it!

PP4x4

[+Crash & Sunshine]

I love your avitar.

L-Z II. First album I ever bought, and I still have it!

PP4x4

 

Thanks...we love a little Led for the Head...Plant is the male version of Janis...and Page is one the top 5 best guitarists ever. We would pay a pretty penny to see them together again. Just saw Robert Plant and Allison Krauss ...that was interesting.

[+9Key]

Unlike Pigpen I make only some of my caches PMOs, but when I do its for the same reasons he does.

[+wigglesworth]

A common trend here in the UK is to make them member only for a while so that members can have first chance at FTF. After a few weeks they are then opened to all geocachers.

[+hukilaulau]

I never made my caches PMO until the last one, but any future ones will be for the following reasons:

1) I like looking at the audit of who's visited the cache page. You only get that with PMO's.

2) I want to encourage people to support GSpeak with the small monetary donation, and I'm really sick of the whining of people who think they are entitled to all of the features (and more) with no support.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Hi...we are preparing to hide our first cache and have some questions about "subscriber only" caches.

 

First...the closest one is over 28 miles from home. How rare are these?

 

How many premium members are there in my area? Is there a way to find out?

 

How many premium members should there be within say 25 miles to make this worth a premium member only listing?

 

We want to put some pretty cool stuff in our cache and keep it well maintained and loaded...hence the idea about "subscriber only". What are your thoughts about this?

 

The question you should be asking is how many *non-premium* members are in your area. One of the reasons to make a cache premium members only is to provide an incentive for non-premium members to become a premium member.

[Skippermark]

Around here (CT) very few caches are PMO. The ones that are are for coin hotels and reasons mentioned by others.

[+The Leprechauns]

Choose 10 caches in your local area that provide the same type of experience as the cache you'd like to hide. (Nice hike in the woods, high terrain challenge, confounding puzzle, evil micro, etc.). Look at who has found those caches over the past year... especially those geocachers in your region and neighboring regions who have found many or all of the caches in your sample. Then, look at their profiles. How many of those "frequent finders of caches just like yours" are premium members?

 

Irrelevant: the worldwide statistics on how many premium members there are, and how many MOC's there are in the world.

Relevant: the potential audience for YOUR cache.

[CoyoteRed]

Hi...we are preparing to hide our first cache and have some questions about "subscriber only" caches.

 

First...the closest one is over 28 miles from home. How rare are these?

It depends on your area. Some areas don't have a lot, some do.

 

How many premium members are there in my area? Is there a way to find out?

As others have already said, look at the logs of the caches around you and then go to each profile and see. Compile a list.

 

How many premium members should there be within say 25 miles to make this worth a premium member only listing?

That's only something you can answer.

 

We want to put some pretty cool stuff in our cache and keep it well maintained and loaded...hence the idea about "subscriber only". What are your thoughts about this?

Making it an MOC will not guarantee quality trades. I know this from experience. You signed up under the "Crash & Sunshine" account less than two weeks ago. What's to you know everything there is to know about caching? All it takes is a payment and MOCs from the seeker's point of view become transparent.

 

That's not to say there are no reasons to make them MOC. It does prevent the casual observer from seeing the cache page. These are the folks who are curious enough to sign up, but not enough to actually pay. It also removes the cacher that is not serious enough about the hobby to pay for the additional services. I know of someone who made some puzzle caches MOC because he was tired of folks whining about not being able to do the puzzle. Another was a collectible coin cache when other iterations came up missing.

 

That said, making a high value MOC won't guarantee its safety, nor does it mean you can't make an high value cache last a long without making it MOC.

 

Additionally, I've heard of some PMs boycotting MOCs because they feel it is elitist--especially those which are such "to support Groundspeak" or "reward those who give back to the hobby." Both reasons ignore those who purchase merchandise from the Groundspeak store, place caches, host events, or otherwise make this hobby better.

 

Considering I don't care who is looking at my cache page--note that premium members can look at cache descriptions off line--and I see absolutely no other benefit for making any of our caches MOC, I don't and won't do it.

[+D@nim@l]

Would anyone who exclusively lists all their caches as "PMO" for whatever reason put their money where their mouth is by finding PMO caches and only PMO caches?

[+pigpen4x4]

Would anyone who exclusively lists all their caches as "PMO" for whatever reason put their money where their mouth is by finding PMO caches and only PMO caches?

That would be stupid.

PP4x4

[+sbell111]

Would anyone who exclusively lists all their caches as "PMO" for whatever reason put their money where their mouth is by finding PMO caches and only PMO caches?

What would this prove?

 

The ability to easily obtain the coords for an MOC is a benefit of premium membership. That benefit does not preclude the ability to obtain coords for non-MOCs.

 

Similarly, with premium membership comes the ability to place MOCs as well as non-MOCs. People who place only MOCs (whether they eventually change them to non-MOC or not) do so for their own reasons. It is their right as premium members to do so. Placing MOCs does not and should not alter their ability to find non-mocs.

 

Honestly, as a premium member, I never ever pay attention to whether a cache is an MOC or not. It does not matter to me. I don't understand why would a hider of MOCs would care to pay attention to whether caches that he looks for are or are not MOCs.

[+wapahani]

My general take is, if you want to make it a MOC, then do it.

I don't see it making them any safer overall.

I tend to make my tougher caches MOC, and then on some I make them normal caches after a short time.

 

I wouldn't worry about it. If you place it, they will come to visit it.