New Geocaching Feature?

[+kirgy9]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for?

 

I love the sport, but im a bit of a nerd, and love to see the stats like "found 42" or droped off "12 tags".

 

I think we should have more to aim for, such as "5 finds in one day" or "move a travel bug to another country". Maybe even "release 10 geocoins into the wild". Having unlockable "achievements" in your profile area, where others could look, check and compete against you.

 

I think it may have just been me playing the xbox too much (which is where the idea came from - gamerpoints etc.), but I would love to see a feature that motivates me to do more than just find them - not that im moaning! Find the cache's and moving the bugs are what its all about, but seeing stats, having more to aim for would be amazing.

 

Another feature I would absolutly love to see is a leveling system. I can look at profiles and see at a glance that a certain person has found 1000 caches, but that dosnt tell me much. One person may be more interested in very difficult caches, or moving travel bugs. Maybe when this happens a "point" system calculates a score, which counts towards a "leveling" system. Then at a glance I can see who is really "more into geocaching" than someone else.

 

Its all a fantasy to me really, but thats the kind of stuff I would love to see!

 

What kinds of things would you like to see simular to this?

[+BlueDeuce]

As long as I could opt out of you seeing how more into geocaching I am than someone else, sure. Why not?

[+StarBrand]

Its not going to happen.

 

Been discussed many times and TPTB have stated many times - they don't view Geocaching as a competition and therefore don't want a lot of stats for people to turn it into a competition.

 

Use an outside website like itsnotaboutthenumbers.com

[+Semper Questio]

I'd just as soon see all stats hidden expect to those friends we choose to show them to.

 

Trying to level the playing field statistically belies the nature of the game. Everyone plays it differently for different reasons. So trying to compare everyone statistically as you suggest is rather pointless unless you can also compare playing styles, goals, methods, etc.

 

If you highly detailed stats on your own finds, there are several programs/websites that do this or you can develop your own.

[+Kit Fox]

I would like the see the following stats added to profiles.

 

Average total cache difficulty

Average physical cache difficulty

Average log size

Number of unique finds versus multi-logged caches

[+trainlove]

You can figure out every statistic you want and put it on your profile page already.

What more do you want?

I think the xisting stats are enough, but I'd love for a log to say how many you found at the time you logged it in addition to the existing number of your finds.

[+infiniteMPG]

You can figure out every statistic you want and put it on your profile page already.What more do you want?

You can do up your profile page with all kinds of stats - get the free application - CacheStats at www.logicweave.com We like it and that's more then enough....

[+J-Way]

I would like the see the following stats added to profiles.

 

Average total cache difficulty

Average physical cache difficulty

Average log size

Number of unique finds versus multi-logged caches

And also:

Average total cache terrain

Average physical cache terrain

 

Yes, all of these are available from INATN, but only for Premium members and only if people actually use that site.

[+infiniteMPG]

I would like the see the following stats added to profiles.

Average total cache difficulty

Average physical cache difficulty

Average log size

Number of unique finds versus multi-logged caches

And also:

Average total cache terrain

Average physical cache terrain

Yes, all of these are available from INATN, but only for Premium members and only if people actually use that site.

I believe almost all that is available with CacheStats, too.

[+Grigorii Rasputin]

You can figure out every statistic you want and put it on your profile page already.What more do you want?

You can do up your profile page with all kinds of stats - get the free application - CacheStats at www.logicweave.com We like it and that's more then enough....

 

Very cool program! This should definitely do more than the OP could even dream for!!!

 

Pete

WWW.Glass-Cockpit.org

Edited November 5, 2008 by Grigorii Rasputin

[+sbell111]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for? ...

No

[+wimseyguy]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for?

Nope, I don't care about your stats, nor do I care what you think about mine.

There are plenty of other sites that will crunch the numbers for you if that's what lifts your skirt. I'd prefer to see this website focus on other features and functionality.

[+tozainamboku]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for? ...

No

I agree. I'm tired of all those European cachers who keep asking for the states in their countries to be added to geocaching.com The states in the US and Australia and provinces in Canada are larger than some of these countries. So it makes sense to split up caches by state in the US, Australia, and Canada; but states for Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands? That is just ridiculous. The UK couldn't even decide what their states/counties were and made up new ones. Enough with the "statists".

[+KJcachers]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for?

Nope, I don't care about your stats, nor do I care what you think about mine.

There are plenty of other sites that will crunch the numbers for you if that's what lifts your skirt. I'd prefer to see this website focus on other features and functionality.

I agree. Give me a 1 click option to copy a GPX file to my DeLorme or Magellan like you can with a Garmin for starters

[+steve p]

Another feature I would absolutly love to see is a leveling system. I can look at profiles and see at a glance that a certain person has found 1000 caches, but that dosnt tell me much. One person may be more interested in very difficult caches, or moving travel bugs. Maybe when this happens a "point" system calculates a score, which counts towards a "leveling" system. Then at a glance I can see who is really "more into geocaching" than someone else.

Can you explain your reasoning that a person with a greater number of higher-difficulty finds makes them "more into geocaching" than someone with fewer difficult finds?

[+9Key]

There is a caching site that has what you're asking for. They have a leaderboard, stats, little icons for achievements, etc. Do a little Googling and you'll find it.

Edited November 5, 2008 by 9Key

[+J-Way]

The states in the US and Australia and provinces in Canada are larger than some of these countries. So it makes sense to split up caches by state in the US, Australia, and Canada; but states for Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands? That is just ridiculous. The UK couldn't even decide what their states/counties were and made up new ones.

Some counties in western US states are larger than several eastern US states, not to mention lots of countries around the world. That doesn't mean that caches in Rhode Island, USA are less important than the caches in San Bernadino County, California, USA. I say if a country has a distinct system of states (or equivilant, such as Canadian provinces), and there are enough caches to justify the effort, then they should be separated out just like the US states. Put another way, as long as the statea are larger than Rhode Island and have more than 946 caches, then they have just as much of a right to be separated as the USA states.

 

Also, if you're doing a pocket query, the list of states/provinces is fairly extensive, and does include the UK "states".

[+Kit Fox]

Another feature I would absolutly love to see is a leveling system. I can look at profiles and see at a glance that a certain person has found 1000 caches, but that dosnt tell me much. One person may be more interested in very difficult caches, or moving travel bugs. Maybe when this happens a "point" system calculates a score, which counts towards a "leveling" system. Then at a glance I can see who is really "more into geocaching" than someone else.

Can you explain your reasoning that a person with a greater number of higher-difficulty finds makes them "more into geocaching" than someone with fewer difficult finds?

 

I personally have more respect for geocachers with higher average terrain ratings. To me, this is a geocacher who spends time outdoors, finding caches on foot rather than driving from parking lot to parking lot, lifting lamp post skirts.

 

To me A geocacher who has found 1000 1/1s is less impressive of a cacher than one with 100 four to five star terrain caches. The high terrain cacher usually tends to write better logs, and take more pictures.

[+gof1]

For the most part I'd be happy if TPTB did away with stats all together. The down side is that the large numbered milestone are an excuse for a good party.

[+Prime Suspect]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for?

No.

[+Unkle Fester]

I'd like to see a "Brightness" adjustment, the one on my monitor doesn't seem to work. I try to use it when I get a poorly posted cache, but the knob only makes the screen lighter or darker, the cache is still pretty dim...

 

Shutting up.

[CoyoteRed]

I'm all for a multitude of statistics.

 

...as long as they are private. I'd make the public ones we do have private, too.

 

As been mentioned by others I'm not impressed with simply find counts. Nor am I impressed with artificial goals. I remain unimpressed with artificial goals that remove the emphasis of actually getting out and finding the singular cache and placing it on achieving a construct.

 

I admit I do get curious about the average difficulty of the caches we find, or the number of regulars vs micros, or where the caches we've found fit in the D/T grid, or the counties in which we've cached. I don't, however, make it a goal to fill in the D/T grid or county map. Those statistics remain a curiosity and I don't make them a reason for "being."

[+Prime Suspect]

I'd like to see a "Brightness" adjustment, the one on my monitor doesn't seem to work. I try to use it when I get a poorly posted cache, but the knob only makes the screen lighter or darker, the cache is still pretty dim...

 

Shutting up.

Steven Wright wants his joke back.

[+Unkle Fester]

I'd like to see a "Brightness" adjustment, the one on my monitor doesn't seem to work. I try to use it when I get a poorly posted cache, but the knob only makes the screen lighter or darker, the cache is still pretty dim...

 

Shutting up.

Steven Wright wants his joke back.

 

Oh god, LOL! You totally busted Unkle Fester, he must feel like a complete... Hey!... Wait a minute... D'oh!

 

Hadn't heard of Steven Wright (or bumped into someone who had) since he was "the guy on the couch". Nice catch.

 

Back to the idea's at hand; goals IMO are irrelevent. People are going to do what they want despite some arbitrary goal that may not meet their idea of caching. Looking at the stats of others is handy for smashing someones rant in the forums, but beyond that mean nothing. (never done it, but seen it done) If you can't hold someone accountable, goals won't matter.

 

I'd rather have a system that would zap cachers who never leave the house and log 100 caches in a day. It would be way too much work to follow up each time. (I have a couple guys that anytime they log one of mine I do check because I caught them bogus logging once by accident. Still have yet to see them sign a logbook)

 

On the other side, I have seen people legitamately do it, I know I hit like 44 in a short half day (6 hours) once. But sometimes you see rediculous counts.

 

Ooops, sorry, rant.

 

Shutting Up. Again.

 

(edited for clarity)

Edited November 30, 2008 by Unkle Fester

[+Cach Hunter1]

I would like the see the following stats added to profiles.

 

Average total cache difficulty

Average physical cache difficulty

Average log size

Number of unique finds versus multi-logged caches

 

You are able to get a program which can create a table on your profile with your stats such as Average cache difficulty etc look on my profile for an example. The Program is called Cache Stats

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I personally have more respect for geocachers with higher average terrain ratings. To me, this is a geocacher who spends time outdoors, finding caches on foot rather than driving from parking lot to parking lot, lifting lamp post skirts.

 

To me A geocacher who has found 1000 1/1s is less impressive of a cacher than one with 100 four to five star terrain caches. The high terrain cacher usually tends to write better logs, and take more pictures.

Yeah, I guess I am pretty 'lame'.

 

However, I respect people who make judgments based on facts, not seriously flawed assumptions!

 

Anyone judging another cacher by their stats will never 'know' a thing about them!

[+Glenn]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for?

 

I love the sport, but im a bit of a nerd, and love to see the stats like "found 42" or droped off "12 tags".

 

I think we should have more to aim for, such as "5 finds in one day" or "move a travel bug to another country". Maybe even "release 10 geocoins into the wild". Having unlockable "achievements" in your profile area, where others could look, check and compete against you.

For some (I'd even go a far as to say most) geocachers this isn't a sport. It is a hobby. I'd love to have more stats for myself to see but not for others to see (except maybe those on my friends list). I'm am in only in competition with myself and I want to stay that way. Having no choice to keep your stats private allows others to compete against you whither or not you want to be competitive. This is one of the reasons I don't even like being forced to show my find count to everyone.

 

I think it may have just been me playing the xbox too much (which is where the idea came from - gamerpoints etc.), but I would love to see a feature that motivates me to do more than just find them - not that im moaning! Find the cache's and moving the bugs are what its all about, but seeing stats, having more to aim for would be amazing.

Geocaching isn't a video game and IMHO doesn't need artificial achievements. My motivation is visiting a well placed geocache.

 

Another feature I would absolutly love to see is a leveling system. I can look at profiles and see at a glance that a certain person has found 1000 caches, but that dosnt tell me much. One person may be more interested in very difficult caches, or moving travel bugs. Maybe when this happens a "point" system calculates a score, which counts towards a "leveling" system. Then at a glance I can see who is really "more into geocaching" than someone else.

There is already a small group of "armchair" geocaches with the current "scoring" system that we have. Since reporting finds is on the honor system I wouldn't be surprised to see the number of "armchair" finds significantly rise under a leveling system. I also wouldn't be surprised to see people placing caches to increase the number of caches in an area so that there are more points to gain in an area. Since the main (and in most caches only) reason for the cache would be to gain another point the cache wouldn't be a very though out cache and not enjoyable unless all you are wanting is to get another point.

 

Thinking more on the leveling system. If the find count was removed and replaced with the following "levels" I think it would an improvement. Hasn't found a cache yet, Found a few caches, Found a bunch of caches, and Found a whole bunch of caches.

 

Its all a fantasy to me really, but thats the kind of stuff I would love to see!

 

What kinds of things would you like to see simular to this?

I wouldn't like to see anything similar to this because I don't want anyone asking me what level dungeon master I am while I'm out geocaching or at an event cache.

[+Hrethgir]

I just cache to cache and have fun, and I don't really do it for the stats. Sure, I've gone out on cache runs to do several at once, but that was more for the fun of it that to rack up stats. And I don't really care about anyone elses stats, either, so having all that extra stuff is just adding to peoples e-wang, really. It's not a competitive game, so why play like it is?

[+Rev Mike]

No.

Goals should be personal.

Everyone participates for different reasons and takes from it what they will.

 

I would suggest starting a little competition among a few local friends if you really must compete with someone.

 

- Rev Mike

[+ThePachecos]

I think we are forgetting that if he likes to play that way it is his choice.. I don't think we should spend are time making him feel bad for wanting to add a little more spice to his play. I would suggest creating a game in your area using some of the existing caches and possibly making your own website with your new geocaching game. including adding several of the small caches as level 1's and going up. Some people may be like you and want to do the same thing in their area.

[+team_goobie]

Do you think Geocaching should record more "statists" about your find and travel bugs, and give more goals for you to aim for?

 

Isn't this what challenges are all about (DeLorme and other such)? And Geoclubs? Achievement pins and banquets are fun stuff and you get to hang with real life peeps who will share in your achievements!

 

Play any way you like, though I'd hate to see the Geocaching.com site get any sillier than this comic over at Crispy Gamer.

 

(ducking WOW flames even as I type)!