park bookmark lists -- useful?

[+paleolith]

Are park bookmark lists, and similar things, useful? I'm thinking for example of this bookmark list of mine.

 

It seems like a good idea. Information pre-collected for thpse who want to just know about caches in a particular park etc. Can add comments to the list.

 

But do people actually use such lists? I don't have any way to see the page hit counts for my public bookmark lists.

 

Enquiring minds want to know ... before perspiring fingers are worn to stubble.

 

Edward

[+fizzymagic]

Are park bookmark lists, and similar things, useful?

 

...

 

It seems like a good idea. Information pre-collected for thpse who want to just know about caches in a particular park etc. Can add comments to the list.

 

But do people actually use such lists? I don't have any way to see the page hit counts for my public bookmark lists.

Bookmark lists would be wonderful if they could be fixed to work properly on the site. I use them to find good caches when I travel.

 

But there are serious problems, including not only the obvious usability issues but also finding bookmark lists that are useful. Associating a waypoint with a bookmark list would be very helpful, for example: you could do searches for bookmark lists nearest a given cache or in a given city. It would be wonderful for Groundspeak to address these issues, but nobody seems to notice.

Edited November 23, 2008 by fizzymagic

[+Isonzo Karst]

I own a number of similar lists, and other cachers in this area maintain their own for other preserves.

I used to get positive feedback on those lists, not much lately. I tend to map the caches, typically on a calibrated trail map. If the bookmarked list description field would support images that would hugely increase its impact. I generally provide a link to the cache map, as here

 

The biggest downside issue I see with the bookmarked lists is lack of maintenance (recently I noticed that a couple of mine were abysmally out of date - rather than update them, I archived them). The owner of the list creates it, then fails to update as new caches are hidden. Because that is so common, I'd guess most people are PQing the area anyway - ie, in addition to PQing the list. At least such lists give people some notion about what is available in a given area.

[+benh57]

The biggest downside issue I see with the bookmarked lists is lack of maintenance (recently I noticed that a couple of mine were abysmally out of date - rather than update them, I archived them). The owner of the list creates it, then fails to update as new caches are hidden. Because that is so common, I'd guess most people are PQing the area anyway - ie, in addition to PQing the list. At least such lists give people some notion about what is available in a given area.

 

Indeed. I think they may ironically be more useful for caches which are too spread out to easily PQ. Such as nationwide or state-wide Challenge Cache bookmark lists, scuba-friendly cache lists, favorites lists etc.

 

If you miss one scuba-friendly cache a few hundred miles away, you're not going to accidentally drive by it for example. No big loss. But, on the other hand, you'd never have found it without the bookmark list.

(scuba is just an example, i think it has an attribute which can be searched for now)

 

Favorites lists are also great. It's a poor mans geocache rating system, and a great way to find caches to use for a milestone.

[+Isonzo Karst]

more useful for caches which are too spread out to easily PQ

 

Agreed. One of the more useful lists that I'm aware of in Florida is a list of boat caches that are mis-rated on terrain. Mostly older hides, where the user terrain rated for after you get out of your boat, and generally they lack the boat attribute as well.

And another for scuba/snorkel caches, which are rarer than hen's teeth, and hard to find - again the terrain rating may or may not be 5, and so many dillweeds think using the scuba attribute on their parking lot hide is funny (ha! what wit) that it's useless to filter for it.

[+paleolith]

Thanks for the comments. I summarize: park lists (that is, small-area lists, which to a great extent duplicate what can be done with a PQ or by looking at the map) can be useful with some combination of:

 

-- the owner keeps it up to date

 

-- comments on the caches

 

-- link to a map showing the caches with more info than provided by gc.com

 

-- gc.com augmented the capabilities

 

As others noted, other kinds of bookmark lists have other purposes. That's why I was asking specifically about this type.

 

I suppose I'll keep up the two I have of this type, and perhaps try to add more comments and a map. Keeping them up to date is not a big deal, as in both cases I was able to set up notifications which get very few false positives.

 

Thanks,

 

Edward