GeoCache Rating System

[+Tobias & Petronella]

If it's a puzzle cache that I "just don't get" then it gets a 1. If it's a puzzle cache that I don't plan on doing it gets a 1. That way we can stop these puzzle people from giving people like me headaches.

 

If the cache was done by a child wanting to have fun with their family, give it a 1. After all if a kid did it, it can't be that good anyway.

 

If I was the FTF, it gets a 4

If there was a FTF prize, then 4.5

If I liked the prize then it gets a 5

 

 

I don't know about anyone else, but if I really want to know more about a cache, I read what other people wrote. If someone wrote in their post that it was "a great hide with fantastic camo", I might think this could be a fun cache. However if I read a post that used words like "rats", "hypodermic needles", "near by homeless camp" or "piles of garbage" when talking about the hide I might not do it. ( Truth - I have done those kind of hides and they were not that bad. )

 

Unless you know what a person was thinking at the time they rated it you would still be guessing about the cache. Was that person having a good day or bad day? For myself, I love and hate rock wall hides, and any micro hidden in ivy or ferns should be banned from the game.

 

Tobias

[majormajor42]

For those that haven't read my idea from 7 years ago, the one key thing in my idea is not to rate anything as "sucks", but instead to establish the really good ones. In my high-school graduating class, we had a group that was listed as being in the "Top 10%". In college, we had people that graduated Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude and Summa Cum Laude. The individuals that did not receive these honors weren't failures because they didn't receive them. The ones that received the honors had risen above the rest by working hard. There's an adage: What do you call a medical student who graduated bottom of their class? (Doctor)

 

My idea is to lift up those caches that go above and beyond the norm, but that idea doesn't negate the good intentions of the other placers. The idea of a "really good" cache list aggregating many votes doesn't benefit the person that finds all of the caches in an area. If a cacher is new to the area or going to be in town for one or two days on business and has limited time for cache hunting, it can be overwhelming to try and figure out the ones that he or she might enjoy devoting their their limited time in finding.

 

I know there's many problems with my idea - which is why it hasn't been implemented. I know there are a lot of people that don't want this system as well. I respect their opinions too, which is why I don't actively push hard for this idea anymore.

 

However I have yet to hear a well-thought-out reason that has convinced me that this idea can't work - without me countering with "if you don't like to use these, don't use them." In other words, as an added feature, it could be beneficial for some. For those that don't like the idea, wouldn't it be possible to just ignore the ratings?

 

Anyway - I'm done arguing for this for this month.

I like this idea.

up until recently, I never cared for a rating system for the same general reasons that have been made already. But, now that I plan a few road trips this year and maybe a delorme challenge, it would be nice if there was an easy way to see the cream of the crop in an area that I am not familiar with without having to look at hundreds of cache pages. I want to see the must-do's of caching.

 

So, my rating system would have cachers (members?) rate their top ten caches. Then some sort of geocaching.com computer would compile and spit out the ones that are on many different top ten list. Those caches might get an attribute or star that can be searched for in a Pocket Query. The rest is up to the community. If we the community actually does overwhelmingly think that skirt caches are the best , then I guess that is what will show up. But based on what I've been seeing the last year and a half, people generally, with exceptions, like what most would consider to be quality caches as well.

 

the other idea, since I often look for good caches by looking at other people's "my favorite caches" bookmarks, would be to have a feature that allows you to see - "the most frequently bookmarked caches" IT wouldn't be a rating system at all, just a way for us to look at what caches many people like to bookmark. It could include all bookmarks, or just the public ones, or just the ones that have the words "my favorite" in them for example.

 

cheers

[sdarken]

up until recently, I never cared for a rating system for the same general reasons that have been made already. But, now that I plan a few road trips this year and maybe a delorme challenge, it would be nice if there was an easy way to see the cream of the crop in an area that I am not familiar with without having to look at hundreds of cache pages. I want to see the must-do's of caching.

 

Exactly.

 

Within your own area, if you're just going out to get a couple of caches it's easy enough to to spend the time looking at each cache page.

 

If you're in a new area for a short stay (particularly near a large city) it can be excruiating to wade through dozens or hundreds of caches looking for a few that stand out so that you can make the best use of your time. This is where a rating system (or an organized favorites system) would be really helpful.

 

I'll go home and look for shooting stars so that I can make another wish for this kind of system.

[+Damo.]

I've read a few posts, and I believe it's come down to laziness.

 

Seriously? Too lazy to read enough to know what the thread is about before posting?

[+DatCrazyMongoose]

It's kind of funny to read through all these posts. OK, it seems like this has been covered many times before. The idea of a rating system is not new, it's not rocket science, and it certainly isn't mandatory. It sounds like the people against it are the "Let's not keep score in the soccer match for fear of hurting little Johnny's feelings" crowd. I wouldn't believe a single one of you who has bought a GPS online and says you didn't look at ratings/reviews before buying and take them into consideration.

 

Here is what you do if you don't like ratings....If getting a poor rating hurts your feelings, or you think you'll hurt someone else's feeling by rating them poorly, DON'T USE THEM.

 

For those of us who want to use ratings, implement them and let us use them. If the worst case scenario happens where the system is SO abused that it becomes corrupt (which hasn't yet happened to any commercial rating system that I know of) just delete the code!

[+BonnerGuido]

For those that want to give a simple rating system a try, take a look at my little project GC-Vote. There currently are 25,000 individual ratings in the database, but most of them for caches in Germany.

The program only works with Firefox and you have to install the Greasemonkey extension. But the rating system is fully integrated with geocaching.com. Average ratings are displayed on all cache details, map and list pages, just as if this system was a part of geocaching.com.

I did no statistical analysis of the votes, but I have the impression that the system works ok and is better than no rating system at all.

[+Ramblin_Man]

Interesting idea. I think it has merit. It would also possibly add to the interaction between the Cacher and Cacher Owner.

[+TotemLake]

Now that we have the GPS rating system, I would like to see a GeoCache rating system of 1 to 5 stars. This is something that could be added to the search criteria, logs, pocket queries, etc. How I see this working is that only Cachers that have found the cache could actually rate the cache, so as to avoid ratings made in frustration from DNFs. The rating would be based on how “good” the cache was, considering how cleaver the cache was, how well maintained, and its location. This would allow us to avoid wasting time on caches that are poorly placed, while providing feedback to the owner as to the general feeling about their cache and encourage better overall caches. I find it very frustrating to travel to a cache site only to find out the cache is in an abandoned dumpster or discarded beer bottle. I don’t view these types of caches as fun in any respect, as it isn’t about the numbers for me, but about the quality of the find and the time I get to spend with my family. So, my opinion is that it would be really nice to provide an overall rating for caches, to encourage a better caching experience from the placement through discovery. I don't believe the logs always provide enough information to base the value of a cache on since many logs are very short or simply TFTC.

 

Does anyone have any thought on this? It is something that I personally think would be a great addition to Groundspeak and caching in general.

I would want it an OPT IN system. I don't care to see ratings on any of my caches. You're either going to enjoy them or not.

[+team-noris]

Hi,

 

well, the articel is in German, but i wrote something about GC-Vote for our local group Geocaching-Franken recently, where you can see some screenshots of GC-Vote:

 

http://www.geocaching-franken.de/?p=1983 (Google translation: http://is.gd/vMVx)

 

Klaus

[+DatCrazyMongoose]

Hi,

 

well, the articel is in German, but i wrote something about GC-Vote for our local group Geocaching-Franken recently, where you can see some screenshots of GC-Vote:

 

http://www.geocaching-franken.de/?p=1983 (Google translation: http://is.gd/vMVx)

 

Klaus

That is absolutely outstanding! Ratings systems are EVERYWHERE! There is no good reason not to have them for geocaches.

[+tozainamboku]

Ratings systems are EVERYWHERE!

Which may be the biggest problem. Everyone has added the capability for users to give feedback by rating things on a scale such as 1 to 5 stars, that some users actually believe that the average rating of something is useful information for other consumers as well as useful information for the producers. It rarely is; certainly not in the case of geocaches where only a small number of consumers find each cache. The average rating on cache is probably a meaningless number and could be easily manipulated by a small group of cachers (or even sock puppets) agreeing on rating a particular cache or set of caches. In addition the geocaching community is so diverse that I doubt anyone is average enough that an average rating on the cache would reflect their likes or dislikes. For example, I suspect that many people asking for a rating system expect that LPCs would get a low rating since these are so lame. However, I believe that you will get some people who find that a easy grab in parking lot is just the kind of cache we need more of. These people would rate every LPC a 4 or 5. I don't know what the average will be since there may be more who find LPCs lame than those who want more LPCs but the point is the average may not be as high or as low as any group would expect.

 

Geocaching.com provides another means of providing feedback to the cache owner and other cachers. It is the online logs. Here you can read the logs and tell what people liked or did not like about a cache. I actually don't give much value to an average ranking on a movie or consumer electronic website and find the reviews people have written give me a better idea of what movie I might like or what digital camera I should buy. I suppose that Groundspeak could put a useless rating system on their site to satisfy the people who believe that they have average tastes, but I'd rather see a system designed that provides feedback that everyone (or at least almost everyone) could use to find the caches they would most enjoy finding.

Edited May 1, 2009 by tozainamboku