List Active Hides rather than Total Hides

[wylbur]

Any discussion about changing the way hides are displayed for users. Why don't we display ACTIVE or NON-ARCHIVED hides in hide counts rather than total hides? There are a few reasons this makes sense:

 

1 - We want to encourage people to maintain active non-archived hides. This is an active hobby at the present moment. Counting archived hides does not reflect a user's current status.

 

2 - This encourages longevity and retention rather than placing and archiving caches. Since I have started geocaching, I am noticing new caches placed in the same spot as old caches so that people can log these caches again. The hiders get credit for both as does the finders. This kind of activity is encouraged by counting archived caches.

 

I looked for earlier discussions but found none.

 

Thanks for looking and sharing your thoughts!

[jholly]

Best reason I can think of is that the archived caches are part of the history. If they don't show for the hider are you also going to deny the finder a count? Seems one gets the count and the other doesn't it is a bit unfair.

 

Jim

[+StaticTank]

Any discussion about changing the way hides are displayed for users. Why don't we display ACTIVE or NON-ARCHIVED hides in hide counts rather than total hides? There are a few reasons this makes sense:

 

1 - We want to encourage people to maintain active non-archived hides. This is an active hobby at the present moment. Counting archived hides does not reflect a user's current status.

 

2 - This encourages longevity and retention rather than placing and archiving caches. Since I have started geocaching, I am noticing new caches placed in the same spot as old caches so that people can log these caches again. The hiders get credit for both as does the finders. This kind of activity is encouraged by counting archived caches.

 

I looked for earlier discussions but found none.

 

Thanks for looking and sharing your thoughts!

 

I think they should count in the users hides. I don't think people are out there hiding caches just to improve thier hide count. I think it is good the way it is. If they are let them, more for me to find!

 

StaticTank

[+PJPeters]

What about:

 

Hidden: 15/12 Active

 

Just a thought...

[crawil]

I'm going to combine 2 trains of thought and suggest that the stats displayed when you log a cache look like this:

 

April 14 by name (Found/DNF'd: Hidden/Active)

 

so a log posted by me today would read

 

April 14 by crawil (1156/125: 7/5)

 

Elsewhere I would like for both sets to be displayed so we can see the total picture.

[+StarBrand]

I'm going to combine 2 trains of thought and suggest that the stats displayed when you log a cache look like this:

 

April 14 by name (Found/DNF'd: Hidden/Active)

 

so a log posted by me today would read

 

April 14 by crawil (1156/125: 7/5)

 

Elsewhere I would like for both sets to be displayed so we can see the total picture.

Now that idea - I like!! Certain tells me much more about the cacher at a glance.

[+baloo&bd]

Any discussion about changing the way hides are displayed for users. Why don't we display ACTIVE or NON-ARCHIVED hides in hide counts rather than total hides? There are a few reasons this makes sense:

 

1 - We want to encourage people to maintain active non-archived hides. This is an active hobby at the present moment. Counting archived hides does not reflect a user's current status.

 

2 - This encourages longevity and retention rather than placing and archiving caches. Since I have started geocaching, I am noticing new caches placed in the same spot as old caches so that people can log these caches again. The hiders get credit for both as does the finders. This kind of activity is encouraged by counting archived caches.

 

I looked for earlier discussions but found none.

 

Thanks for looking and sharing your thoughts!

 

Why?

[Ranger Fox]

The "1156/125: 7/5" number seems a bit busy and complicated for new users. Also, it the number of hides doesn't serve much purpose on a log page and the number of DNFs some people would like private.

 

I am against only counting active hides in one's hide count. Suppose I spent twenty hours of my time and $50 of my money in 2003 crafting an extraordinary multi. Over four hundred people find the cache and each person has a blast in the adventure I carefully crafted. Over the years, I spend four hours on each maintenance trip, checking up on it and its stages. In 2008, the land goes for auction and is then private property. I have to archive my cache. Over the years, I cared for the cache, it was a quality hide, and I did nothing wrong. Are you going to penalize my hide count for having to archive it? (One case is the original, legendary "Tube Torcher" cache, though that involved much more time to set up. Or not even counting the original stash as a hide.)

 

You can't even say, "Okay, then let's not give credit to people who have caches that haven't been found." What of some of those caches hidden in other countries by people who either live there or have a second house? In the entire country there may be only a dozen caches. I certainly wouldn't want to penalize them for trying to bring geocaching to that area.

 

I can't even see someone saying, "Well, then, let's only give credit to people whose caches remained available for a year." There are all sorts of extenuating circumstances, such as someone being deployed or having to move for familial or occupational circumstances. There's also the concern the hide calculation itself consuming more processing time when a statbar is created or a profile page is loaded.

 

It's great you want to encourage people to maintain active caches. I fully agree with your sentiment. However, I feel this is a community problem. If there is someone in your area tossing caches out left and right and archiving them on the first "Needs Maintenance" log, I'd suggest the community taking action. Groundspeak provides the listing service; the community should take care of their own.

[+Corfman Clan]

When I retrieve a users hides, I get a list back with all of them: active, disabled, and archived. What would be nice, would be a way to only get back the active hides. Perhaps a check box or something like that could be used to filter out the archived and/or disabled ones.

 

This goes beyond searching for a users hides. For example, one can create a pocket query from a bookmark list. It sure would be nice if there was a way to filter that pocket query down some. For example only active caches in the bookmark list.

[+legacypac]

I disagree with the premise of the OP in that I DO NOT always want to see caches maintained. Some caches turn out to be bad ideas, can't be maintained, continually go missing etc. There is also something to be said for owner archiving of lame caches.

 

We have a big enough problem with people who throw out caches and forget them - reducing the hide count when they archive would just encourage people to resist archiving dead caches even more.

 

In my area I've never noticed people archiving and relisting the same cache. Sure parks get reused, but by other (often new) cachers. Maybe other areas have this issue?

 

I also have caches hidden in China and Malaysia that have never been found. They are still valid hides that are developing the game in areas I visit regularly.