PQ - Question on multi query (radius/place date) setup

[+Zelanzy]

Lets say, for example, their are 3200 active/inactive (including 100 found) caches in a 20mi radius of my house and I want to most effectively setup some queries to pull them all. My question is, should I include exclude the inactive and found ones or pull them all?

 

Here is why I ask. In the above example I have 7 PQ's setup, 20 mi radius, including found and inactive, all with difference date placed settings to pull them all within the radius. This is setup so that I never really have to repull the "weekly found" query, since they are all included within the queries (since they include found caches). I also can bump right up to 500 since it should never exceed 500. If I excluded inactives, when they became active they could cross the 500 point, meaning I'd need to tweak all 7 queries.

 

Do you get where I'm going here? Is it more efficient to exclude those inactves/found knowing that I might have to tweak all 7 queries occasionally? Or would it be best to include all them, and rarely have to update the 7 past queries (knowing that I might be able to pull all the data in 5 pulls...after my founds get higher?)

 

I guess this is more of a philosophical question...what do you do?

 

FYI, I use GSAK to filter down to 2k (and perform the excluding of inactive/found at that point).

[+Haffy]

Lets say, for example, their are 3200 active/inactive (including 100 found) caches in a 20mi radius of my house and I want to most effectively setup some queries to pull them all. My question is, should I include exclude the inactive and found ones or pull them all?

 

Here is why I ask. In the above example I have 7 PQ's setup, 20 mi radius, including found and inactive, all with difference date placed settings to pull them all within the radius. This is setup so that I never really have to repull the "weekly found" query, since they are all included within the queries (since they include found caches). I also can bump right up to 500 since it should never exceed 500. If I excluded inactives, when they became active they could cross the 500 point, meaning I'd need to tweak all 7 queries.

 

Do you get where I'm going here? Is it more efficient to exclude those inactves/found knowing that I might have to tweak all 7 queries occasionally? Or would it be best to include all them, and rarely have to update the 7 past queries (knowing that I might be able to pull all the data in 5 pulls...after my founds get higher?)

 

I guess this is more of a philosophical question...what do you do?

 

FYI, I use GSAK to filter down to 2k (and perform the excluding of inactive/found at that point).

 

I think you pretty much answered your own question. Since you use GSAK to filter the found and inactive I would just include all the caches and just filter the caches in GSAK that you stated you use.

Edited July 9, 2009 by Haffy

[+Chrysalides]

Do you get where I'm going here? Is it more efficient to exclude those inactves/found knowing that I might have to tweak all 7 queries occasionally? Or would it be best to include all them, and rarely have to update the 7 past queries (knowing that I might be able to pull all the data in 5 pulls...after my founds get higher?)

I include inactive but exclude found.

 

The first is so that if a cache goes inactive, my GSAK copy would reflect that. Otherwise I might go hunting for a cache because GSAK tells me it is available. I also wouldn't want to be continuously tweaking my PQs - tedious.

 

I guess you could wipe out all geocaches in the DB and reload with PQs (I keep corrected coordinates and notes for puzzles, so not an option for me). Alternatively, you could mark everything inactive, then reset that with a PQ reload.

 

The reason for excluding found is so that I can increase the radius at a later date when my finds increase. Also, getting fresh logs of found geocaches seem unnecessary to me.

 

By the way one difference with My Finds is that it includes archived caches. (Edit : and another is that it can contain more than 500 caches)

Edited July 9, 2009 by Chrysalides

[+briansnat]

I always exclude my finds because eventually I'll be getting back more and more cache that I already found , rather than additional unfound caches.

 

If I need my finds for one reason or other I just runt he My Finds PQ