Cache Reward System

[+BlueDeuce]

Flaws can be found in any system that depends on user objectivity. Just need to minimize the number and effect of them.

 

Exactly. That's why we are talking about it.

[GOF and Bacall]

Flaws can be found in any system that depends on user objectivity. Just need to minimize the number and effect of them.

 

Exactly. That's why we are talking about it.

 

Agreed.

 

So now what. You by the beer?

[+L0ne.R]

What are you rating? Are you rating the cache container, the journey to the cache container, the scenery around the cache container, the technique used in the 'hide' aspect of the cache container, the contents of the cache container, the creativity in the listing of the cache.....

 

How do you rate a movie in a database like IMDB, or a book on Amazon? My guess is most people rate it for how much they liked the overall experience? With respect to caching, the reasons why they liked it can be addressed in the log. It's easier to read the logs of 50 gold star caches within a 20 mile radius as opposed to the 1000s you would currently have to read within the same radius to find the gems.

[+bittsen]

Why not just have a nomination system put in place for the crappy caches.

 

We could have the Geocaching Hall of Lame

 

It's just as silly of an idea as a rewards system...

 

Thank you for being objective.

 

You are welcome.

[GOF and Bacall]

Why not just have a nomination system put in place for the crappy caches.

 

We could have the Geocaching Hall of Lame

 

It's just as silly of an idea as a rewards system...

 

Thank you for being objective.

 

You are welcome.

 

RING!

RING!

RING!

Click.

"Hello. You have reached the Geocaching Hall of Lame. We can't take your call right now. At the tone please leave your name and number and who in in the hall you are trying to call."

BEEP!

[+Bergie Bunch]

[+BlueDeuce]

Flaws can be found in any system that depends on user objectivity. Just need to minimize the number and effect of them.

 

Exactly. That's why we are talking about it.

 

Agreed.

 

So now what. You by the beer?

 

Again?

 

[GOF and Bacall]

Flaws can be found in any system that depends on user objectivity. Just need to minimize the number and effect of them.

 

Exactly. That's why we are talking about it.

 

Agreed.

 

So now what. You by the beer?

 

Again?

 

 

Fine, be that way. I'll by the beer but you gotta come here to drink it.

[+BlueDeuce]

Fine, be that way. I'll by the beer but you gotta come here to drink it.

 

How will I know if I'll like the beer before I get there?

 

Who am I kidding? Keep the lights on!

[+BAPMAN CREW]

I think a reword/rating could be good. One of my concerns might be if it had any connection to number of finds verses how often found. My favorite cache of mine is not often found for a few different reasons, even though it is near a urban area with many caches nearby. It is in a Michigan DNR boat launch area at the end of a peninsula that requires a permit or day fee. The cache itself is easy but it is at the outter edge of a wildlife sanctuary, but not in it. The view is wonderful, which is why I put one there. The few who have found it, loved it. But a few have complained that there is a fee to enter the area. I have almost as many complaints as thank you's. How would something like that rate?

 

For me caching is not always about the cache but the place or object that I got to experience. I don't care for skirt lifters at a mall but one at a historic site is great by me. Guidelines is a conversation that could last the millennium. A rewords system would probably be best handled by area groups and would be less controversial.

[+BlueDeuce]

I think a reword/rating could be good. One of my concerns might be if it had any connection to number of finds verses how often found. My favorite cache of mine is not often found for a few different reasons, even though it is near a urban area with many caches nearby. It is in a Michigan DNR boat launch area at the end of a peninsula that requires a permit or day fee. The cache itself is easy but it is at the outter edge of a wildlife sanctuary, but not in it. The view is wonderful, which is why I put one there. The few who have found it, loved it. But a few have complained that there is a fee to enter the area. I have almost as many complaints as thank you's. How would something like that rate?

 

For me caching is not always about the cache but the place or object that I got to experience. I don't care for skirt lifters at a mall but one at a historic site is great by me. Guidelines is a conversation that could last the millennium. A rewords system would probably be best handled by area groups and would be less controversial.

 

Wouldn't the locals be the majority voters? Setting the ratings aside for a moment I still choose caches based on my hunting abilities. If I have a kid in a stroller, I have to pick and chose from a list that a rating system could never cover. I might choose one you recommended.

[+bittsen]

I think a reword/rating could be good. One of my concerns might be if it had any connection to number of finds verses how often found. My favorite cache of mine is not often found for a few different reasons, even though it is near a urban area with many caches nearby. It is in a Michigan DNR boat launch area at the end of a peninsula that requires a permit or day fee. The cache itself is easy but it is at the outter edge of a wildlife sanctuary, but not in it. The view is wonderful, which is why I put one there. The few who have found it, loved it. But a few have complained that there is a fee to enter the area. I have almost as many complaints as thank you's. How would something like that rate?

 

For me caching is not always about the cache but the place or object that I got to experience. I don't care for skirt lifters at a mall but one at a historic site is great by me. Guidelines is a conversation that could last the millennium. A rewords system would probably be best handled by area groups and would be less controversial.

 

Wouldn't the locals be the majority voters? Setting the ratings aside for a moment I still choose caches based on my hunting abilities. If I have a kid in a stroller, I have to pick and chose from a list that a rating system could never cover. I might choose one you recommended.

 

That's why you need the Hall of Lame. At least you would know what caches to avoid.

[+BlueDeuce]

I think a reword/rating could be good. One of my concerns might be if it had any connection to number of finds verses how often found. My favorite cache of mine is not often found for a few different reasons, even though it is near a urban area with many caches nearby. It is in a Michigan DNR boat launch area at the end of a peninsula that requires a permit or day fee. The cache itself is easy but it is at the outter edge of a wildlife sanctuary, but not in it. The view is wonderful, which is why I put one there. The few who have found it, loved it. But a few have complained that there is a fee to enter the area. I have almost as many complaints as thank you's. How would something like that rate?

 

For me caching is not always about the cache but the place or object that I got to experience. I don't care for skirt lifters at a mall but one at a historic site is great by me. Guidelines is a conversation that could last the millennium. A rewords system would probably be best handled by area groups and would be less controversial.

 

Wouldn't the locals be the majority voters? Setting the ratings aside for a moment I still choose caches based on my hunting abilities. If I have a kid in a stroller, I have to pick and chose from a list that a rating system could never cover. I might choose one you recommended.

 

That's why you need the Hall of Lame. At least you would know what caches to avoid.

 

Okay. Is that a problem?

[+bittsen]

Okay. Is that a problem?

Should it be?

[+BlueDeuce]

Okay. Is that a problem?

Should it be?

 

I don't have a problem with giving a cache a poor rating. I'm sure they'll be those cachers who confront others about the ratings. I'd like the chance to know who those people are.

[+fizzymagic]

Congratulations! You have been inducted into the Geocaching Hall of Lame! You have received this award for the really old and lame act of putting a "beating a dead horse" image into a thread, apparently thinking it was a clever thing to do.

[Mr.Yuck]

This thread has gone waaayyy too long without a "What makes you cache snob elitist's think that your 1/2 mile hike to an ammo box in the woods is any better than that film canister under the lampskirt at Wal-Mart. There are handicapped cachers out there, you know" post.

 

So there you have it. It just didn't come from one of the usual suspects.

 

Oh screw it. Put me in the hall of lame with the dead horse pic.

[Mr.Yuck]

Why not just have a nomination system put in place for the crappy caches.

 

We could have the Geocaching Hall of Lame

 

It's just as silly of an idea as a rewards system...

 

Mr. Bittsen. Although I did once hear a rumor you were female. Didn't IK say in Post #6 that Groundspeak was actually working on a rating system? Not really a silly idea. Waymarking has one. Not that many people care about Waymarking.

 

OK, gotta go. I'm going to start a public Geocaching hall of lame bookmark list. That ought to go over real well.

[+hukilaulau]

Why not just have a nomination system put in place for the crappy caches.

 

We could have the Geocaching Hall of Lame

 

It's just as silly of an idea as a rewards system...

 

Mr. Bittsen. Although I did once hear a rumor you were female. Didn't IK say in Post #6 that Groundspeak was actually working on a rating system? Not really a silly idea. Waymarking has one. Not that many people care about Waymarking.

 

OK, gotta go. I'm going to start a public Geocaching hall of lame bookmark list. That ought to go over real well.

I actually LIKE the "Hall of Lame" idea. My concern is that it would be overused. For instance, this one certainly deserves to be in the hall:

"I noticed there wasn't a cache in this rest stop so I wanted to put one here. I made it a virtual because I didn't want to have to maintain it." (Yes, this was real!)

OTOH, A couple of years ago, traveling through brattleboro, VT., I noticed a series of caches that said something like:

"I placed a bunch of micros so local cachers could jack up their numbers."

At first, these would seem like good candidates, but then I remembered, a lot of folks LOVE this stuff.

I simply got out of town as fast as I could and had my best day of caching ever, driving across New Hampshire to Maine.

[AZcachemeister]

All Joe Crappers buddies are going to rate his dumpster vistas high while at the same time many of the remaining cachers are just not gonna vote at all. The results will end up uselessly skewed. However, if we award only the best caches we eliminate much of the problem.

 

I like the idea of each cacher having X number of stars to award. If you can only award a star to each of your favorite ten caches you are less likely to waste them on your buddies port-a-john hide.

 

 

Until Joe Crapper and his buddies figure out they can create an infinite number of sock puppet accounts and have plenty of stars to throw around.

[+carolnbarney]

Ebay has something that I like to rate sellers. It's a "star" system where you rate the seller from 1-5 stars I think on a few important aspects of being a good seller. That concept would be easily adaptable to caches.

Yes, it's called GCVote. You can't rate a person (owner) there, but the individual geocache, which makes much more sense.

GermanSailor

 

I just looked at GCVote. From my initial read, it appears you have to download and install a plug in on your computer to get it to work. Also, the plug in is/was designed to work with FireFox, I believe it was, and you may have to download another plug in and/or change GCVote's script to get it to work with IE or other browsers. That doesn't sound too good if you have to download something to get it to work. It would be a whole lot better if it worked just from the site without having to use plug ins. They have a tendency at times to cause problems it seems.

 

I would want something that you didn't have to do all that to be able to use it.

 

In other words...... K I S S

Keep It Simple Stupid

The stupid is used to refer to the person trying to use it, not you my friend!!

[+bittsen]

About the Hall of Lame.

 

I don't think it would be used for relatively easy and meaningless hides as much as the really BAD hides. Here would be an example.

 

"I nominate this cache for the Hall of Lame because of the abundance of fecal matter surrounding GZ. It would not fit the HoL except the waste was decidedly human based on the quantity of TP all around."

 

If you used the HoL for simple park and grab caches, over half the caches would end up in there (some of mine included, I'm sure)

[+L0ne.R]

Ebay has something that I like to rate sellers. It's a "star" system where you rate the seller from 1-5 stars I think on a few important aspects of being a good seller. That concept would be easily adaptable to caches.

Yes, it's called GCVote. You can't rate a person (owner) there, but the individual geocache, which makes much more sense.

GermanSailor

 

I just looked at GCVote. From my initial read, it appears you have to download and install a plug in on your computer to get it to work. Also, the plug in is/was designed to work with FireFox, I believe it was, and you may have to download another plug in and/or change GCVote's script to get it to work with IE or other browsers. That doesn't sound too good if you have to download something to get it to work. It would be a whole lot better if it worked just from the site without having to use plug ins. They have a tendency at times to cause problems it seems.

 

I would want something that you didn't have to do all that to be able to use it.

 

In other words...... K I S S

Keep It Simple Stupid

The stupid is used to refer to the person trying to use it, not you my friend!!

 

I've looked at it too and it's pretty good but like you've observed you have to download a plug-in, it works with Firefox and IE (only, not Chrome or Safari, etc.), and you have to download it to every computer you use (I use several computers at different locations). You also have to give the owner of the script your password. I've never felt comfortable with that. Plus when I did try it (before the password requirement) it looked like I was the only one in my area that used it.

Edited February 14, 2010 by Lone R

[GOF and Bacall]

Ebay has something that I like to rate sellers. It's a "star" system where you rate the seller from 1-5 stars I think on a few important aspects of being a good seller. That concept would be easily adaptable to caches.

Yes, it's called GCVote. You can't rate a person (owner) there, but the individual geocache, which makes much more sense.

GermanSailor

 

I just looked at GCVote. From my initial read, it appears you have to download and install a plug in on your computer to get it to work. Also, the plug in is/was designed to work with FireFox, I believe it was, and you may have to download another plug in and/or change GCVote's script to get it to work with IE or other browsers. That doesn't sound too good if you have to download something to get it to work. It would be a whole lot better if it worked just from the site without having to use plug ins. They have a tendency at times to cause problems it seems.

 

I would want something that you didn't have to do all that to be able to use it.

 

In other words...... K I S S

Keep It Simple Stupid

The stupid is used to refer to the person trying to use it, not you my friend!!

 

I've looked at it too and it's pretty good but like you've observed you have to download a plug-in, it only works with Firefox and IE, and you have to download it to every computer you use (I use several computers at different locations). You also have to give the owner of the script your password. I've never felt comfortable with that. Plus when I did try it (before the password requirement) it looked like I was the only one in my area that used it.

 

It would have to be a frosty day in that normally hot location for me to give them my password.

[sdarken]

Suprised to find this thread is still going....

 

So, another question for those who believe that the world of geocaching would be vastly imrpoved by creating a new cache rating system....

 

I dont think may believe that geocaching would be **vastly** improved by a rating system but it would certainly be another tool that could be used to help find caches that might be worth visiting when you're in an unfamiliar location.

 

Here's a snippet from a previous post I made about the subject in relation to how even a simple simple system like GCVote can be useful

 

GCVote has been mentioned a few times. Take a look at this screenshot showing GCVotes on caches around Berlin, Germany where GCVote is used quite frequently.

 

In the GCVote system:

5 stars = great

4 stars = good

3 stars = average

2 stars = not good

1 star = poor

What you find is that people don't generally rate caches below 3 (and if they do you'll probably find it's a real stinker). Typically, average caches end up with 3 stars.

 

On this screen shot, the multi called "Jolle Sein Milljöh (Spandauer Vorstadt Berlin)" has a 5 star rating after 19 votes. That's all the information that I need to take a closer look. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a cache I'll visit. I would still need to read the description and logs to understand why it gets a high ranking but it's a quick way to identify a good cache from lots of average caches.

 

[+ReadyOrNot]

What are you rating? Are you rating the cache container, the journey to the cache container, the scenery around the cache container, the technique used in the 'hide' aspect of the cache container, the contents of the cache container, the creativity in the listing of the cache.....

 

How do you rate a movie in a database like IMDB, or a book on Amazon? My guess is most people rate it for how much they liked the overall experience? With respect to caching, the reasons why they liked it can be addressed in the log. It's easier to read the logs of 50 gold star caches within a 20 mile radius as opposed to the 1000s you would currently have to read within the same radius to find the gems.

 

I think (I think) that the idea of a pure numerical ratings system has been shown to be a bad idea. I don't find the Amazon ratings very useful, but I do occasional find the "People who bought this book also bought...." section to be useful.

 

IMDB is to Geocaching rating system as The Grammy's is to Geocaching Award System. The Grammy's isn't the best example, because that would be like Groundspeak deciding the Awards. The Geocaching community would be the ones to make the determination of which Geocaches deserve accolades.

 

Another example of the difference would be: I rate your forum post a 3 ... versus ... Your forum post gets the "When did they start allowing people with IQ's below 30 to post on the forums Award"..

 

Much more descriptive and meaningful than a number.

[+BonnerGuido]

It would have to be a frosty day in that normally hot location for me to give them my password.

Good Lord, you're not supposed to give me your password for geocaching.com to use GCVote. Since a few people abused the open database, I had to introduce accounts for GCVote. These accounts and their passwords are totally independant from anything. There are no real security risks, if you choose a password that is good only for GCVote. In the worst case I could use it to alter your votes, but I can do that anyway, as it's my database.

 

And to the people that have all these nice arguments why a rating system cannot work, I would like to point out that GCVote obviously works for a lot of geocachers. It may not work for every geocacher and it may not work for every cache, but it works for most geocachers and for most caches. And its a very simple system. I would expect a more elaborate system implemented by Groundspeak to be of even more use for even more people.

[GermanSailor]

or just the singular subjective feeling you had when you found the cache?

That's pretty much how I rate geocaches.

Or in other words, every geocache is a 3 unless something is there which make a deviation necessary.

That can be:

 

+ good container

+ top location

+ good / new idea

+ nice story / listing

 

- wrong container size listed (usually regulars listed as large)

- very bad coordinates

- stupid hints (you don't need a hint, opening hours, ...)

- improper container

- bad location

 

The nice thing about GCVote is its simpleness 5 stars, half-stars. It's easier than a complex rating system which would be subjective nevertheless.

 

If you like it - use it. If you don't like it, don't even install the script!

 

GermanSailor

[GermanSailor]

I just looked at GCVote. From my initial read, it appears you have to download and install a plug in on your computer to get it to work.

You are right, you need to install the script, which only works with greasemonkey. Apparently you can get it to work with the IE, but I don't use the IE anyway.

 

Yes, I'd prefer a website-embedded rating system over this solution, but unless there is something official by Groundspeak GCVote is really good. Should there be an official rating system, the programmer said, he will provide Groundspeak with the votes.

 

Maybe if GCVote will be a success outside Germany as well, Groundspeak will implement something like this.

 

GermanSailor

[+BonnerGuido]

Should there be an official rating system, the programmer said, he will provide Groundspeak with the votes.

Yes, that's more or less what I said in the beginning. But the actual wording that I chose was not very good and I removed that clause to improve trust in the system.

 

If there ever will be another better or more popular solution that can work with the data from GCVote, I will do my best to provide an easy way for each individual user to move his votes to the new system.

[AZcachemeister]

Suprised to find this thread is still going....

 

So, another question for those who believe that the world of geocaching would be vastly imrpoved by creating a new cache rating system....

 

I dont think may believe that geocaching would be **vastly** improved by a rating system but it would certainly be another tool that could be used to help find caches that might be worth visiting when you're in an unfamiliar location.

 

Here's a snippet from a previous post I made about the subject in relation to how even a simple simple system like GCVote can be useful

 

GCVote has been mentioned a few times. Take a look at this screenshot showing GCVotes on caches around Berlin, Germany where GCVote is used quite frequently.

 

In the GCVote system:

5 stars = great

4 stars = good

3 stars = average

2 stars = not good

1 star = poor

What you find is that people don't generally rate caches below 3 (and if they do you'll probably find it's a real stinker). Typically, average caches end up with 3 stars.

 

On this screen shot, the multi called "Jolle Sein Milljöh (Spandauer Vorstadt Berlin)" has a 5 star rating after 19 votes. That's all the information that I need to take a closer look. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a cache I'll visit. I would still need to read the description and logs to understand why it gets a high ranking but it's a quick way to identify a good cache from lots of average caches.

 

 

This is a prime example of how such a system should/could work.

The example cache almost certainly is worthy of inclusion in anyone's plans when in that area.

The development of cliques where all the members rate each other's caches highly is possible, but outsiders will certainly eventually bring the rating back to reality.

[GermanSailor]

If there ever will be another better or more popular solution that can work with the data from GCVote, I will do my best to provide an easy way for each individual user to move his votes to the new system.

Maybe Groundspeak will spider your server....

 

GermanSailor

[+TheWeatherWarrior]

 

Well, for one thing, many owners delete logs that contain the faintest whiff of criticism.

 

And a complaint to Groundspeak will get a legitimate find log restored.

 

Not if you speak out a lot about Groundspeak....they tend to ignore folks that don't slap happy praise and worship on them.