Virtual cache?

[Keystone]

For those following along, I've re-sent the email message as a forum PM.

 

It is not a big deal. All surveys and polls require Groundspeak permission as stated in the forum guidelines. If permission is granted (and it sometimes is), then it will be easy to restore TAR's thread on that subject.

 

In the meantime, let's continue this lively discussion of virtual caches, waymarks and related subjects, just without the polling or discussions of the poll. Additional posts from TheAlabamaRambler are especially welcome! Thanks.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Keystone

[+tozainamboku]

If TPTB could come up with a PQ that was category specific, I think it would work.

I could set my PQ to limit results to only those categories that appeal to me.

I don't know if this is even possible, but it sure sounds good in theory.

 

IAWTC.

 

In theory yes. With the filters already set in place using the search engine it should be able to return the PQ results you want. How many are willing to sort through the 900+ categories to find what they want. That remains to be seen and why I think it has the potential for further complaints.

 

I hope I am wrong, but I don't see the PQ as being the big fix that many seem to envision.

 

Up until recently the focus appeared to be the creation categories and waymarks to build a visitable database. Waymark creation has seen many updates over the past years/months that has focused on improving that experience. Since that is my primary interest in Waymarking I am thankful for that.

The many calls for PQ's here and at the Groundspeak Portal seems to indicate that the tide is turning and people are now calling for a valid and easy way to visit the locations.

A difference between Waymarks and Virtual caches has been that you can get a pocket query that contains both virtual and physical caches in an area and load this into a GPS. Then as you go about geocaching you might stop at the virtual caches as you are going from cache to cache. Often when travelling out of town I'll just load up all the caches in the area I am going to. Maybe I'm staying in the downtown area. When I look to see what near my hotel, I might see the LPC in parking lot down the street along with a virtual a few blocks in the other direction at some old historic building or a unique piece of public art. While I might prefer to find a cache hidden at the old building or the art, I still might find a virtual there more interesting than going to grab the LPC. My guess is that many geocachers enjoyed the serendipity of finding an interesting "best kept secret" while out and about looking for geocaches, whether or not there was a physical cache there or a virtual.

 

I would like to see virtuals come back myself for a rather simple reason. I went through the time and effort to hunt down and waymark over 250 items of interest. Most of which I did some fairly extensive research on. On the other hand I have about 37 or 38 active geocaches at this point in time. Every weekend I get several nice logs from my geocaches and I've received a total of 2 visits on my waymarks. There's just not many people involved in Waymarking and to set up these waymarks to bring people to something interesting seems like a big waste of time to me. I can get more hits on a good cache on a weekend then my most visited waymark all year long. The only good thing about a waymark is the fact that you can place them in more places and practically on top of one another. They just don't get visited much because the real audience is here on the geocaching site. Out of all the waymarks I've created I've only visited 1. Why you might ask? Geocaching is more fun and more interactive. You have a container for trackables that you can send on missions. If your a numbers hunter then you love to see your smiley count pile up. You can track all the coins and trackables that you've ever found and a waymark is well its there. You drive up and 9 times out of 10 its right there. No thrill of the hunt, nothing telling you to do this and that as an extra logging requirement so that you learn about a place. You find the waymark, take a pic and post it on the site. TFTW woohoo!! So in my honest opinion Vituals should come back or to make them more visitable then create a special icon that transcends the 2 sites and allows you to get an extra smiley for each waymark visited. It will still never be as popular as geocaching but that little digit for each one would boost a lot more interest in Waymarking. Swiz

Waymarking is a much more open concept than a virtual cache. It is likely that many people are interested in Waymarking as more of an online tool to find out about interesting places. Some will no doubt like to visit those places as well. But the idea of logging a visit online to "score a point" won't make much sense to them. The number of logged visits to waymarks is picking up, but these will probably never be as popular as logging a geocache to get you find count up.

 

A sense of entitlement to a find/visit log has to change as well. If you hide a phyisical cache, you've spent some time selecting a hiding place and hiding your cache there. You may have spent some money on a nice container and stocking it with swag. Hopefully you have made a commitment to maintain your cache. I think it only goes that if I find your cache I thank you in my log. If there is a problem or if I didn't find the cache, than logging a needs maintenance or DNF would be appropriate. If you hide a virtual, I would certainly want to thank you for sharing a interesting location - especially one I would not have known about otherwise. But you really haven't put in as much effort as physical cache owner (IMO). I would thank a waymark owner the same way. However, I can understand that fewer people would feel the need to log a find on virtual or a waymark.

 

During the first few months I geocached, I visited a number of virtual caches. I did not log these as I was generally disappointed that instead of having a cache to find I was being asked to read some plaque to answer a question - usually where I could have found the same information online. Eventually, I did a virtual that took me to a National Park where I had to hike to view point. The confirmation was silly (counting the stairs up to the view point). Yet I wanted to thank the hider for bringing me to a park where I probably wouldn't have stopped if it hadn't been for the virtual. So I broke down and logged my first virtual. After that it was easy to rationalize virtuals as caches and claim a smiley for them. I much prefer the idea of these locations being waymarks so that I go and visit them in their own right instead of just to get a smiley.

[+swizzle]

If TPTB could come up with a PQ that was category specific, I think it would work.

I could set my PQ to limit results to only those categories that appeal to me.

I don't know if this is even possible, but it sure sounds good in theory.

 

IAWTC.

 

In theory yes. With the filters already set in place using the search engine it should be able to return the PQ results you want. How many are willing to sort through the 900+ categories to find what they want. That remains to be seen and why I think it has the potential for further complaints.

 

I hope I am wrong, but I don't see the PQ as being the big fix that many seem to envision.

 

Up until recently the focus appeared to be the creation categories and waymarks to build a visitable database. Waymark creation has seen many updates over the past years/months that has focused on improving that experience. Since that is my primary interest in Waymarking I am thankful for that.

The many calls for PQ's here and at the Groundspeak Portal seems to indicate that the tide is turning and people are now calling for a valid and easy way to visit the locations.

A difference between Waymarks and Virtual caches has been that you can get a pocket query that contains both virtual and physical caches in an area and load this into a GPS. Then as you go about geocaching you might stop at the virtual caches as you are going from cache to cache. Often when travelling out of town I'll just load up all the caches in the area I am going to. Maybe I'm staying in the downtown area. When I look to see what near my hotel, I might see the LPC in parking lot down the street along with a virtual a few blocks in the other direction at some old historic building or a unique piece of public art. While I might prefer to find a cache hidden at the old building or the art, I still might find a virtual there more interesting than going to grab the LPC. My guess is that many geocachers enjoyed the serendipity of finding an interesting "best kept secret" while out and about looking for geocaches, whether or not there was a physical cache there or a virtual.

 

I would like to see virtuals come back myself for a rather simple reason. I went through the time and effort to hunt down and waymark over 250 items of interest. Most of which I did some fairly extensive research on. On the other hand I have about 37 or 38 active geocaches at this point in time. Every weekend I get several nice logs from my geocaches and I've received a total of 2 visits on my waymarks. There's just not many people involved in Waymarking and to set up these waymarks to bring people to something interesting seems like a big waste of time to me. I can get more hits on a good cache on a weekend then my most visited waymark all year long. The only good thing about a waymark is the fact that you can place them in more places and practically on top of one another. They just don't get visited much because the real audience is here on the geocaching site. Out of all the waymarks I've created I've only visited 1. Why you might ask? Geocaching is more fun and more interactive. You have a container for trackables that you can send on missions. If your a numbers hunter then you love to see your smiley count pile up. You can track all the coins and trackables that you've ever found and a waymark is well its there. You drive up and 9 times out of 10 its right there. No thrill of the hunt, nothing telling you to do this and that as an extra logging requirement so that you learn about a place. You find the waymark, take a pic and post it on the site. TFTW woohoo!! So in my honest opinion Vituals should come back or to make them more visitable then create a special icon that transcends the 2 sites and allows you to get an extra smiley for each waymark visited. It will still never be as popular as geocaching but that little digit for each one would boost a lot more interest in Waymarking. Swiz

Waymarking is a much more open concept than a virtual cache. It is likely that many people are interested in Waymarking as more of an online tool to find out about interesting places. Some will no doubt like to visit those places as well. But the idea of logging a visit online to "score a point" won't make much sense to them. The number of logged visits to waymarks is picking up, but these will probably never be as popular as logging a geocache to get you find count up.

 

A sense of entitlement to a find/visit log has to change as well. If you hide a phyisical cache, you've spent some time selecting a hiding place and hiding your cache there. You may have spent some money on a nice container and stocking it with swag. Hopefully you have made a commitment to maintain your cache. I think it only goes that if I find your cache I thank you in my log. If there is a problem or if I didn't find the cache, than logging a needs maintenance or DNF would be appropriate. If you hide a virtual, I would certainly want to thank you for sharing a interesting location - especially one I would not have known about otherwise. But you really haven't put in as much effort as physical cache owner (IMO). I would thank a waymark owner the same way. However, I can understand that fewer people would feel the need to log a find on virtual or a waymark.

 

During the first few months I geocached, I visited a number of virtual caches. I did not log these as I was generally disappointed that instead of having a cache to find I was being asked to read some plaque to answer a question - usually where I could have found the same information online. Eventually, I did a virtual that took me to a National Park where I had to hike to view point. The confirmation was silly (counting the stairs up to the view point). Yet I wanted to thank the hider for bringing me to a park where I probably wouldn't have stopped if it hadn't been for the virtual. So I broke down and logged my first virtual. After that it was easy to rationalize virtuals as caches and claim a smiley for them. I much prefer the idea of these locations being waymarks so that I go and visit them in their own right instead of just to get a smiley.

 

Personally I don't care about another smiley. To visit a waymark for me is to either visit my own or to visit ones that I have no interest in whatsoever. In my area there's around 300 waymarks and 256 of them are mine. I had more fun hunting them down and doing the research to do a decent write up then I did visiting a rest stop waymark. With a 1,000 different types of waymark to look for I can't easily do a search for the types that I like to visit. I did my bit to get some waymarks started in my area and I now realize that I can still do all the work without creating a waymark and still have fun. That allows other people who might be interested in waymark hunting to have some targets to hunt out themselves. I tried to stick with mostly historical waymarks. I get Waymarking and I understand the whole process quite well. Unfortunately it is more of a tool to find interesting locations then it is a game. Most geocachers out there now are numbers oriented and waymarks can't move TB's & Geocoins. So most just don't bother. If people are using my waymarks to have a fun vacation then great. I'm happy for them but I'd like to hear a bit more about their experience. That's all I'm saying. No matter how i word it it still sounds the same. The dull thud of beating a dead horse with an ammo can. Swiz