User Ratings (Difficulty/Terrain)

[+ActMoritz]

I had an idea that I think would be pretty nice.

User Ratings (Difficulty/Terrain)

When you log your post. I think it would be really cool if you ranked what you thought the Difficulty and Terrain i for that cache. Then have the finders averages displayed on the cache page. This would probably give a more accurate rating.

 

Of cores it would not be mandatory that you Rank them

 

Because one that i think is had you might think was easy or visa verse . Just an idea.... kinda like how most online stores had user ratings of there products.

 

What do you guys think?!

[Skippermark]

Of cores it would not be mandatory that you Rank them

 

A cache needs to start off with the Difficulty/Terrain rating that the owner thinks is correct so that others can decide if it's something they want to attempt.

 

My mom is disabled and can't walk very well, so for her, a slight hill with any kind of obstacles would make it a 4 or 5 star terrain for her, but for someone who's more mobile, it might only be a 1.5, but the average would be something like a 3.5.

 

I think using a set of standards is better because it's not up to individual abilities but something definitive like the current rating system.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Skippermark

[+ActMoritz]

There still would be that.

This would be just finder ranks..

[+Ms.Scrabbler]

Wow. if all the changes suggested in the last few days were implemented the cache page would be full of confusing opinions

 

Not only would we have the CO terrain and difficulty rating, we'd have various other numbers mixed in. And to add to that confusion we'd have numbers/stars of how much someone thought of the cache.

 

We already have all that information if we take time to read the logs! I've read many that say it was a bit steeper than a 2 terrain or much easier to find that a 3 difficulty. Why muck up the page with it being listed in another spot?

 

Judgement on terrain would vary from someone that goes to the gym 5 times a week calling it a 1.5 to casual walker calling it a 3. How would you indicate your own level of fitness when you give your opinion?

 

Besides... many subjects on the forums have been about logs "TFTC". If we can only get that much on a log, how likely is it that they would get rated?

 

Had we not gone after a LP cache we never would have found a beautiful meadow of flowers that took my breath away. So how would I rate that? It was not at the cache site But we passed by it 1/4 of a mile before ground zero.

[+Harry Dolphin]

But some caches are very badly rated. So, it would help in those few cases. If you go Westward Ho, you'll find all the cache and dashes listed as a 4 for difficulty!

Hmmm... Today I bushwhacked .46 miles, with 380' of elevation gain for a 3 terrain. Naw. I think it's a 3.5! Oh, well.

[+Thrak]

I have rarely found a cache that is REALLY a terrain 1. I've found a lot that are rated as a 1 but very few of them are actually less than a 1.5 and some of them have been a 2. People use the rating of 1 for terrain a lot but they use it improperly. My son is a disabled veteran. There's no way he can get up a gravel slope, over a high curb, down a 45 degree grass slope (and remain upright) or back up that slope. He does off-road wheel chairing but some things just do NOT work in a wheel chair. Anything rated as a 1 terrain should be possible in a power wheel chair at least.

 

Of course I've also found caches with idiotic difficulty ratings as well. I found a difficulty 3 cache that was under a rock at the corner of a fence. The coordinates were right on the money and the rock was an extremely obvious place to look. No way is that a difficulty 3. Then again I've had to DNF caches rated as a difficulty of 1.

 

People are really odd......

Edited October 22, 2010 by Thrak

[+Wolfdentx]

I agree with Scrabbers just read logs. I know I have left note in logs they might want to raise ratings. If you don't want to leave any notes just log if difficulty was good or bad and that would end TFTC logs.

[+Chokecherry]

Of cores it would not be mandatory that you Rank them

 

A cache needs to start off with the Difficulty/Terrain rating that the owner thinks is correct so that others can decide if it's something they want to attempt.

 

My mom is disabled and can't walk very well, so for her, a slight hill with any kind of obstacles would make it a 4 or 5 star terrain for her, but for someone who's more mobile, it might only be a 1.5, but the average would be something like a 3.5.

 

I think using a set of standards is better because it's not up to individual abilities but something definitive like the current rating system.

 

I got out with mom too and deliberately pick out more accessible caches. Problem is around me that there are cache owners that will rate stuff 1 or 1.5 because they can get to it on an ATV. Our rating system isn't definitive. We all see caches rated at the lower ends and probably at the higher ends that just don't belong with those ratings.

[+jomouse]

User ratings for difficulty would be problematic because of varying experience levels. Caches I thought were really hard while a newbie (less than 100 finds) I now find pretty easily (over 1000 finds).

[+Chokecherry]

I care less about bad difficulty ratings than I do about terrain ratings. I'd love to see a way for users to give their view of what the terrain was. It would save me some time of going to a cache only to find someone lowballed the terrain. It's very helpful for me when people note in their logs that the terrain is off for example but not everyone will do that.