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The return of Virtuals


Al 7365

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I'm not convinced that a 'wow' standard is needed anymore. Between better PQs and the 'favorites' feature, I believe that it's no longer necessary for a reviewer to try to decide what you and I will enjoy finding.

 

I'd agree but, so far the Favorites feature has yet to be brought into play with PQs so there's not an efficient way to filter by Fav points and there's also not a attribute for tennis shoe in the woods or dead dear carcasses that I'm aware of. (An extreme example, I admit.)

You need not link the faves and PQs to use these two great tools to give you a more satisfying geocaching experience. Also, you need not define every single thing in the world that you do not enjoy to come up with things that you do enjoy.

I don't think these alone will ever be useful in finding virtuals you like. You can find virtuals or you can ignore them all. But if you dislike, say, virts that are historical markers, I don't see how PQs and Favorites help you.

Edited by Dinoprophet
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I'm not convinced that a 'wow' standard is needed anymore. Between better PQs and the 'favorites' feature, I believe that it's no longer necessary for a reviewer to try to decide what you and I will enjoy finding.

 

I'd agree but, so far the Favorites feature has yet to be brought into play with PQs so there's not an efficient way to filter by Fav points and there's also not a attribute for tennis shoe in the woods or dead dear carcasses that I'm aware of. (An extreme example, I admit.)

You need not link the faves and PQs to use these two great tools to give you a more satisfying geocaching experience. Also, you need not define every single thing in the world that you do not enjoy to come up with things that you do enjoy.

 

I'm really not in the mood to have this same arguement for the 20th time. I know where you're going and already I don't like the tone of your post. I'm saving myself and this thread a major headache and putting you back on ignore and moving on with my life.

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I'm not convinced that a 'wow' standard is needed anymore. Between better PQs and the 'favorites' feature, I believe that it's no longer necessary for a reviewer to try to decide what you and I will enjoy finding.

 

I'd agree but, so far the Favorites feature has yet to be brought into play with PQs so there's not an efficient way to filter by Fav points and there's also not a attribute for tennis shoe in the woods or dead dear carcasses that I'm aware of. (An extreme example, I admit.)

You need not link the faves and PQs to use these two great tools to give you a more satisfying geocaching experience. Also, you need not define every single thing in the world that you do not enjoy to come up with things that you do enjoy.

 

I'm really not in the mood to have this same arguement for the 20th time. I know where you're going and already I don't like the tone of your post. I'm saving myself and this thread a major headache and putting you back on ignore and moving on with my life.

One wonders why he chose to reply that he wasn't going to reply. Further, why bother taking someone off ignore or advertising that someone is being ignored. One would think that discussing the ignoring of something flies in the face of the concept of ignoring.

 

That being said, I've expressed my position of 'wow' no longer being needed exactly twice, I believe. Further, that position is a rather complete one. Expressing it is done merely to express that stated position, not to lead into some preplanned argument. It is, in fact, the destination of my point, not the ways to arrive at my point.

 

In general, it is best to take posts at face value, rather than to try to locate hidden machinations in each one. This is an internet forum, after all. It's not a chess match.

 

To expound on my earlier reply, in my initial post where I mentioned the more avanced tools that are at our disposal since virtuals were grandfathered, my intention was for each of my examples, faves and PQs, to stand on it's own. I was not suggesting that these two tools are currently combinable to find super cool caches in one step. That being said, they are each great tools that as part of a system, such as easy peasey 2.0, can be used to almost ensure that one avoids stinkers, if he desires to make an effort to do so.

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But... they will at least be on the same page as total count, they might be included in the future total count, and they can be pulled in a PQ. It's a compromise.

I can't find a reference for this (bolded statement). Is this speculation, or did I miss this in a previous post? :unsure:

 

Okay, good catch. There's not specific a mention of that from Jeremy, but he did say this:

 

  • It will be on Geocaching.com, not a new web site. It will be a separate section in the beta, but I expect it to be integrated into a joined search at some point.
  • Currently they will not go towards your find count, but it might at some point. It won't at the beginning though.
  • It will be a visible statistic, so you will see them on the profile, on the logs, etc.
     

 

I guess I took that to mean that it would be listed on the Profile page like Benchmarks, but looking back he doesn't specifically say that. But it will at least be on your gc.com profile and not some other site.

Oh, ok. I thought I might have missed something.

 

By the way, with respect to Jeremy's comment "Currently they will not go towards your find count, but it might at some point", can anybody think of a type of log-able cache that started out not being included in your find count, but later was? Other than Earthcaches being returned to GC.com after spending a short period of time on the Waymarking site, I can't think of any.

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The "WoW" factor is only subjective because they have not defined what "WoW" is. It seems like (as I have said previously) that if Jeremy got all the lackeys and stuck them in the meeting room with a few 2 liter bottles of Jolt and a few boxes of twinkies and composed a list or a criteria of what is "WoW" then the reviewers could simply say "This cache does not meet groundspeaks definition of wow as defined here: "link". You are welcome to revise this cache and make it qualify but as is it is not publishable. this is not up to debate."

 

You know what they do with earth caches...

 

Seriously, spend 2-4 days and make a criteria and bring Virtual caches back the right way.

 

Another way to d it is just get some reviewers who only do virtual caches. (just a thought)

But we did do that. We did come up with a bright-line list of things that did not constitute acceptable virtual cache targets. It began with "this is a nice view" and by 2005 it was a very long list that included historical markers among many other things.

 

You weren't around then. Want to get a flavor of how it worked? Go read the Earthcache forum. "But MY glacial erratic is special...."

But, but but, Keystone, my glacial erratic is special. A strip mall is using it in the landscaping.

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The "WoW" factor is only subjective because they have not defined what "WoW" is. It seems like (as I have said previously) that if Jeremy got all the lackeys and stuck them in the meeting room with a few 2 liter bottles of Jolt and a few boxes of twinkies and composed a list or a criteria of what is "WoW" then the reviewers could simply say "This cache does not meet groundspeaks definition of wow as defined here: "link". You are welcome to revise this cache and make it qualify but as is it is not publishable. this is not up to debate."

 

You know what they do with earth caches...

 

Seriously, spend 2-4 days and make a criteria and bring Virtual caches back the right way.

 

Another way to d it is just get some reviewers who only do virtual caches. (just a thought)

But we did do that. We did come up with a bright-line list of things that did not constitute acceptable virtual cache targets. It began with "this is a nice view" and by 2005 it was a very long list that included historical markers among many other things.

 

You weren't around then. Want to get a flavor of how it worked? Go read the Earthcache forum. "But MY glacial erratic is special...."

But, but but, Keystone, my glacial erratic is special. A strip mall is using it in the landscaping.

 

I found a glacial erratic earthcache in Indiana. It wasn't in a strip mall, but it *was* in a parking lot.

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The "WoW" factor is only subjective because they have not defined what "WoW" is.

Okay, you are in charge of that. Get 100 experienced geocachers in a room and tell them they can't leave until they reach a commonly agreed upon definition of WOW. Then get a couple hundred thousand geocachers to agree to accept that definition. Rotsa ruck, GI.

Tell Jeremy to give me moneys to conduct such a operation and it is done. Seriously though, they just need to make a criteria and it will be up to the user to use their creativitty to make the virtual fit. If they submit it and it does not work they will either move on or make it work. If reveiwers dont want to do this there are pleanty of people who would love to be a virtual revewer. make special ones like EC have. If the comunity at large does not like the criteria then it will either be modified or it wont. no one is going to agree on everything and it cant please every one so they should not try too. The important thing is that there will be reason and logic that the revewers can go back and say "nope this does not work be of this rule, fix it and i will publish". The user can do it or not. It does not really matter if they think it is fair. Those are the rules and they can live with them or start a positive dialog to change it -- like in real life.

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Still being kinda new to geocaching, I don't understand the problem with virtuals.
This happened before I started geocaching, but as I understand it, the problem wasn't with the type of virtual caches that you see on the site today. The virtual caches that have survived the 6 years since they were originally grandfathered are naturally going to be the better ones for the most part.

 

The problem was with the really bad virtual caches, many of which weren't even published. People were really pushing the limits. In response, Groundspeak started enforcing the "Wow" rule: basically, the location of a virtual cache needed to be something that would make someone go "Wow!"

 

Not many virtual caches were published under the "Wow" rule, and eventually virtual caches were grandfathered (no new listings would be accepted, but existing ones could remain in place as long as they continued to meet the guidelines). As I understand it, what really led to the decision to grandfather virtual caches was the volunteer reviewers' frustration with dealing with geocachers who wanted to place virtual caches, who wouldn't take "No" for an answer.

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Still being kinda new to geocaching, I don't understand the problem with virtuals.
This happened before I started geocaching, but as I understand it, the problem wasn't with the type of virtual caches that you see on the site today. The virtual caches that have survived the 6 years since they were originally grandfathered are naturally going to be the better ones for the most part.

 

The problem was with the really bad virtual caches, many of which weren't even published. People were really pushing the limits. In response, Groundspeak started enforcing the "Wow" rule: basically, the location of a virtual cache needed to be something that would make someone go "Wow!"

 

Not many virtual caches were published under the "Wow" rule, and eventually virtual caches were grandfathered (no new listings would be accepted, but existing ones could remain in place as long as they continued to meet the guidelines). As I understand it, what really led to the decision to grandfather virtual caches was the volunteer reviewers' frustration with dealing with geocachers who wanted to place virtual caches, who wouldn't take "No" for an answer.

There were actually several problems with virtuals. The issue with "wow" was only one of the issues. In the end, the volunteer reviewers felt that it took too much of their time to review all the virtuals that were submitted.

 

Here's the video I made that explains the history of virtuals

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Still being kinda new to geocaching, I don't understand the problem with virtuals.
This happened before I started geocaching, but as I understand it, the problem wasn't with the type of virtual caches that you see on the site today. The virtual caches that have survived the 6 years since they were originally grandfathered are naturally going to be the better ones for the most part.

 

The problem was with the really bad virtual caches, many of which weren't even published. People were really pushing the limits. In response, Groundspeak started enforcing the "Wow" rule: basically, the location of a virtual cache needed to be something that would make someone go "Wow!"

 

Not many virtual caches were published under the "Wow" rule, and eventually virtual caches were grandfathered (no new listings would be accepted, but existing ones could remain in place as long as they continued to meet the guidelines). As I understand it, what really led to the decision to grandfather virtual caches was the volunteer reviewers' frustration with dealing with geocachers who wanted to place virtual caches, who wouldn't take "No" for an answer.

There were actually several problems with virtuals. The issue with "wow" was only one of the issues. In the end, the volunteer reviewers felt that it took too much of their time to review all the virtuals that were submitted.

 

Here's the video I made that explains the history of virtuals

 

Wonderful video.

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That's what I'll have to do. I have an idea for a virtual and I got the coordinates and made the cache page today. It's ready to be published except that I don't yet know the guidelines!

There was a reviewer discussion forum at the recent GeoWoodstock and the subject of virtuals came up. A lackey that was present stood up and gave a vague answer about the new virtuals, but one thing she did say was "Please do not create a cache page for your virtual. That is not how the new system will work." No information about how it will work, however.

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Very excited about the new virtuals. I didn't know about this thread. I was just saying to my brother last week "Its too bad they did away with Virtuals...I always wanted to place one at (such and such)". And soon they will be here : ) My only fear is that all the reviewers will be swamped with Virtual cache placements and get sick of them awfully fast!!

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That is not the plan, Guinea Gal. Trust me on that, and don't spend energy drafting a cache page.

Hmm. This leads me to wonder if a Challenge won't just an a one-liner question whose answer can be verified through geochecker or similar ("what's the phone number in the kiosk 10 yards East of the crack den?"). I hope not.

 

I rather enjoy trying to make my cache listings look nice. It will be a pity if we don't get to exercise similar creativity with Challenge listings.

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That is not the plan, Guinea Gal. Trust me on that, and don't spend energy drafting a cache page.

Why would those of us that enjoy virtual listings not want to spend energy drafting a cache page? :unsure:

 

Because you won't be able to use them?

Edited by dfx
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That is not the plan, Guinea Gal. Trust me on that, and don't spend energy drafting a cache page.

 

So what's the real message behind this statement? That normal cachers (i.e. cachers that are not reviewers and not working for Groundspeak) will not be able to come up with one of the new virtual caches?

 

Cezanne

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That is not the plan, Guinea Gal. Trust me on that, and don't spend energy drafting a cache page.

Why would those of us that enjoy virtual listings not want to spend energy drafting a cache page? :unsure:

Because they wont work the way you may think, meaning that they are going to have their own creation page and your creation would have probably not worked with them.

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Why would those of us that enjoy virtual listings not want to spend energy drafting a cache page? :unsure:
Because you won't be able to use them?

Sure you would. If the Challenge listing format had much in common with Cache listings then you'd be able to copy & paste large chunks of your draft prepared in a Cache listing.

 

I took Keystone's comment to mean: Challenges will be so different that any concept you come up with based on Virtuals will likely not translate.

 

I know speculation is pointless, but my guess is that any Challenge will need to be online-verifiable.

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That is not the plan, Guinea Gal. Trust me on that, and don't spend energy drafting a cache page.

Why would those of us that enjoy virtual listings not want to spend energy drafting a cache page? :unsure:

Because they wont work the way you may think, meaning that they are going to have their own creation page and your creation would have probably not worked with them.

 

But even if they will have their own creation page, it is still conceivable that it would be possible to turn an idea for a new virtual into something that will fit the new concept (similar as for Earthcaches where it might take quite some work to arrive at a publishable cache) provided that we all are entitled to come up with new virtuals. I rather would interpret Keystone's statement in a way that only special people will be able to come up with the new virtuals/challenges.

 

 

cezanne

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Why would those of us that enjoy virtual listings not want to spend energy drafting a cache page? :unsure:
Because you won't be able to use them?

Sure you would. If the Challenge listing format had much in common with Cache listings then you'd be able to copy & paste large chunks of your draft prepared in a Cache listing.

 

I took Keystone's comment to mean: Challenges will be so different that any concept you come up with based on Virtuals will likely not translate.

 

I know speculation is pointless, but my guess is that any Challenge will need to be online-verifiable.

 

I think it was supposed to mean that you can't use any cache listings for the "new" "virtuals". You'd have to copy the content over. If the new system is compatible in any way, that is. It might not be.

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I don't think that we were ever told that virtual caches were coming back. I believe what was said was they were going to try and come up with a substitute that would please both those who want virtuals again and those that didn't. Obviously bringing them back in the original form would not do that.

 

In the UserVoice updates I never said that virtuals were coming back in their previous form, but instead something would be available that should capture the interest in virtuals without the baggage (such as the subjective review process).

 

To me, this is the most exciting project that we've worked on in years, but it will take some time to iterate through the idea and I know we'll get some things wrong, but the framework is solid. We'll be investing a substantial amount of effort with this project moving forward.

 

Some points:

 

  • It will be on Geocaching.com, not a new web site. It will be a separate section in the beta, but I expect it to be integrated into a joined search at some point.
  • Currently they will not go towards your find count, but it might at some point. It won't at the beginning though.
  • It will be a visible statistic, so you will see them on the profile, on the logs, etc.
  • We'll be hopefully launching with mobile applications to compliment the activity. I expect that the majority of participants will be using smartphones, but we will have components (Pocket Queries, GPX file downloads, etc) for traditional GPS devices.

 

For the comments that we should involve the community more, we do. We don't have a public discussion about it, instead working with a smaller sampling of geocachers.

 

When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

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Why would those of us that enjoy virtual listings not want to spend energy drafting a cache page? :unsure:
Because you won't be able to use them?

Sure you would. If the Challenge listing format had much in common with Cache listings then you'd be able to copy & paste large chunks of your draft prepared in a Cache listing.

 

I took Keystone's comment to mean: Challenges will be so different that any concept you come up with based on Virtuals will likely not translate.

 

I know speculation is pointless, but my guess is that any Challenge will need to be online-verifiable.

 

I think it was supposed to mean that you can't use any cache listings for the "new" "virtuals". You'd have to copy the content over. If the new system is compatible in any way, that is. It might not be.

 

But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

 

Cezanne

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When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

 

Bad news.

 

Not really. It gets broken out on your public profile. I like the result.

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But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

 

It may or may not mean that. I understood the comment to mean cache listings on gc.com. It's the only thing that makes sense in this context it seems. Or maybe listings that correspond to how the old virtuals here worked. Sorry about that!

Edited by dfx
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But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

 

Cezanne

 

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

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When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

 

Bad news.

 

Not really. It gets broken out on your public profile. I like the result.

 

I am worried that the same sort of numbers game that has effected the world of physical caches will also continue for the new challenges if the overall find count is increased by them.

 

Whether or not the numbers are broken out on my profile, is not important to me as I do not care about my profile and moreover I am able to add and subtract numbers of reasonable size with ease without needing any automatic tool.

 

Cezanne

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I don't like the idea of getting a find without ever leaving my house. At all... Even if Challenges were lets say "find 50 caches in a day". You didn't find a 51st cache at all. I don't feel comfortable with this.

 

Two things I hope.

 

1. That it won't make getting your find count up too easy. Like, someone makes a challenge for "get your first cache" "get your second" "Your first DNF" ect.

 

2. It will be optional. If I complete a challenge I don't have to claim the extra "find".

Edited by Coldgears
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But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

 

Cezanne

 

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

I'm following so far. I have virtual listings on another site, and listed waymarks. Just who will be allowed to list virtual listings on this site? Lacky's? PM's? Any member?

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Sure seems like a lot of angst over someone else's find count. Since when can you compare the find counts of two geocachers and say that both agree on what they counted as a find?

 

I suppose that not having something count may serve as a sort of break to keep it from becoming too popular. We really don't have a test case to prove this. Benchmarks, while on geocaching.com, are in a different place so they might just not be noticed as much. And waymarks are on a different site altogether. If challenges are really integrated with geoaching.com it would have been an interesting experiment to see the effect. (Ideally, Groundspeak would randomize all users and have challenges count for some and not for others; then we could measure the effect of the smiley).

 

If some people find that they can get lots of "points" doing these challenges, they I supposed they will do a lot of challenges.

 

If they don't have much effect on geocaching, then who cares. I never logged a locationless cache, even thought they were available when I started geocaching, because I thought these were not geocaches. But I wasn't bothered that other people logged finds on these. I've never done a webcam cache, because I think they're pretty silly too. But others count these. I'm also not bothered that some people log multiple attended on a event for each temporary cache they find. If I decide not to do challenges (or not to log them), I won't be bothered that someone else might get a "find" for them.

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If challenges are really integrated with geoaching.com it would have been an interesting experiment to see the effect. (Ideally, Groundspeak would randomize all users and have challenges count for some and not for others; then we could measure the effect of the smiley).

 

Oh goodness wouldn't that be a fun idea to try. The elitism arguments of challenge counters vs non-counters, PMs going ballistic when they don't get to count but some BMs do. The forums would be on fire for weeks over a policy like this.

I hope they do it just to be able to watch the show (as long as mine count of course :laughing: )

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But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

 

Cezanne

 

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

I'm following so far. I have virtual listings on another site, and listed waymarks. Just who will be allowed to list virtual listings on this site? Lacky's? PM's? Any member?

 

Premium Members during the initial release will have the ability to post them, and even then they only post one every 24 hours (max). This will open up later, based on how the system is holding up.

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If challenges are really integrated with geoaching.com it would have been an interesting experiment to see the effect. (Ideally, Groundspeak would randomize all users and have challenges count for some and not for others; then we could measure the effect of the smiley).

 

Oh goodness wouldn't that be a fun idea to try. The elitism arguments of challenge counters vs non-counters, PMs going ballistic when they don't get to count but some BMs do. The forums would be on fire for weeks over a policy like this.

I hope they do it just to be able to watch the show (as long as mine count of course :laughing: )

Man oh man would that be fun. It would give me the opportunity to practice the dual faced instigation flex. :D

Edited by Vater_Araignee
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When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

 

Well, here is to the lackeys then for getting the new challenges integrated into this game.

 

Premium Members during the initial release will have the ability to post them, and even then they only post one every 24 hours (max). This will open up later, based on how the system is holding up.

 

I would have been satisfied with one a year.

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