I don't get it...

[+tozainamboku]

Isn't that what the favorite system is? If you like the cache spend a vote on it and leave a nice log for the next person to read. I don't know for sure, but the August update is suppose to allow the down load of favorite points so maybe you can set a threshold on what to include in the PQ.

Not really, and here's why.

 

I know a group of folks in this area who go out every weekend and knock off 50-60 at a time. They're also very active in the community, so they know where the good stuff is. They may favorite a few, but may have had one of those days where everything deserved a recommendation. And what about the folks that go out and find 10, get one favorite point, but liked all of them? And the log may be great, but I can't generate a PQ based on their logs because there's no 'data' to query, just text, which is why I think even adding a "would you recommend this cache to others" in the log fields would be really helpful. Favorite points are great, and I understand the reasoning in limiting favorites, but I still think that that's not the best solution because there are plenty I've found (in my lowly weak 42) that I would "recommend" but I wouldn't consider a "favorite" and burn a blue ribbon on.

 

There was a lot of discussion on whether favorites votes should be limited and what limit to use. The 10% is a compromise and somewhat arbitrary. And whether you look at it as something to use to recommend caches or only on the caches that are really exceptional is something that can't be controlled. Some cachers will use all their favorites votes and complain there are other caches they would recommend but are out of votes. Other cachers use only a small percent of the votes they get because the feel they should on use them on really exceptional caches. New cachers tend to think a high percentage of what they have found are worthy. Experienced cachers tend to use only a small part of their votes because only a small percentage of what they find is unique or exceptional. (Most will tell you that the first LPC they found they thought what a clever place to hide a cache, but after awhile they may see the LPC as the poster boy of unoriginality).

 

The idea of limiting the number of favorite votes was simply to force you to think about which caches you use your favorite points on. Much like the idea of limiting the number of votes in the feedback forums.

 

Another reason for the favorites system was a desire to stear away from negative voting. I think this may be the problem you are tying to address. A number of people have stated there are lame, pointless, stupid caches. So you may ask - why not have a system to idetify these so they can be avoid? Well despite what knowschad says, there are plenty of us staunch defenders of everything lame who say lameness is in the eye of the beholder. It is somewhat more difficult to identify caches that are the lamest. It is better to try to define what makes something not lame and find those caches instead of relying on a voting system to identify lame caches. There have been occasions where dispute between cachers have lead one to trash anothers caches. It could be too easy to give lame votes just because you don't like a certain person. While you might get a few people selling Favorite votes or giving them out to friends, this appears to be less of problem then giving a lame vote out of spite.

 

At one time, TPTB experimented and put a Facebook like button on each cache pages. I thought it was a great idea (for those on Facebook). If your Facebook friend liked a cache you would get notified. Soon you would know which of your friends had similar tastes to yours and could use those 'likes' as recommendation of caches to do. But this experiment was the first to expose the anti-Facebook bias in this forum. People complained because they didn't want a Facebook button on their page. There were reports of geocaching pages being blocked because they now had Facebook content. The Facebook 'like' was not a voting system like people were asking for. The number of likes on a cache had little usefulness without being able to see who liked something. Anyone (with a Facebook account) could like something whether or not the found the cache. Some people liked every page they looked at. I believe the favorites system addresses some of the issues people had with a 'Like' system. It could use some tweaking for sure, but is already helping people find caches they are more likely to enjoy.

[+the4dirtydogs]

Isn't that what the favorite system is? If you like the cache spend a vote on it and leave a nice log for the next person to read. I don't know for sure, but the August update is suppose to allow the down load of favorite points so maybe you can set a threshold on what to include in the PQ.

Not really, and here's why.

 

I know a group of folks in this area who go out every weekend and knock off 50-60 at a time. They're also very active in the community, so they know where the good stuff is. They may favorite a few, but may have had one of those days where everything deserved a recommendation. And what about the folks that go out and find 10, get one favorite point, but liked all of them? And the log may be great, but I can't generate a PQ based on their logs because there's no 'data' to query, just text, which is why I think even adding a "would you recommend this cache to others" in the log fields would be really helpful. Favorite points are great, and I understand the reasoning in limiting favorites, but I still think that that's not the best solution because there are plenty I've found (in my lowly weak 42) that I would "recommend" but I wouldn't consider a "favorite" and burn a blue ribbon on.

 

There was a lot of discussion on whether favorites votes should be limited and what limit to use. The 10% is a compromise and somewhat arbitrary. And whether you look at it as something to use to recommend caches or only on the caches that are really exceptional is something that can't be controlled. Some cachers will use all their favorites votes and complain there are other caches they would recommend but are out of votes. Other cachers use only a small percent of the votes they get because the feel they should on use them on really exceptional caches. New cachers tend to think a high percentage of what they have found are worthy. Experienced cachers tend to use only a small part of their votes because only a small percentage of what they find is unique or exceptional. (Most will tell you that the first LPC they found they thought what a clever place to hide a cache, but after awhile they may see the LPC as the poster boy of unoriginality).

 

The idea of limiting the number of favorite votes was simply to force you to think about which caches you use your favorite points on. Much like the idea of limiting the number of votes in the feedback forums.

 

Another reason for the favorites system was a desire to stear away from negative voting. I think this may be the problem you are tying to address. A number of people have stated there are lame, pointless, stupid caches. So you may ask - why not have a system to idetify these so they can be avoid? Well despite what knowschad says, there are plenty of us staunch defenders of everything lame who say lameness is in the eye of the beholder. It is somewhat more difficult to identify caches that are the lamest. It is better to try to define what makes something not lame and find those caches instead of relying on a voting system to identify lame caches. There have been occasions where dispute between cachers have lead one to trash anothers caches. It could be too easy to give lame votes just because you don't like a certain person. While you might get a few people selling Favorite votes or giving them out to friends, this appears to be less of problem then giving a lame vote out of spite.

 

At one time, TPTB experimented and put a Facebook like button on each cache pages. I thought it was a great idea (for those on Facebook). If your Facebook friend liked a cache you would get notified. Soon you would know which of your friends had similar tastes to yours and could use those 'likes' as recommendation of caches to do. But this experiment was the first to expose the anti-Facebook bias in this forum. People complained because they didn't want a Facebook button on their page. There were reports of geocaching pages being blocked because they now had Facebook content. The Facebook 'like' was not a voting system like people were asking for. The number of likes on a cache had little usefulness without being able to see who liked something. Anyone (with a Facebook account) could like something whether or not the found the cache. Some people liked every page they looked at. I believe the favorites system addresses some of the issues people had with a 'Like' system. It could use some tweaking for sure, but is already helping people find caches they are more likely to enjoy.

This thread is getting better with each post.

 

REALLY.....................

[+GeoGeeBee]

 

Some people think certain types are lame by themselves (ie: Virtuals, Micros, Earthcaches) whether or not they're interesting. They dismiss entire types, regardless of content or quality.

 

 

That's a straw-man argument. Sure, there probably are some people who think that. But I haven't seen anyone say so in this forum.

 

I have heard people say they filter out all micros because a large percentage of them are lame. But I've never heard anyone say that all micros are lame.

[+GeoGeeBee]

 

What if there were a cache rating system?

 

Wow, what an original, novel idea! Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?

[+vincenzosi]

What if there were a cache rating system?

 

Wow, what an original, novel idea! Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?

 

Ok, really? You're gonna go with that angle?

[+vincenzosi]

Screw it... Why bother.

Edited June 15, 2011 by vincenzosi

[+Castle Mischief]

What if there were a cache rating system?

 

Wow, what an original, novel idea! Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?

 

Ok, really? You're gonna go with that angle?

 

To put it in perspective, a rating system has been suggested "for the first time ever!" about 2000 times in the history of these forums. It's about as common as a thread complaining about micros. It's about as common as micros themselves. I say this not to belittle your lack of experiance in the hobby but as a point of education because you lack the history with the forums.

[+vincenzosi]

To put it in perspective, a rating system has been suggested "for the first time ever!" about 2000 times in the history of these forums. It's about as common as a thread complaining about micros. It's about as common as micros themselves. I say this not to belittle your lack of experiance in the hobby but as a point of education because you lack the history with the forums.

I never claimed the idea was original. I suggested it as a solution for the "these caches are lame" syndrome. I was kind of expecting people to explain previous issues with it if it had been suggested and why it wouldn't work to solve the issue specifically presented in this very thread.

 

Instead, I get "What an original idea!"

 

Because that totally furthers the conversation.

 

[+GeoGeeBee]

What if there were a cache rating system?

 

Wow, what an original, novel idea! Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?

 

Ok, really? You're gonna go with that angle?

I'm not normally one to point at anyone's find count, forum posts, or join date. But you seem to have an awful lot of answers for someone who hasn't even been around long enough to know what the questions are.

 

On any internet forum, it's a good idea to lurk for a while. Get a feel for the place. Find out what the oft-repeated topics are. Then jump in and start posting.

 

Nowadays everything is archived. It's possible to "speed lurk" by just going back and reading the last 10 pages or so of forum posts. Had you done that, you would have known that a rating system is an often discussed, and often belittled, idea.

 

(I will fess up that my very first post in any internet forum was to the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban, and was met with a reply that flamed me for not reading the group before posting. I had received (via fax) a warning about gang members driving around with their headlights off, and killing the first person who flashed headlights at them. I asked if anyone had ever heard that before. Let's just say that they had, and leave it at that, shall we?)

[+the4dirtydogs]

To put it in perspective, a rating system has been suggested "for the first time ever!" about 2000 times in the history of these forums. It's about as common as a thread complaining about micros. It's about as common as micros themselves. I say this not to belittle your lack of experiance in the hobby but as a point of education because you lack the history with the forums.

I never claimed the idea was original. I suggested it as a solution for the "these caches are lame" syndrome. I was kind of expecting people to explain previous issues with it if it had been suggested and why it wouldn't work to solve the issue specifically presented in this very thread.

 

Instead, I get "What an original idea!"

 

Because that totally furthers the conversation.

It's all in the favorite thread. I think?

[+vincenzosi]

I'm not normally one to point at anyone's find count, forum posts, or join date. But you seem to have an awful lot of answers for someone who hasn't even been around long enough to know what the questions are.

All I did was suggest a solution to the question that was brewing, nothing more, nothing less.

 

On any internet forum, it's a good idea to lurk for a while. Get a feel for the place. Find out what the oft-repeated topics are. Then jump in and start posting.

And your evidence that I didn't lurk first is.... Essentially that I mentioned something that had been mentioned before and not liked even though it was relevant to the conversation? Well-played!

 

Nowadays everything is archived. It's possible to "speed lurk" by just going back and reading the last 10 pages or so of forum posts. Had you done that, you would have known that a rating system is an often discussed, and often belittled, idea.

It seemed to apply, whether or not it was discussed previously, to the topic at hand.

 

I don't see how my suggestion damaged the conversation going on at the time, but your "How original" response didn't, but to each their own.

Edited June 15, 2011 by vincenzosi

[+GeoGeeBee]

I don't see how my suggestion damaged the conversation going on at the time, but your "How original" response didn't, but to each their own.

 

Are you this charming in person, too?

[+vincenzosi]

I don't see how my suggestion damaged the conversation going on at the time, but your "How original" response didn't, but to each their own.

 

Are you this charming in person, too?

 

Notice, I've not said one nasty word to you, and that's the second time you've insulted me.

[+L0ne.R]

I have heard people say they filter out all micros because a large percentage of them are lame. But I've never heard anyone say that all micros are lame.

 

Exactly.

I filter out micros because 95% of them are no-investment, for-the-numbers caches and/or they're irritating because they take up space where a larger cache could fit. But I still want to visit the 5% of micros that are placed where a larger cache won't fit in a nice location, clever and/or creative. Thankfully Groundspeak has implemented the Favorite vote system. Now I can search an area, then click the Blue Ribbon icon to float the caches with the most Favorite votes to the top. If there are micros with at least 3 votes and recent good comments in the logs, I'll go look for them.

[+MikeAndHike]

I am an equal opportunity cacher. I will find any cache that I am physically able to find.

 

My opinion on micros is that they are great for taking you to a location and not so great at being creative. One example is GC15AF8, without this micro I would never have discovered a really cool place in a little Alberta town. There is no way anyone could have hidden a larger container at the location. So I find some boring micros in parking lots and once in a while stumble upon a really cool one.

[+the4dirtydogs]

"What is the enjoyment some cachers get for placing hundreds of generic P&G's?"

 

Just incase anyone forgot what the topic was about. The OP never mentioned anything about Micros.

[knowschad]

"What is the enjoyment some cachers get for placing hundreds of generic P&G's?"

 

Just incase anyone forgot what the topic was about. The OP never mentioned anything about Micros.

 

Not too many people can afford to place hundreds of generic ammo cans.

[+the4dirtydogs]

"What is the enjoyment some cachers get for placing hundreds of generic P&G's?"

 

Just incase anyone forgot what the topic was about. The OP never mentioned anything about Micros.

 

Not too many people can afford to place hundreds of generic ammo cans.

True................but peanut butter and mayo jars can be cheap if you know enough people. Lunch meat containers are pretty easy to collect.