Jump to content

Geocaching certificates?


Insp Gadget

Recommended Posts

Just a silly idea maybe, but how about having certificates for Geocaching? Lets say when a cacher hits his (or her) 100th find, a congrats certificate could be e-mailed to them, could be printed out and shwon with pride? Maybe have a certificate for 100, 500 and 1000? I have no knowledge of how the web works, but could it not be an automated process?

Link to comment

It could. But what about those that sit there and log finds on archived caches and in other ways fake their finds?

 

And there's the occassional glitch with someone hitting 100 (or some other milestone), and a cache owner deletes his 43rd find. It would bring him back down to 99 unbeknownst to him, and then his next one would pop him back up to 100. Another certificate?

 

Not saying it's not a good idea (I like it, and actually wish there were "level" pins for 100, 200, 250, 300, etc. available for PURCHASE from Groundspeak).

 

Markwell

Chicago Geocaching

Link to comment

How do you figure this would cost money? If someone made a simple certificate on Microsoft Word or some other word processor and the computer would automatically fire this off to someone when they hit the magic number. Mind you, like I said earlier, I have no idea HOW the actual mechanics of this would work, but I can't see it being very difficult...

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by Insp Gadget:

How do you figure this would cost money? If someone made a simple certificate on Microsoft Word or some other word processor and the computer would automatically fire this off to someone when they hit the magic number. Mind you, like I said earlier, I have no idea HOW the actual mechanics of this would work, but I can't see it being very difficult...


 

I was thinking of a classy certificate that was printed on special paper and mailed. Your method would work much more cheaply.

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by GeoFool:

Cool idea, but prizes and awards would promote cheating. Plus, so far this site doesn't really acknowledge stats as part of this activity. Maybe one day.


 

No shot at GeoFoll, however....

 

So what if someone cheats? It's not like these are going into someones resume. It is a "self satisfaction" thing to put on your "love me" wall.

 

The people that are going to cheat already have if the stats are important to them.

 

It's like the IronButt in motorcycles. They check the heck out of your ride (1000 miles in 24 hours) butt in the end (sorry), you do it to be able to say you did it, not for the certificate.

 

Baloo - N9SSG

"HAM AND EGGS -- A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig."

Link to comment

Speaking of milestone awards, RangerRick has been providing Connecticut Centennial Awards to the 1st ten geocachers to log 100 finds in CT. They look very nice.

 

Those crazy Highpointers have milestone pins and patches, and those even weirder Hash House Harriers have their own milestone patches. It would be nice to have something like that for geocachers. Maybe some enterprising geocacher could make that a reality.

 

I'm not really concerned about the stats issue or the cheater issue in regard to such awards. It's just for fun.

 

FISUR

 

Rhode Island Geocaching

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by FISUR:

... and those even weirder Hash House Harriers have their own milestone


 

What the heck is that?? I checked out their web site and other than information overload, I cound not make heads or "tails" of it...

 

---------------------------------------------------

Free your mind and the rest will follow action-smiley-076.gif

Link to comment

quote:
And there's the occassional glitch with someone hitting 100 (or some other milestone), and a cache owner deletes his 43rd find. It would bring him back down to 99 unbeknownst to him, and then his next one would pop him back up to 100. Another certificate?

 

That can be avoided by flagging the account that a certificate has been sent for a certain milestone. In fact, I'd be concerned if such a system were designed without that kind of check in place.

 

Put that fweakin' sandwich down!

Link to comment

Great certificate. I went ahead and made the certificate editable so that you can scroll through the certificate and enter name, date and number of caches. You will find the certificate here.

 

These are entirely self reported. I really like the idea of patches, certificates and pins. I will make the suggestion to our group.

Also, instead of the kudos coming from GC.com, this strikes me as a function of a local GC group. Our group publishes monthly kudos. You will find a recent example here.

 

=========

"The Road goes ever on and on, out form the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, Let others follow it who can!"

Link to comment

Jenn, it was editable on my PC just fine. Recent versions of Adobe's Acrobat software for creating PDF files allow the use of text-entry fields. I use this all the time in my job when creating forms where I don't want the legalese changed, just the names and dates and stuff.

 

If you cannot edit the open text entry fields, you may need to upgrade to the most current version of the free Acrobat reader software.

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Next time, instead of getting married, I think I'll just find a woman I don't like and buy her a house.

Link to comment

quote:
Birding groups like the American Birding Association have been selling life list pins for years.

 

Yep, I've worn my life list pins for years and no one has ever checked my resume to make sure I'm not cheating (I'm not!). If someone is so petty that they have to pretend to earn something they didn't to get a minor little reward I say let 'em.

 

I'd love to put a 100 benchmark and 100 cache pin on my GPS strap. icon_cool.gif Of course, I'd want to earn them first...

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...