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The future of Best Kept Secrets


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When I began the Best Kept Secret category my idea was to create something that mimicked the way the old virtual cache worked. The Wow Waymarkers group had many discussion to try and find what made the best virtual caches. Of course the was no one thing that made a virtual cache outstanding, but one thing that came up over and over was something that took you to some place you would never had known about otherwise. This concept developed into the Best Kept Secrets category. But in addition we asked that a Best Kept Secret be s specific target that could be found using a GPS and that there should be one or more questions that could only be answered by visiting the location. The owner is also encouraged to write up the location in such a way as leave a bit of a mystery as to what you might discover when you visit.

 

In the past two days, I have turned down two submission because they failed to have a verification question or be in the spirit of a virtual geocache. Both may even have passed the "Best Kept Secret" standard of bringing you to a place you would not have known about otherwise, though the rock outcrop that was already an EarthCache was a bit iffy.

 

The name Best Kept Secrets attracts a lot of these "cool place that not many people know about" submissions. And when the waymarkers who submit them have limited experience with virtual geocaches, it's hard to explain why a Waymarking category has this strange requirement for a verification question and being a specific GPS target.

 

In light of Geocaching Challenges, particularly the yet to be released Discover Challenges, it becomes harder to justify this unique type of waymark. There seems to be some demand for a category that exposes some aspect of "wow-ness" and in particular the "I would never had know about this if it weren't for the waymark". I wonder if the Best Kept Secrets category should change to become this category or if there is a demand for continuing to try to recreate virtual caches as a category of waymarks.

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I see that the special visit requirements try to turn this category into a game between (potential) visitor and poster. Most waymarks will never be visited and most waymarkers do not care about it, the other categories are a game between poster and category officers.

 

Wamarkers usually want to document locations. The idea of just NOT telling the main thing runs counter to the average waymarker's mindset. But it is a nice idea and categories like this do have their space within Waymarking.

 

The main question is: Do you like the way your category has developed so far? Would you like to receive more submissions? or better submissions? When you feel comfortable with what you have, then don't change it! When you see potential for improvement, then try it!

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