Spend fave points to create virtuals

[+lifechooser]

Everyone knows the background to this. Some of the best caches are virtuals, but Groundspeak stopped allowing them because everyone started creating them and the reviewers were swamped with very poor quality submissions.

 

Well I've got a plan!

 

For every 10 favourite points a users caches earn, they can create a virtual.

 

This will seriously limit the number of submissions whilst ensuring that the lazy and unimaginative don't get the chance to abuse the system. Meanwhilst the most prolific placers of quality caches get the opportunity to do things that others can't.

 

How can this possibly fail?

[+Delta68]

You're wasting your time even suggesting it

I'm a fan of Virtuals and some were great but some are rubbish

It's their rarity which makes them appealing

 

Challenges are NOT rare which is why they are not very appealing

 

Virtuals have gone and they are not going to come back!

 

We have 419 favourite points on our caches so by your suggestion I would be able to flood the place with 41 Virtuals.

Cor! imagine that! No proximity rules either! It would be as stupid as Munzees

 

Mark

[+lifechooser]

But *would* you do that? Surely as the sort of person who has created so many quality caches you would not want to create that many, it sounds as though you wouldn't make many at all.

[+The A-Team]

Some of the best caches are virtuals...

Really? Maybe in your mind, but the best caches I've found haven't been virtuals. Of the 61 caches on my Favourites list, only 2 are virtuals. I favourited those not for their quality (though they weren't bad), but for their personal significance. Don't confuse favourite points with quality. The reason many people favourite virtuals is because they are rare, not because they are good.

 

Everyone has to just accept that virtuals are gone. Any method under which they could come back would have to involve some kind of subjective test, which just wouldn't work. That's why they stopped accepting them all those years ago.

[+Lil Devil]

Sounds like a good idea, but I'd suggest a 1,000-to-1 ratio.

[+niraD]

Sounds like a good idea, but I'd suggest a 1,000-to-1 ratio.

Right. Because a cache that gets 10k finds and 1k favorites is more worthy than a cache that gets 100 finds and 100 favorites.

 

I don't think we need any more incentives for people to hide caches, other than the desire to own and maintain a cache for the long term.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Everyone knows the background to this. Some of the best caches are virtuals, but Groundspeak stopped allowing them because everyone started creating them and the reviewers were swamped with very poor quality submissions.

 

Well I've got a plan!

 

For every 10 favourite points a users caches earn, they can create a virtual.

 

This will seriously limit the number of submissions whilst ensuring that the lazy and unimaginative don't get the chance to abuse the system. Meanwhilst the most prolific placers of quality caches get the opportunity to do things that others can't.

 

How can this possibly fail?

 

Because it's based on raw numbers rather than a percentage of favorites to finds.

 

Consider a cacher that lives in Los Angeles, one of the most caches dense cities in the world and a place where there are a lot of other geocachers (likely with a lot of finds, thus have more favorites to award) in the area. A cache that is only marginally above average is likely going to a decent number of favorite votes simply because there are a lot of favorite votes in the area to give. A search for caches in Los Angeles reveals that there are about 110 caches with more than 15 favorite votes within 50 miles of Los Angeles.

 

Now consider a cacher that lives in Yosemite, Cal. There are far fewer caches to be found in the area and far few cachers finding them. There are only 18 caches with 15 or more favorite votes within 50 miles of Yosemite.

 

So the cacher living in Los Angeles can create five times as many virtuals than the cache living in Yosemite?

[+doug_hollyNKC]

There is a lot of very cool virtuals. I'd be more inclined to say you can create a virtual per each 1000 finds you have, or even better yet you can create 1 virtual for each year you renew your premium membership.

 

I've usually liked the virtuals for taking me to spectacular places that I likely did not know about otherwise.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I'd guess that about two thirds of the 87 that I've found were mildy interesting to great! The other third were: "Why did you waste my time!"

One of the ones I loved was archived, so I hid a multi there. Serves the same porpoise.

Found ten on the Washington Mall. One was spectacular! Two were very interesting. Five were "Wow! That was incredibly boring!"

If I had the opportunity to hide one, I can't think of a place that would be worthwhile, where I could not hide a regular cache.

There was a virtual nearby that was archived and locked. Didn't know that at the time when I hid a micro there. Serves the same porpoise.

Hey. Don't get me wrong. I love virtuals...

[+StarBrand]

One of the reason that virtuals went away is that certain land managers used their existence as an excuse to ban physical caches in some areas. I know this because it happened to me way back.

 

Keep them gone.

[+JesandTodd]

. I'd be more inclined to say you can create a virtual per each 1000 finds you have, ..

 

Then everyone who found the ET highway could place a virtual.

 

And, who would check the logs to verify that everyone who found the ET highway actually found ET highway....

[+BaseOverApex]

How about peer review? If the cache doesn't get one favourite from the first 10 finders, it gets auto-archived.

[+Prime Suspect]

How about peer review? If the cache doesn't get one favourite from the first 10 finders, it gets auto-archived.

 

I've seen many lame LPCs get favorite points. Part of the problem is the way GS presents them. The "countdown" you get to your next point, every time you log a find, leads a lot of newbies to think that as soon as they get another point, they have to apply it to one of the last 10 caches they've found. So you get favs given to lousy caches. And others want to make their FTFs "special", so they automatically give them a fav point.

 

IMO, fav points are meaningless until a cache has at least 20 finds, and then you have to look at the percentage of PM finders who give it a fav, rather than just the raw fav count.

[+The A-Team]

How about peer review?

They use that over on that OTHER cache listing site, and from what I understand it doesn't work well.