How many Wherigos

[+ATXTracker]

Greetings, I remain very interested in Wherigos and I'm currently working on a new one. Obviously, many would like to see more support from GS.

 

I'm curious how the community would characterize the overall health of the cache type. How many are there? How many are being created? Is there any indication that Wherigos will either be killed-off by GS, or get a new round of investment? When was the last time GS commented on the future of Wherigos?

 

From the Wherigo search page, it appears that there are 332 * 10 = 3320 Wherigos in the database. Is this correct? It looks like a few are added each day.

 

Thoughts?

[Ranger Fox]

Number of cartridges

The number you suggested is close enough to be accurate.

 

How many are being created

I'd estimate one is published, on average, every two days. At times, you might see two or three on a day, then it'll get quiet for a day or two. This is just from a quick look through Wherigo.com and an estimate of what I have seen.

 

Wherigo's status as a Groundspeak project

Let me put it this way. Groundspeak has not done much with Wherigo for five years. In that time, the community has supported Wherigo. For all purposes of comparison, the current situation is what you'd get if Wherigo is abandoned by Groundspeak. Don't expect Groundspeak to make bug fixes on their software (though they did agree to fix the map issue in their builder). However, something huge is coming late this year. While I'd like to say it's well worth the wait, I honestly don't think it is. Instead, I'm much more interested in two years from then because that's when I believe the fun will happen. I cannot talk about this further without actually hurting what's going on. I promise to explain what I mean later.

 

Groundspeak's comment on the future of Wherigo

The last time I heard someone from Groundspeak mention something publicly about Wherigo was a report of someone saying Wherigo will be a priority and you should see something by Q3 2012. Other than that, I'm not sure about public announcements. I talk with Groundspeak every month (it started as bug reporting), so I certainly hope I am much more aware of the current situation. I know talks of Wherigo's future peaked during the summer of 2012. I know some people in Groundspeak want to pursue Wherigo, but I think part of this answer is financial and the other part might be a visionary concern (such as how they won't end up losing money over this project).

[David Greenwitch]

About the numbers I found a nice statistic about this (even though it is in German):

 

http://www.das-Wherigo-handbuch.de/index.php?title=Statistiken_zu_Wherigo-Caches

[+Data Wrangler]

For what it's worth, I ran a series of pocket queries this afternoon for Wherigo caches worldwide.

 

Country       Total
Germany	        902 
United States	836 
Czech Republic	200 
Canada  	164 
France  	128 
United Kingdom	126 
Sweden   	 88 
Finland 	 84 
Denmark 	 80 
Netherlands	 69 
Austria 	 63 
Slovakia	 52 
Switzerland	 43 
Portugal	 39 
Spain    	 38 
Australia	 36 
New Zealand	 33 
Belgium 	 30 
Poland  	 19 
Norway  	 18 
Japan   	 13 
South Africa	 11 
Italy   	  9 
Romania	          9 
South Korea	  9 
Latvia  	  8 
Hungary 	  7 
Ireland  	  6 
Bulgaria	  5 
Luxembourg	  4 
Slovenia	  3 
Hong Kong	  2 
Isle of Man	  2 
Jersey  	  2 
Mexico   	  2 
Afghanistan	  1 
Bermuda  	  1 
Croatia 	  1 
Egypt   	  1 
Greece  	  1 
Indonesia	  1 
Israel  	  1 
Lithuania	  1 
Malta   	  1 
Mauritius	  1 
Puerto Rico	  1 
Russia   	  1 
Turkey  	  1 
      3,153 

 

Of course, you can have a Wherigo cartridge without a cache.

[+ru.beus]

For what it's worth, I ran a series of pocket queries this afternoon for Wherigo caches worldwide.

 

Country       Total

Poland  	 19 

 

 

I suppose that this number in Poland will grow at a rapid pace :-) More and more people are interested in this subject and creates new cartridges - especially in Warsaw (Polish capital city) :-D

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?tx=0544fa55-772d-4e5c-96a9-36a51ebcf5c9&lat=52.150220&lng=21.061287

Edited May 21, 2013 by ru.beus

[+Isonzo Karst]

I maintained a Bookmark list of all USA Wherigos from the beginning of the cache type early 2008 to Feb 11, 2011 - the first 3 years of Wherigo.

 

That list has 416 caches on it, 76 of them now archived - 18%

 

A query of all USA Wherigo published from Feb 11 2011 to today (2+ years) yields 489. The number created in that period would be higher, as a pocket query doesn't return any created in that period that have been archived.

 

Wherigo does seem to be gently going along.

 

The more Wherigo in an area, the more there tend to be. Hotspots of Wherigo density, often kicked off by a single relatively prolific cart writer - in the US states with the most Wherigo: California, Michigan, Florida. Some Wherigo density for powertrails and geo-art here and there as well.

[+bretina]

Come to Michigan, 167 active Wherigos (most in the U.S.), each one unique (no repeating geo-art wherigos).

 

I maintained a Bookmark list of all USA Wherigos from the beginning of the cache type early 2008 to Feb 11, 2011 - the first 3 years of Wherigo.

 

That list has 416 caches on it, 76 of them now archived - 18%

 

A query of all USA Wherigo published from Feb 11 2011 to today (2+ years) yields 489. The number created in that period would be higher, as a pocket query doesn't return any created in that period that have been archived.

 

Wherigo does seem to be gently going along.

 

The more Wherigo in an area, the more there tend to be. Hotspots of Wherigo density, often kicked off by a single relatively prolific cart writer - in the US states with the most Wherigo: California, Michigan, Florida. Some Wherigo density for powertrails and geo-art here and there as well.

[+Forest-Ghost]

Here's a graph of all of the wherigos that have been published since 2008. This list includes archived. It looks like Wherigo are starting to really grow.

 

Year Number of Wherigos Published each year

2008: 341

2009: 341 (yes the exact same number for two years)

2010: 571

2011: 978

2012: 993

2013: 1220

2014: 2035

 

Year Number of Wherigos by total

2008: 341

2009: 682

2010: 1253

2011: 2231

2012: 3224

2013: 4444

2014: 6479

Edited January 13, 2015 by Forest-Ghost