[feature] additional favorite points

[+M 5]

Come up with some alternate ways to acquire favorite points. Not a widespread problem, but i know quite a few people run out of them. I am frequently out. I need a dozen now. Possibly for attending CITO s or 1 for every 5 received on owned caches. Sure there are other ideas.

[+L0ne.R]

Come up with some alternate ways to acquire favorite points. Not a widespread problem, but i know quite a few people run out of them. I am frequently out. I need a dozen now. Possibly for attending CITO s or 1 for every 5 received on owned caches. Sure there are other ideas.

 

Go through your favorite list and remove the favs from archived caches.

If you want to remember which of those archived caches you enjoyed enough to give them an FP, create a bookmark list for them.

Or, this is more time consuming - go through some old active FP'd caches and see if the owner stopped taking care of that cache and it's no longer a cache you'd recommend. Remove your FP.

Or, and I hate to say this because it encourages the numbers game - do a roadside power trail and get about 100 finds in a day for 10 new FP points.

 

Kudos for giving out FPs instead of wasting them. I too run out of them especially when I do a run of mostly swag-size forest, park or cemetery caches.

[+MartyBartfast]

 

Or, and I hate to say this because it encourages the numbers game - do a roadside power trail and get about 100 finds in a day for 10 new FP points.

 

 

Just wondering, if you went and logged a find on 10 random caches (perhaps old archived ones), and gained another favourite point; if you then deleted those finds would you keep the extra favourite point, or would it be reduced? If this did work once, could you keep doing it ?

[+dprovan]

I think 10% is a good place to divide between having favorite caches and liking all caches, but if you don't think that's right, where would you draw the line. If you got 1 favorite for 8 finds, would that be enough? 1 for 5? 1 for 2? I don't know where, but at some point, you'll start saying "That's ridiculous: favorite points no longer have any meaning." And for me, that line is 1 in 10. I only use 1 in 20, but I don't think it's ridiculous for you to get 1 in 10 if you find caches you like more often than I do. Any more than 1 in 10, and you're not really telling me which caches are the best, you're just telling me that you like to cache.

[+thebruce0]

Another way to look at it is not to treat it liek "favourite caches", so much as "cream of the crop" 10th percentile caches. Someone who loves caching might consider many more than 10% of their finds as favouritable But look at it as relative to the rest, then you're rewarding that 'rises above the rest' point.

[+T.D.M.22]

Grab a couple hundred cache from powertrails. That Will give you 20 gav points.

Edited March 30, 2016 by T.D.M.22

[+M 5]

Come up with some alternate ways to acquire favorite points. Not a widespread problem, but i know quite a few people run out of them. I am frequently out. I need a dozen now. Possibly for attending CITO s or 1 for every 5 received on owned caches. Sure there are other ideas.

 

Go through your favorite list and remove the favs from archived caches.

If you want to remember which of those archived caches you enjoyed enough to give them an FP, create a bookmark list for them.

Or, this is more time consuming - go through some old active FP'd caches and see if the owner stopped taking care of that cache and it's no longer a cache you'd recommend. Remove your FP.

Or, and I hate to say this because it encourages the numbers game - do a roadside power trail and get about 100 finds in a day for 10 new FP points.

 

Kudos for giving out FPs instead of wasting them. I too run out of them especially when I do a run of mostly swag-size forest, park or cemetery caches.

Those ideas woild give me back a few faves, but it wont really solve my problem. Ive always self weeded out caches and handed out faves on a perhaps looser scale than some, but i doubt loose by much. I may not have worded it clearly based on some responses here. I think the 10 per find fits most cachers fairly well, im just looking for a small tweak to help those in my position. I wont do powertrails and I like to hide somewhat unique caches. So i have received about 140 fp to hand out thru caching, but received over 800 on the caches ive hid/adopted. I was proposing to also get favorite points for some ratio of what your owned caches receive. I just picked 1/5, but I personally wouldnt be against 1/10 or 1/7 or even 1/3. Hope thats clearer.

[+M 5]

I think 10% is a good place to divide between having favorite caches and liking all caches, but if you don't think that's right, where would you draw the line. If you got 1 favorite for 8 finds, would that be enough? 1 for 5? 1 for 2? I don't know where, but at some point, you'll start saying "That's ridiculous: favorite points no longer have any meaning." And for me, that line is 1 in 10. I only use 1 in 20, but I don't think it's ridiculous for you to get 1 in 10 if you find caches you like more often than I do. Any more than 1 in 10, and you're not really telling me which caches are the best, you're just telling me that you like to cache.

Maybe i wasnt very clear in my opening post. I was using a little shorthand while using my phone. Not suggesting a change in the 1/10 ratio. Hope my above post clears that up.

[+L0ne.R]

Or, and I hate to say this because it encourages the numbers game - do a roadside power trail and get about 100 finds in a day for 10 new FP points.

 

 

Just wondering, if you went and logged a find on 10 random caches (perhaps old archived ones), and gained another favourite point; if you then deleted those finds would you keep the extra favourite point, or would it be reduced? If this did work once, could you keep doing it ?

 

If "cheating" is OK with the OP's standards, just find a local (or not, the ET would be useful) power trail and log all the caches as found. The CO isn't going to check the paper logs. PTs are meant for boosting the numbers anyway. Might be a worthy cause to boost the numbers for more FPs to give to quality caches. But personally I wouldn't want all those non-finds cluttering up my real finds.

[+L0ne.R]

Another way to look at it is not to treat it liek "favourite caches", so much as "cream of the crop" 10th percentile caches. Someone who loves caching might consider many more than 10% of their finds as favouritable But look at it as relative to the rest, then you're rewarding that 'rises above the rest' point.

 

The cream-of-the-crop reminder is a good one.

But...what happens when a finder refines their searches to only caches with high FPs and good comments in the logs. They may end up with 8/10 finds that day being cream-of-the-crop style caches.

One thing that I've done when I'm low on FPs is, rave about the cache in my log but not FP it if it already has over 15 FPs. They already have enough to attract people to the cache.

Edited March 30, 2016 by L0ne.R

[+L0ne.R]

I wont do powertrails and I like to hide somewhat unique caches.

 

Kudos.

 

 

I was proposing to also get favorite points for some ratio of what your owned caches receive.

 

Interesting idea. Could encourage better caches.

(Then again, someone's going to figure out a way to abuse it.)

[+niraD]

At this point, I think that changing the way people get FP to award would effectively change the meaning of FP, and would cause more chaos than it would be worth, no matter how much of an "improvement" the new system was over the current 1 FP per 10 Finds system.

 

I know people who find few caches any more, but who attend a lot of events (including CITO events). Such people might be able to give FP to every cache they found, making their FP meaningless.

 

And I really don't like the idea of awarding FP for owning caches. One of the things I really respect about Groundspeak is that they resist things that pressure people to own caches, things like breeder caches, "curse of the FTF" caches, challenge caches that require cache ownership, and so on.

[+dprovan]

Maybe i wasnt very clear in my opening post. I was using a little shorthand while using my phone. Not suggesting a change in the 1/10 ratio. Hope my above post clears that up.

You are asking for a way to get more than 1 in 10. The fact that you want some backdoor way of doing that which treats you as a special case doesn't change my point.

[cezanne]

Such people might be able to give FP to every cache they found, making their FP meaningless.

 

Not necessarily.

Whether someone only visits 10 beautiful caches or the same 10 beautiful caches but 90 very lame caches in addition does not change anything about the beauty of the 10 caches.

 

The FP list of such a cacher would be far more useful for me when it contained the 10 beautiful caches and not only one of them.

 

The most helpful use of FPs for me is to look through the FP list of certain cachers. How many FPs a cache has (in absolute numbers or as a percentage) is much less relevant for me.

 

I agree that a change skews some of the aspects you apparently are interested in but it would rather be in favour of what interests me.

 

One of the things I really respect about Groundspeak is that they resist things that pressure people to own caches, things like breeder caches, "curse of the FTF" caches, challenge caches that require cache ownership, and so on.

 

The difference would be however that for receiving many FPs just throwing out caches and not caring about them is not sufficient in most cases.

[+Arne1]

I have a problem often evaluate FP one out of ten. And often that one is still PMO Cache - such FP get from me ever.

[+ODragon]

There are some of us, myself included, that already think 1 in 10 is too high a ratio. You see caches that are utter trash getting fav points because some people have them and feel they need to spend them. In many areas, you can gain 2-5 fav points a day very easily and not spend time.

 

Personally, I think 1 in 25 would really have brought the good caches up to the top much better than it works now. I'm not saying FB don't work, they do to an extent but mostly for only the extremely good ones.

[+cerberus1]

There are some of us, myself included, that already think 1 in 10 is too high a ratio. You see caches that are utter trash getting fav points because some people have them and feel they need to spend them. In many areas, you can gain 2-5 fav points a day very easily and not spend time.

 

Personally, I think 1 in 25 would really have brought the good caches up to the top much better than it works now. I'm not saying FB don't work, they do to an extent but mostly for only the extremely good ones.

+1

When favorites first came out, we had favorited long-archived hides (they were our favorites).

I've kept a list of caches since going basic (have 100 FPs accrued still), and we were stretching it a bit to note 1 in 25.

 

Seeing FTFers placing a favorite on a pill bottle shoved in a guardrail, or because they had, "such a fun time with my friends today, this one gets a favorite" ...well, favorites don't really mean anything (for us) anymore.

[+cerberus1]

I was proposing to also get favorite points for some ratio of what your owned caches receive.

 

Interesting idea. Could encourage better caches.

(Then again, someone's going to figure out a way to abuse it.)

Not sure if someone could abuse a favorite point, but probably a thing on those third-party stat sites.

Every pm gets 1 for 10 favorites, and (I feel) that system is fair.

" im just looking for a small tweak to help those in my position" doesn't seem (to me) to want to play fair...

[+Walts Hunting]

Right now FP's are issued at a 10% ratio which in the old school grading system would be an A. Any additional FP's issued would decrease that so lower quality caches would then get FP's. Personally I wouldn't mind if they cut them back so people don't give them out like candy.

 

Let's not water down the system.

[+on4bam]

I still have 260 favorite points to give but then again a favorite cache is just that... a cache that's out of the ordinary.

 

As for selecting caches that have (a lot of) favorites, lately I noticed that on some caches favorite points mean nothing. A while ago we planned a few multis and noticed that in the area there were a few traditionals/bonus mystery caches with more than average favorites and so we included them in our walk. In the end, I wondered why even a single favorite point was awarded as the traditionals were just run of the mill micros hidden behind a tree. Some had full/wet logs, were not even camouflaged or covered with leaves.

 

Reading logs gives a much better idea on cache quality.

 

I think the GC-vote system would be a better way to "favorite" a cache as it gives cachers the opportunity to rate a cache (for better or worse), the favorite system only allows "voting up" which means an easy to find cache with easy access and lots of traffic can get a high favorite count but low favorite ratio while a harder, less found cache can have few favorites but a very high favorite ratio.

 

1 point per 10 founds is plenty, even when carefully selecting "quality caches" we have never had the feeling we couldn't award favorites on the caches that stand out one way or another.

[+L0ne.R]

There are some of us, myself included, that already think 1 in 10 is too high a ratio. You see caches that are utter trash getting fav points because some people have them and feel they need to spend them. In many areas, you can gain 2-5 fav points a day very easily and not spend time.

 

Personally, I think 1 in 25 would really have brought the good caches up to the top much better than it works now. I'm not saying FB don't work, they do to an extent but mostly for only the extremely good ones.

 

I'm happy with the 10% rule, mostly because I think FPs are no longer particularly useful.

Trying to weed through all the highly favored caches to find stuff that matches one's preference is tedious and difficult. FPs were a better tool the first few years but not so much anymore.

Sometimes FPs were acquired when the cache was young - not abandoned and falling apart. I'd like to see a small bar graph icon that shows when the FPs were received.

 

 

I also think it's time for a "If you like this cache you might like" style of recommendation tool.

[+Lil Devil]

Way back in 2001 when I started geocaching, I kept a webpage where I listed my top 10% favorite finds. Later when bookmark lists came out, I moved my list to there, but soon had to demote it to the top 5% because there just wasn't enough good caches. Later it got demoted again to the top 1%. When Favorite Points came out I made sure to award all those caches that were on my 1% list, even if they were since archived. Today my Favorite Points ratio sits at 2.3%, which I'll admit surprised me when I calculated it just now. I expected it to be less than 1%.

 

I agree that many people award Favorite Points for silly reasons, such as FTF. My criteria is "If I was taking a reporter geocaching, is this a cache I want to see written about in the paper?"

 

I do not support awarding additional Favorite Points for any reason. Even if a new cacher was to only go after the 2% of caches that I awarded Favorite Points to, I would expect that cacher to simply choose the best 10% of that 2%. The best of the best.

[+L0ne.R]

Way back in 2001 when I started geocaching, I kept a webpage where I listed my top 10% favorite finds. Later when bookmark lists came out, I moved my list to there, but soon had to demote it to the top 5% because there just wasn't enough good caches. Later it got demoted again to the top 1%. When Favorite Points came out I made sure to award all those caches that were on my 1% list, even if they were since archived. Today my Favorite Points ratio sits at 2.3%, which I'll admit surprised me when I calculated it just now. I expected it to be less than 1%.

 

I agree that many people award Favorite Points for silly reasons, such as FTF. My criteria is "If I was taking a reporter geocaching, is this a cache I want to see written about in the paper?"

 

I do not support awarding additional Favorite Points for any reason. Even if a new cacher was to only go after the 2% of caches that I awarded Favorite Points to, I would expect that cacher to simply choose the best 10% of that 2%. The best of the best.

 

Wow, you have over 26,000 finds! No wonder you've seen a lot of bad caches out there that are not worth FPing.

 

You would have 2600 favorite points to give. That's mind boggling to me. No wonder you've only given out 1% of your FPs.

[+Lil Devil]

Wow, you have over 26,000 finds! No wonder you've seen a lot of bad caches out there that are not worth FPing.

Hmm. You brought up an interesting point. I do enjoy power trails. Well, the social aspect of them. But that's for another thread. If I ignore the approx. 9,000 power trail finds, it increases my Favorite Points ratio to 3.5%. Still a far cry from the 10% points accrued.

 

Yeah, I've seen a lot of crap caches out there. Besides power trails, I'm pretty omnivorous. I'll go into an area and try to pretty much clear it. The leads to finding a lot of crap that sometimes has me asking myself "why am I doing this?" When that happens I'll make sure to target the next few caches to have lots of Favorite Points and my attitude will quickly improve.

[+Walts Hunting]

I still have 260 favorite points to give but then again a favorite cache is just that... a cache that's out of the ordinary.

 

As for selecting caches that have (a lot of) favorites, lately I noticed that on some caches favorite points mean nothing. A while ago we planned a few multis and noticed that in the area there were a few traditionals/bonus mystery caches with more than average favorites and so we included them in our walk. In the end, I wondered why even a single favorite point was awarded as the traditionals were just run of the mill micros hidden behind a tree. Some had full/wet logs, were not even camouflaged or covered with leaves.

 

Reading logs gives a much better idea on cache quality.

 

I think the GC-vote system would be a better way to "favorite" a cache as it gives cachers the opportunity to rate a cache (for better or worse), the favorite system only allows "voting up" which means an easy to find cache with easy access and lots of traffic can get a high favorite count but low favorite ratio while a harder, less found cache can have few favorites but a very high favorite ratio.

 

1 point per 10 founds is plenty, even when carefully seltecting "quality caches" we have never had the feeling we couldn't award favorites on the caches that stand out one way or another.

 

When I was at last years Yuma event a group wanted to go out to this cache that had a very large amount of FPs. I winter there and had already found it so i told them it was nothing special and not worthy of even one. We still went and found a micro in the cap of a corner fence post with no view to speak of and the consensus was with me. I think many people give favorites to their friends not based on the qualicy of the cache. Expecially in an area like Yuma that is flooded with Power Trails. I don't even bother to check the FP count when i plan a day.

[+EngPhil]

The idea behind FPs is, by design, "your top 10%". You can't make your top 10% cover 20% of your finds, no matter how hard you try

 

If all you ever find is great caches, your top 10% of those is still 10%, you just might have a harder time choosing which those are

 

(Personally, I think the 10% ratio is pretty much ideal. Make it any more, and the points lose their meaning.)