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Deciding Whether a New Cache Should Be Premium or Not


RobtH

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2 hours ago, RobtH said:

I am about to post my first couple of hides and am wondering what considerations should go into whether it should be designated Premium or not.

Many things to consider.  You may find something of interest in one of these threads:

 

2 hours ago, RobtH said:

Do I even get to make that choice?

Yes, you do get to make that choice. Cache owners that are premium members can choose whether to make their caches PMO or not.  A CO that is a Basic Member does not have that option.

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I guess I'd ask myself if my cache was special enough that it needs to be accessed by fewer people.

We see pmo lpc and guardrail caches, and feel they're made pmo by the CO just because they can.  

A premium membership simply means that someone paid money for extras in the hobby.  People aren't magically transformed to be more dependable by coughing up some cash.

I believe access to pmo  caches the lowest on that list of reasons to pay for that premium membership.  :)

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All of my non mystery caches are PMO for two reasons. Non PMO means the cache will be visited by more newer members if the hide is within the city.

1.  Newer members tend to have more problems finding the cache. As someone who tends to check up on caches after problems are reported, this makes more work for me.

2. New members tend to spill too much info about the cache hide style in their logs, including selfie style pictures.

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If I put $50 or more worth of materials into creating a cache, the cache needs to be put back properly, the swag is good, or the container/placement is somehow special, I'll mark the hide for premium members.  I would assume premium members are a little more serious, so hopefully the cache would be treated better.  After several years, I might remove the premium mark so others can find it.

Alternatively, I might mark something as premium members only so I can access the cache's audit log to see who has viewed the cache.  I've been surprised what names I've seen.  I can use the audit log as a poor gauge of interest in a cache.  If no one is interested in a cache, perhaps it should be archived so I don't have to maintain it.  I'll usually let a cache go a few years without being found before I think someone isn't depending upon letting it go on for that long so they can find an even more lonely cache.

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I have no problem with PMO's but I myself wouldn't hide one.  I'm sure there is some truth to the fact that your cache will have more issues due to new cachers and making it a Premium Members Only cache may reduce your owners maintenance workload.

I myself have a hard time excluding anyone from finding my caches and I'm willing to put in the extra work if it means hooking a geocaching lifer.     

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1 hour ago, justintim1999 said:

I have no problem with PMO's but I myself wouldn't hide one.  I'm sure there is some truth to the fact that your cache will have more issues due to new cachers and making it a Premium Members Only cache may reduce your owners maintenance workload.

I myself have a hard time excluding anyone from finding my caches and I'm willing to put in the extra work if it means hooking a geocaching lifer.     

I 100% agree with you. In addition I tend to do not give FP to PMO for the same reason.

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14 hours ago, fbingha said:

All of my non mystery caches are PMO for two reasons. Non PMO means the cache will be visited by more newer members if the hide is within the city.

1.  Newer members tend to have more problems finding the cache. As someone who tends to check up on caches after problems are reported, this makes more work for me.

2. New members tend to spill too much info about the cache hide style in their logs, including selfie style pictures.

So what's the problem?

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We all have different caching cultures in our own little area. It can be wildly different just 100 miles apart. When I had my caches non PMO I got more "It isn't there" posts and pictures of the hide, where I didn't say you could show such pictures, than I cared to have. My prerogative, no? I want more people to find my caches but not people who behave in a callous manner towards my efforts. PMO only does reduce the finds noticeably which is unfortunate but I take the tradeoff to get a higher percentage of cachers who seem to care more than just a one day joyride of the geocaching app.

Why don't you post why or why you don't use PMO rather than casting judgements on those who do PMO.

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11 minutes ago, fbingha said:

PMO only does reduce the finds noticeably which is unfortunate but I take the tradeoff to get a higher percentage of cachers who seem to care more than just a one day joyride of the geocaching app.

 

+1

I've made a couple of mine PMO as part of a plan. One was in a place where entire ammo boxes were stolen over the years, nocacher could keep a cache there. My PMO cache is always ready to be found, but never found by someone who just now installed the App. A cache in place is preferable to no cache.

On another cache, I mentioned that I was considering un-PMOing it so it's shown to all, and the locals told me not to do that. They are veterans of the game and familiar with the history of caches in the area, and again, the cache is unmolested and ready to be found as always.  I have a bunch of non-Elite caches for all to find. B)

In both cases, PMO was just part of the plan, but two of my nicest caches are available and in place, where the alternative is that there would not be a cache there.

Edited by kunarion
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14 hours ago, anpefi said:

I 100% agree with you. In addition I tend to do not give FP to PMO for the same reason.

I don't go quite that far.  If a cache is good I'll give it a favorite point regardless of it's designation.    To me the idea is to get people to become premium members.  I believe making good caches available to everyone is the best way to do that.

When I first started it was all the great NON PMO caches that made me want to become a premium member.   

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13 hours ago, fbingha said:

We all have different caching cultures in our own little area. It can be wildly different just 100 miles apart. When I had my caches non PMO I got more "It isn't there" posts and pictures of the hide, where I didn't say you could show such pictures, than I cared to have. My prerogative, no? I want more people to find my caches but not people who behave in a callous manner towards my efforts. PMO only does reduce the finds noticeably which is unfortunate but I take the tradeoff to get a higher percentage of cachers who seem to care more than just a one day joyride of the geocaching app.

Why don't you post why or why you don't use PMO rather than casting judgements on those who do PMO.

Is it that new cachers are callous or uncaring or could it be they are simply new and don't quite understand the nuances of the game yet?    I'm not criticizing you for making your cache PMO and I understand why you did.

I've had a few new cachers make one of my hides their first find and many of them have hundreds of finds today.  Was it their experience finding my cache that made the difference?   I'd like to think so.  

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I removed PMO status on about 50 of my listings a few months ago and have not seen any increase of finds by basic or premium members.

Once upon a time when the intro app (aka the muggle app) was introduced PMO was real handy to keep those new members away. Now, with the new app that is quite useless without a premium membership, so I don't have a need for PMO status on my listings. I keep the noobs away by offering higher D/T rated listings.

 

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Thanks to everyone for the discussion on this topic, and for pointing out that this is a topic that keeps repeating itself and for which there are strongly held views on both sides.  I ended up using PMO status on two of the three caches I placed in a park near my home, just to see if there was any difference in results.  So far, only premium members have logged any of them and, with one exception, they have logged all three.  The one benefit of the PMO that I did not know about beforehand was the audit log.

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6 hours ago, RobtH said:

The one benefit of the PMO that I did not know about beforehand was the audit log.

I really would like to know what benefit you see by knowing who was visiting your cache description?

I always feel that my privacy is not respected and I think, Groundspeak should remove this audit option. Therefore, most of the time I download PQ to GSAK and read the cache description offline.

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3 hours ago, Mausebiber said:

I really would like to know what benefit you see by knowing who was visiting your cache description?

 

Knowing someone is interested in my cache and may be preparing to find it, is useful to me.

If I check my audit log and a friend is checking the cache page this week, I'm encouraged to go clean the leaves off the container, add some swag, set it up nicely for the find.  If it's someone who must travel far to find my cache, same thing, but I'll also be checking my messages a little more often, in case they write.

If there are no finds, and no particular activity in the audit log, it might get on my list for archival.  In that case, the audit log is another tool to decide if that cache is worth the work keeping it active.

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6 hours ago, Mausebiber said:

I really would like to know what benefit you see by knowing who was visiting your cache description?

I always feel that my privacy is not respected and I think, Groundspeak should remove this audit option. Therefore, most of the time I download PQ to GSAK and read the cache description offline.

I agree.  If no one can view who's watching your cache (some for the life of it), if doesn't make much sense to be able to see who only viewed it once.

 - And with the many options of never being on that audit (simply PQs and bookmarks are some) , it serves no real purpose.

Pity the poor guy who doesn't know about them, and gets blamed for an issue from a cacher who did:)

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If I check my audit log and a friend is checking the cache page this week, I'm encouraged to go clean the leaves off the container, add some swag, set it up nicely for the find.  If it's someone who must travel far to find my cache, same thing,

I understand, but very soon, all your friends have found your cache but the log is still running.  How do you know that someone has to travel a long distance?  Do you check each and every visitor to your cache page?

Well, never mind, just my thoughts.

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On 10/22/2017 at 1:47 PM, Mausebiber said:
Quote

If I check my audit log and a friend is checking the cache page this week, I'm encouraged to go clean the leaves off the container, add some swag, set it up nicely for the find.  If it's someone who must travel far to find my cache, same thing,

I understand, but very soon, all your friends have found your cache but the log is still running.  How do you know that someone has to travel a long distance?  Do you check each and every visitor to your cache page?

Well, never mind, just my thoughts

Unless you live in an area with a very large number of geocachers, over time you can recognize local geocacher names.  When I first started many of those geocachers lived 40-50 miles away.  An unrecognized geocacher name might indicate that it's someone traveling from a far distance and those are geocachers that are probably going to check cache listings before arriving.  I know that's what I do.  Giving that I have a limited amount of time for geocaching while traveling, I always read the cache listings for caches that I think I might want to find.  It might be the only opportunity I'll ever have to geocache in the area so I'd at least want to read the most recent logs to make sure that cache is still there. 

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When I first started many of those geocachers lived 40-50 miles away.  An unrecognized geocacher name might indicate that it's someone traveling from a far distance and those are geocachers that are probably going to check cache listings before arriving.

I understand what you are saying, and yes, I also read the cache listing before I visit the site to determine, if this cache fits my preferences, my time, my interests.  But the found/not found logs have nothing to do with the audit log, those are for the cache owner only.

When you started 10 years ago, I can't remember that audit logs were available and still, there were local cacher and visitor from far away.  How did they manage to find the cache those days without audit logs, read by cache owners.  Sounds almost like a miracle to me!

Best greetings, MB

 

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58 minutes ago, Mausebiber said:

I understand what you are saying, and yes, I also read the cache listing before I visit the site to determine, if this cache fits my preferences, my time, my interests.  But the found/not found logs have nothing to do with the audit log, those are for the cache owner only.

When you started 10 years ago, I can't remember that audit logs were available and still, there were local cacher and visitor from far away.  How did they manage to find the cache those days without audit logs, read by cache owners.  Sounds almost like a miracle to me!

The audit log for pmo caches has been around as long as I can remember, and IIRC has been a part of pmo since it's inception. 

 - But I agree,  the post didn't seem to be on the same subject as your question.  An owner who's not only using the audit to see who's accessing, but (apparently) gleaning info from profiles as well, isn't the same as someone simply looking at cache-page logs for info as a finder.  

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On October 22, 2017 at 5:39 AM, Mausebiber said:

I really would like to know what benefit you see by knowing who was visiting your cache description?

I always feel that my privacy is not respected and I think, Groundspeak should remove this audit option. Therefore, most of the time I download PQ to GSAK and read the cache description offline.

As a newby, my point on the audit log is that it gives some feedback on what I might be doing, right or wrong, although I understand that it is sometimes necessary to extrapolate from inadequate data to do so. Is anyone checking out the cache description?  If they are but are not logging it as found or DNF, that could mean that the description wasn't interesting enough to make them want to search for the cache.  Perhaps I can do something about that.

If they read the description multiple times but did not log it, it could mean that they just haven't gotten around to looking for the cache yet, or it could mean that they just have not logged their DNF.  If the latter, it could suggest that the difficulty rating is set too low.  I can fix that too.  

It would be helpful if Groundspeak would extend the audit option to non-premium caches so owners could see if listing a cache as premium versus basic makes a significant difference in who looks at the description.

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5 hours ago, RobtH said:

... It would be helpful if Groundspeak would extend the audit option to non-premium caches so owners could see if listing a cache as premium versus basic makes a significant difference in who looks at the description.

Since you really don't know who's looking at the description by the audit, I can't see that working well.  :)

I'd like it to remain only on pmo caches thanks, then I don't have to go through hoops just to skip others too...

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A few weeks or so ago I changed two of our PMO multis so that non PMO members can do them. Since then I do not have an audit log I can view for those two caches. I would have liked to have seen if there was any new interest in these caches as finds have gone quiet on them. So far there have been zero finds by non PMOs. They both have T/D <2.

 

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47 minutes ago, colleda said:

A few weeks or so ago I changed two of our PMO multis so that non PMO members can do them. Since then I do not have an audit log I can view for those two caches. I would have liked to have seen if there was any new interest in these caches as finds have gone quiet on them. So far there have been zero finds by non PMOs. They both have T/D <2.

 

You surely know that non PM members look for non traditional caches much less than traditionals. I wouldn't expect much more interest by making them non PMO.

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On 30/10/2017 at 5:38 PM, fbingha said:

You surely know that non PM members look for non traditional caches much less than traditionals. I wouldn't expect much more interest by making them non PMO.

I am aware of that. You would be more correct if you said "some non PM members".

The gist of my post was that I no longer have an audit log on the two that were previously PMO. I would have expected that the Audit Log should remain as a Premium Member CO perk, so to speak. As it stands I now have no idea if these caches have been looked at by basic members.

 

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3 hours ago, colleda said:

The gist of my post was that I no longer have an audit log on the two that were previously PMO. I would have expected that the Audit Log should remain as a Premium Member CO perk, so to speak. As it stands I now have no idea if these caches have been looked at by basic members.

I agree that it would be great for PM CO's to have an audit log on all caches, whether they are designated as PMO or not - but with a twist. I'd like to see PMO caches retain the current audit log, and non-PMO caches have an anonymized audit log. The anonymized audit log would have one row for each date that there were views, along with the number of views.  This would allow cachers that don't want to show up on audit logs to continue viewing non-PMO caches on the website without 'concern', while PM CO's can get a sense of how much activity their caches are getting.

 

On 10/29/2017 at 2:53 PM, RobtH said:

As a newby, my point on the audit log is that it gives some feedback on what I might be doing, right or wrong, although I understand that it is sometimes necessary to extrapolate from inadequate data to do so.

Just mentioning this because you said you're new and so you may not be aware of how 'inadequate data' relates to the audit log. The audit log shows views via the website, but does not show when someone views your PMO cache via the official app, or when someone downloads your cache via PQ's and reads the description in their GPSr or their app that loads PQ's for offline use. Some Premium Members, like cerberus1, don't want to appear in audit logs and so they employ other ways to view PMO listings that keep their name off audit logs.

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11 hours ago, noncentric said:

I agree that it would be great for PM CO's to have an audit log on all caches, whether they are designated as PMO or not - but with a twist. I'd like to see PMO caches retain the current audit log, and non-PMO caches have an anonymized audit log. The anonymized audit log would have one row for each date that there were views, along with the number of views.

You're trying to encourage me to hold Cmd+R down each time I visit a cache page, yes? I'll give you a tonne of views which mean nothing.

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1 hour ago, Blue Square Thing said:

You're trying to encourage me to hold Cmd+R down each time I visit a cache page, yes? I'll give you a tonne of views which mean nothing.

I sorta agree, and can see that happening with a few pranksters. 

We had issues with COs in a couple states and their pmo hides.   With some apparently, viewing a cache a number of times, over a period of time, "meant something" (to them).  Most asked us "why we were looking".  A  handful offered help if needed, and a handful asked when we were finally stopping,  but most just wanted to know why.  

One accused us of "planning on..." stealing/ransacking his hide simply because we viewed it a few times (to find when it's distance jived with others).  Another had his taken and blamed me personally.  A week later it was found gutted by a critter twenty feet away.  Sheesh... 

Haven't done a pmo since.

Hopefully it's not just me, but when someone says "I now have no idea if these caches have been looked at...",  I want some distance... 

There's already a bunch of methods to view pmos without ever setting off that intrusive audit (read "visit count"), showing it means nothing other than some don't know how to bypass it.    A "visit counter"  would most likely have the same issues of inaccuracy.  :)

 

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On 11/1/2017 at 2:43 AM, noncentric said:

Just mentioning this because you said you're new and so you may not be aware of how 'inadequate data' relates to the audit log. The audit log shows views via the website, but does not show when someone views your PMO cache via the official app, or when someone downloads your cache via PQ's and reads the description in their GPSr or their app that loads PQ's for offline use. Some Premium Members, like cerberus1, don't want to appear in audit logs and so they employ other ways to view PMO listings that keep their name off audit logs.

Thanks.  I was not aware of that.

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On 10/9/2017 at 5:29 PM, kunarion said:

 

+1

I've made a couple of mine PMO as part of a plan. One was in a place where entire ammo boxes were stolen over the years, nocacher could keep a cache there. My PMO cache is always ready to be found, but never found by someone who just now installed the App. A cache in place is preferable to no cache.

On another cache, I mentioned that I was considering un-PMOing it so it's shown to all, and the locals told me not to do that. They are veterans of the game and familiar with the history of caches in the area, and again, the cache is unmolested and ready to be found as always.  I have a bunch of non-Elite caches for all to find. B)

In both cases, PMO was just part of the plan, but two of my nicest caches are available and in place, where the alternative is that there would not be a cache there.

+2

Years ago I made all mine PMO and find my caches fare better and I get almost 0 rude logs.

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