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Time for a power trail attribute


briansnat

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With the explosion in power trails, there is still a significant portion of the geocaching community who has no interest in them.  It would be nice if we had a power trail attribute so we can filter out power trails from our PQs.  That would also end the nonsensical practice of misusing other attributes such as SCUBA to designate power trails.   That misuse renders  such attributes useless in areas where it is used to designate power trails. There are attributes for nearly everything. A power trail attribute would be useful for fans of them and for those who don't care for them.

Edited by briansnat
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5 hours ago, briansnat said:

With the explosion in power trails, there is still a significant portion of the geocaching community who has no interest in them.  It would be nice if we had a power trail attribute so we can filter out power trails from our PQs.  That would also end the nonsensical practice of misusing other attributes such as SCUBA to designate power trails.   That misuse renders  such attributes useless in areas where it is used to designate power trails. There are attributes for nearly everything. A power trail attribute would be useful for fans of them and for those who don't care for them.

+1

Amen.

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8 hours ago, StefandD said:

The problem is: nobody knows exactly what a power trail is. More than xx caches? Longer than xx km?

What does "Recommended for Kids" mean? At what point does a hike become a "Significant Hike"? How about "Available During Winter"?

This wouldn't be the first attribute that had a fuzzy definition. And I think that's okay. The local community can sort it out, and can provide feedback to cache owners about whether their caches are part of a "power trail" (or "numbers trail" or "three cache monte trail" or whatever the attribute ends up being named).

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9 hours ago, StefandD said:

This has been discussed on this forum before. The problem is: nobody knows exactly what a power trail is. More than xx caches? Longer than xx km?

I wouldn't mind a common 'trail' attribute though.

As with all attributes, the definition would be up to the cache owner.  If a cache owner wanted to designate two caches a mile apart as a power trail that is their business.  All attributes have a potential to be misused. That doesn't mean we should discard them.

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15 hours ago, briansnat said:

With the explosion in power trails, there is still a significant portion of the geocaching community who has no interest in them.  It would be nice if we had a power trail attribute so we can filter out power trails from our PQs.  That would also end the nonsensical practice of misusing other attributes such as SCUBA to designate power trails.   That misuse renders  such attributes useless in areas where it is used to designate power trails. There are attributes for nearly everything. A power trail attribute would be useful for fans of them and for those who don't care for them.

If anyone is going to get this attribute implemented, I think you have the most pull. I hope Groundspeak is paying attention and you are the catalyst that makes it happen.

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With "power trail" being quite subjective, it would, as with many attributes, be entirely up to the CO to decide. It can't be required, and reviewers could suggest it on or off.  I don't see why it needs an explicit definition - just like the tree climb attribute.  Many tree climbs don't have the attribute, and many caches I wouldn't classify as a climb actually do. (let's not even get started about teh Scuba attribute :P)

It would be there to use if the CO chose to. That's the key, IMO.

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I look through caches singly anyway, so I'd be for this notclosetoaccurate one to be included as well.  Miss out on a lotta good hides in the process, but I guess it'd point out the really long "PTs"...

For some time I skipped low terrain caches, thinking most were power trails.  Most were, but missed out on a lot that were just rated lower (similar to briansnat's area) by "local conditions".  My area, many similar to briansnat's would be up a few more points. 

We haven't seen D/T, attributes, or even cache size all that accurate lately, so why not add another.     :)

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12 hours ago, StefandD said:

This has been discussed on this forum before. The problem is: nobody knows exactly what a power trail is. More than xx caches? Longer than xx km?

I wouldn't mind a common 'trail' attribute though.

I don't really consider this to be a problem unless the ultimate goal is to identify every cache that is part of a power trail with 100% accuracy.  If a cache owner consider a group of caches to be part of a power trail (by whatever definition they use), they can add the attribute.   Even if only 20% of cache owners which own caches that are part of a power trail use the attribute, that's 20% better than what we have now.

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10 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

If anyone is going to get this attribute implemented, I think you have the most pull. I hope Groundspeak is paying attention and you are the catalyst that makes it happen.

For sure! I just cannot understand why Groundspeak is so against this simple and helpful idea. It would be a win win for most everyone.

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16 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

There would have to be a way for the PT CO to select caches en masse and add the PT attribute to all selected because nobody will individually add the attribute to 500+ caches

While this may be a good idea, I don't see this as a show-stopper. The attribute could still be created without such a function.

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On 12/5/2017 at 11:13 PM, Gill & Tony said:

There would have to be a way for the PT CO to select caches en masse and add the PT attribute to all selected because nobody will individually add the attribute to 500+ caches

They already do  in many instances.   For example some power trails, including the ET highway, have used the SCUBA attribute to identify the caches on the trail.  Somebody is adding all of those SCUBA attributes.

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On 12/4/2017 at 10:48 PM, Mudfrog said:

For sure! I just cannot understand why Groundspeak is so against this simple and helpful idea. It would be a win win for most everyone.

I personally don't see a downside.  At one time Groundspeak was considering "part of a series" as an answer.  It is a poor answer, because every power trail is a series, but not every series is a power trail.    I would want to eliminate power trails  from my PQs, but if someone has a series such as "Revolutionary War historic sites"  or "Scenic Viewpoints", those are  series that would attract me. I wouldn't want an attribute that eliminates them too.  

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2 hours ago, briansnat said:

They already do  in many instances.   For example some power trails, including the ET highway, have used the SCUBA attribute to identify the caches on the trail.  Somebody is adding all of those SCUBA attributes.

The difference is that the SCUBA attribute would usually have been added when the page was being created.  No extra work except a mouse click.

To add a new attribute to an existing page requires at least a minute, a few hours for 500 caches.

Having said that, I agree that it isn't a deal breaker.

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17 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

The difference is that the SCUBA attribute would usually have been added when the page was being created.  No extra work except a mouse click.

To add a new attribute to an existing page requires at least a minute, a few hours for 500 caches.

Having said that, I agree that it isn't a deal breaker.

No doubt many power trail owners wouldn't want to go back and add the attribute. But at the same time, i'm sure there would be some who would do it because they know that many PQ users would purposely filter for the attribute. As a CO, i'd certainly go through the trouble if i thought it would bring in more customers.

A power trail attribute wouldn't solve the world's problems but it would certainly be of help to many cachers. Heck, even a conservative 10% usage of it would be helpful.

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3 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

Guess I just don't see a "power trail" attribute being all that popular with COs because of those who'd use it to filter them out of pqs.

  - Much like a CO that realizes folks are filtering out micros in their area, so starts calling a pill bottle a small, or a nano  unknown ...

While it's true that I would use such an attribute to filter out power trail caches, I'm going to filter them regardless. They won't make it onto my GPSr. So, by adding the power trail attribute, they will be elevated in my eyes, because they are being thoughtful and respectful of cachers that don't care about power trails.

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8 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

Guess I just don't see a "power trail" attribute being all that popular with COs because of those who'd use it to filter them out of pqs.

  - Much like a CO that realizes folks are filtering out micros in their area, so starts calling a pill bottle a small, or a nano  unknown ...

As has already been mentioned, the "Scuba" attribute has long been (mis-)used by PT COs as a pseudo-"Power Trail" attribute. The very fact that these COs have gone to the trouble of using this attribute indicates that they'd likely be more than willing to use a PT attribute. All that would be happening is that a misused attribute would be replaced by one that's meant for that purpose.

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13 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

Guess I just don't see a "power trail" attribute being all that popular with COs because of those who'd use it to filter them out of pqs.

  - Much like a CO that realizes folks are filtering out micros in their area, so starts calling a pill bottle a small, or a nano  unknown ...

Do you really think people place power trails with the belief that others dislike them and will filter them out if they can? I don't think so. They place them because they know they will be popular with other like minded individuals. The scuba attribute is sometimes used now so i have no doubt a true pt attribute would be used even more.

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On 12/4/2017 at 2:46 AM, briansnat said:

With the explosion in power trails, there is still a significant portion of the geocaching community who has no interest in them.  It would be nice if we had a power trail attribute so we can filter out power trails from our PQs.  That would also end the nonsensical practice of misusing other attributes such as SCUBA to designate power trails.   That misuse renders  such attributes useless in areas where it is used to designate power trails. There are attributes for nearly everything. A power trail attribute would be useful for fans of them and for those who don't care for them.

Good idea, but...allmost nobody knows about this attribute and allmost nobody puts it into listing, so it is not usable. Reviewer said he is not allowed refuse publish listing without attribute. Useless this way.

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52 minutes ago, jarry said:

Good idea, but...allmost nobody knows about this attribute

How long do you think that would last?

 

52 minutes ago, jarry said:

and allmost nobody puts it into listing

Owners of current numbers trails are putting nonsense attributes (like "Scuba gear required") in all the caches of their numbers trails. If there were a more appropriate attribute, then most of them would put it in their caches instead.

 

52 minutes ago, jarry said:

Reviewer said he is not allowed refuse publish listing without attribute.

The same is true of any other attribute (with the lone exception of "Wheelchair accessible", which must be T1).

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Ehm, you all just unearthed a thread from 3.5 years ago.

 

An August 31, 2020 release added some new attributes to the site, including a "powertrail attribute".

 

At the time Geocaching HQ offered COs the option to thave the attribute added to their currently published powertrails if they contacted them. A total of 62.000 caches currently carry this attribute.

 

I will close this thread due to its age and the feature having been implemented a year ago.

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