Proposal: Tagging Cache Themes

[+geodarts]

After reading a new thread about wanting a "history cache" type, I was thinking about how can caches with a historical theme be identified.   I once found a cache where the CO believed that the game could aid historians by recording local legend, urban lore, or forgotten events.  Its always great to find such a cache, but I usually do not bother with traditional caches because it is too hard to find ones that take me to places I might want to visit or that tell a unique story-- unless I already know about the stories or the history and simply want to find a cache to document my visit to that location.

Some have suggested a history attribute.  That might be nice, but how many more attributes will we see and what would that do to all the various apps and gps software?  I wondered if being able to tag cache pages would offer a more flexible approach.   It would be great if I could click on a tag at the bottom of a cache page and find caches that have been similarly tagged for history, rock art, paranormal stories, sculpture, or other themes.   

Although I am one of those who believe that we might have around 2 million caches too many, when you have that many, what are you going to do when faced with a map full of repetitive caches or caches that are placed simply to fill up a particular area?  I wish that there was a system to allow COs to index caches that are developed around particular themes.  If used by cache owners, it would go a long way of being able to identify caches that focus on lore, legends, history, or other themes.  

 

Edited March 5, 2018 by geodarts

[+cerberus1]

Maybe just me, but I'd think if a "rock art, the paranormal, sculptures, and on, and on, and on...." tag would be included, where would it end?    Doesn't Waymarking already does much of that now?    

Many already search by attributes when doing pqs.   I don't see many more attributes after adding one for history, the most asked for.  There would have been numerous threads on those "other" subjects by now if true.  Do you really believe that, or just part of the pitch ...?

 - As much as I'd like to see a "history" attribute, I'd like it to be accurate, and my idea on what's "historic" is completely different than we've seen.  Some believe "historic" simply deals with age - "this house was built in 1895", but there was nothing historic about it.   A history cache I see  as another headache for Groundspeak and/or Reviewers that they don't need ... The reason why an association/organization would have to come aboard and be approved by the site.

Edited March 5, 2018 by cerberus1

[+geodarts]

2 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

Maybe just me, but I'd think if a "rock art, the paranormal, sculptures, and on, and on, and on...." tag would be included, where would it end?    Doesn't Waymarking already does much of that now?    

Many already search by attributes when doing pqs.   I don't see many more attributes after adding one for history, the most asked for.  There would have been numerous threads on those "other" subjects by now if true.  Do you really believe that, or just part of the pitch ...?

 - As much as I'd like to see a "history" attribute, I'd like it to be accurate, and my idea on what's "historic" is completely different than we've seen.  Some believe "historic" simply deals with age - "this house was built in 1895", but there was nothing historic about it.   A history cache I see  as another headache for Groundspeak and/or Reviewers that they don't need ... The reason why an association/organization would have to come aboard and be approved by the site.

A history cache would be a headache with or without a separate organization that managed it.  And while it has been proposed as an attribute, is that the only way that the site can be indexed?  I search by attribute for boat caches and would probably search for history attributes because that would at least give me a starting point.   But history is rather broad and may or may not include what I am looking for.  And attributes are primarily focused on things other than themes:  what to expect at a cache location.  I think we have enough attributes.  Maybe too many,  There are probably reasons why "history" has not been added to the attributes, given the many requests over a period of years.  

Still, it can be a challenge to find caches that have a particular reason for being placed other than to add a container to the game.  There are google searches that can be done.  And there are other sites that can help me find locations that I want to visit - and then to look for caches that might be close to that.  But the discussion about history caches got me thinking about websites that support tags or user-defined keywords that make it easier to find things within that site.   Flickr comes to mind - I often use its user-defined keywords a to search within that site.  I have also searched with tags on twitter or Instagram.

CO-defined tags or keywords could be used search for anything from history to pirate themed caches.  Where would it end?  I am not sure that it is a worry.   I would rather find a petroglyph than a cache, but I recognize it is a niche interest.  A rock art attribute is not needed  yet if a CO could tag their cache as being near a rock art site -- or use a keyword to help identify it -- that would be useful for those of us who like to combine glyphing with caching.  For that matter, it could help create more of a community of cachers with common interests.  I have met sasquatching-cachers  because I have a bigfoot cache, and have identified caches through them that I would not otherwise know about, but tags and keywords might make this process easier.

I have a challenge and a comic-character based on UFO caches -- before visiting an area I do a lot of title searches to see if there is anything that matches -- places that Aura might visit.  But that is not always the most efficient way to identify a cache or find something focused around a theme that may not be reflected in its title.  Since tags and keywords are more flexible than attributes, there would not be a worry about whether there are only a small number who are looking for caches that are themed around niche interests.  You would not have to change apps or gps software to accommodate particular interests.   

There are probably tecchniical concerns.  I don't know how much user-defined keywords add to the server load on Flickr, but it must create a massive index.   I think that the growth of caching has created more of a need to identify particular caches within the site.  But is there an answer apart from google and third-party searches?

Edited March 5, 2018 by geodarts

[+The A-Team]

18 minutes ago, geodarts said:

There are probably tecchniical concerns.

A couple of issues I can see with such tags are internationalization (i18n) and the proliferation of tags.

• Proliferation: Do you allow free-text tags, where anyone can enter whatever text they want? This can lead to misspellings (e.g. "histroy"), alternate forms (e.g. "historical"), spam (e.g. commercial advertising, inappropriate words), etc. If you instead restrict the possible values, then someone would have to be in charge of receiving suggestions for new tags and vetting those requests, and you will get more cases where the "best" tag isn't available.
• i18n: If you allow free-text tags, then you'll naturally have people entering the tags in their native language. This can cause issues for those wanting to identify caches of a theme, because the tag representing that theme will be different in different areas. For example, if I as an English-speaker want to identify the history caches in China, I would need to determine the Mandarin and/or Cantonese word for "history". If you instead restrict the possible values, then you need to translate each new tag into many languages, though seekers could then select the theme in their language and be able to find other caches with the same theme.

[+arisoft]

3 hours ago, geodarts said:

Some have suggested a history attribute.  That might be nice, but how many more attributes will we see and what would that do to all the various apps and gps software?  I wondered if being able to tag cache pages would offer a more flexible approach.   It would be great if I could click on a tag at the bottom of a cache page and find caches that have been similarly tagged for history, rock art, paranormal stories, sculpture, or other themes. 

Did you just invented bookmarks?

[+geodarts]

32 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

A couple of issues I can see with such tags are internationalization (i18n) and the proliferation of tags.

If I were to envision how it might work, keywords or tags would be an optional part of the submission process and subject to the same TOU that hopefully prevents users from editing their cache descriptions to include advertising or inappropriate words.   Given the TOU, I would a keyword search for #@#%$#@ [or its equivalent} would not help users identify caches based on spam content.   I don't know whether internationalization would be any more of a problem than when caches are submitted in any given language.  

What you have now is the ability to search by cache title: "Geocache Name Contains."   I use that whenever I travel. The main thing I would like to see is that the search capability expanded to include tag or keywords that have been defined by the CO (perhaps limited to a certain number) that can better identify their caches.   

15 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Did you just invented bookmarks?

 

Book marks can be very helpful.  Hzoi's list of airport caches is one example.   I have thought about putting together some bookmarks relating to particular interests, but that is different than something that is initiated by the CO -- and would probably lead to a different result.   It would not be a perfect method and at this point it might be like trying to lock the barn door after the animals have left (or open the door after three million doors have been built in the barn).   I might be one of the few willing to go back and add keywords or tags to my themed caches -- but it would be easier to do that than trying to create a bookmark on my own.   

 

[+niraD]

2 hours ago, The A-Team said:

• Proliferation: Do you allow free-text tags, where anyone can enter whatever text they want? This can lead to misspellings (e.g. "histroy"), alternate forms (e.g. "historical"), spam (e.g. commercial advertising, inappropriate words), etc. If you instead restrict the possible values, then someone would have to be in charge of receiving suggestions for new tags and vetting those requests, and you will get more cases where the "best" tag isn't available.

I don't see "whatever text they want" working.

LAME MICRO

LAME MKH

LAME NO SWAG MICRO

etc.

etc.

etc.

[+arisoft]

7 hours ago, geodarts said:

Book marks can be very helpful.  Hzoi's list of airport caches is one example.   I have thought about putting together some bookmarks relating to particular interests, but that is different than something that is initiated by the CO -- and would probably lead to a different result.   It would not be a perfect method and at this point it might be like trying to lock the barn door after the animals have left (or open the door after three million doors have been built in the barn).   I might be one of the few willing to go back and add keywords or tags to my themed caches -- but it would be easier to do that than trying to create a bookmark on my own.   

I think that almost any owner of themed bookmark list will gladly add your suggestions to the list. You may consider bookmarks as a moderated tags. For example, I have asked to add some of my caches to a bookmark list which contains caches related to boulders.

The title is also available for tags. Just add your tags to the end like: "Temple of Athena #history #parthenon" and you can use the standard search engine to locate them using the tag.

[+thebruce0]

I was going to suggest - bookmark lists are a great tool for topical organization. They don't have the exposure necessarily as an official property of a cache listing, but if you find a really good example of a cache 'topic' you'd like to find more of, check that listing to see if anyone's added it to a topical list of their own, and you may find a bunch of other similar caches to keep note of.

Caches are published and archived all the time too, so one day a list may suddenly be half archived, or left abandoned and never updated.  Related themed caches are so subjective that really it is a matter of googling and checking bookmark lists to try to find more.

Or, find a website that curates suggestions; just as t A-Team said free-text tagging could use a method that requires someone to vet tags - in the same way, if someone (like movie reviewers) were to create a curated list of relevant caches, or provide many lists, that could be a useful resource (if you trust or relate to their opinions).

There was a thread started recently from someone creating a website to help highlight "epic" geocaches. That's exactly the sort of thing you might be looking for (or looking to start?). But for the reasons above, it's an ongoing, live, difficult job to keep it up and relevant.

Google. Bookmark lists. Those are my best recommendations.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 3/5/2018 at 7:44 PM, niraD said:

I don't see "whatever text they want" working.

LAME MICRO

LAME MKH

LAME NO SWAG MICRO

etc.

etc.

etc.

I developed an auto tagging service that will take a blob of text (which can be constructed from the contents of several fields in a data source) and match terms with a controlled vocabulary to suggest keywords.  The user can then use those selected keywords "as is" or remove/add additional keywords.  Although I haven't done so I've considered writing something that would scan all of the "text fields" to generate the top N most commonly used terms to produce a controlled vocabulary.

Imagine if GS scanned every cache description and pulled out the top 100 (or some reasonable number) words used from all cache descriptions.  I imagine that would produce a pretty good vocabulary from which cache owners could use to tag their own listings.  

[+thebruce0]

A word cloud feature for Find logs?  Interesting.

As for people putting negative comments when adding a favourite point... that seems quite self-defeating.  If it happens, it'd probably be extremely rare.

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

A word cloud feature for Find logs?  Interesting.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. Of course, caches that are rarely found would have fewer logs to provide input to the word cloud. Then again, maybe the logs themselves would be longer, which might balance things out a bit.

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

As for people putting negative comments when adding a favourite point... that seems quite self-defeating.  If it happens, it'd probably be extremely rare.

If only logs from people who award FP are used for the word cloud, then the chances of a "negative" word cloud could be reduced.

Quote

WET    MICRO    NANO    TNLN    BLINKER
        +1    FOUND    TINY    FULL    MEH    QEF

 

[+thebruce0]

3 hours ago, niraD said:

4 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

As for people putting negative comments when adding a favourite point... that seems quite self-defeating.  If it happens, it'd probably be extremely rare.

If only logs from people who award FP are used for the word cloud, then the chances of a "negative" word cloud could be reduced.

Indeed... (though my post was in reference to my suggesting of adding a brief word along with fav points; applicable for the word cloud though too)

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 3/26/2018 at 9:21 AM, niraD said:

The more I think about this, the more I like it. Of course, caches that are rarely found would have fewer logs to provide input to the word cloud. Then again, maybe the logs themselves would be longer, which might balance things out a bit.

If only logs from people who award FP are used for the word cloud, then the chances of a "negative" word cloud could be reduced.

 

Another option would be to only grab terms from logs longer than some specific length.  While even longer logs might include TFTC there may be enough content to harvest to produce a reasonable word cloud.  I know there is a GSAK macro that will retrieve all logs, so perhaps that might be a good way to do it.  Harvesting all the logs from a NotYetFound database would provide quite a bit of text to harvest. Unfortunately, to be useful it should also put the log word cloud on each cache page  so that someone looking at a cache listing could click on word in the cloud to search for other caches which include the same term.  It would seem to me, though, that creating a word cloud from the long/short cache descriptions would be useful too.  

[+niraD]

5 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Another option would be to only grab terms from logs longer than some specific length.

I was assuming that the system would have a list of stop words that it would ignore, but giving longer words more weight might work. Although I'm not sure that "TNLNSL" should have more weight than "WOW".