Jump to content

tagging people's logs as great story or helpful


SuperKrypto

Recommended Posts

If someone posts corrected coordinates to the cache I would tag it as Helpful, but I fear that the function is still better to name as "Spoiling" and CO should be notified every report of spoiling logs. COs are trying to tolerate spoiling logs but hilighting them may broke the camel's back.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

Many helpful logs aren't spoilers at all.

  • There's a wasp nest in the ground right next to the cache!
  • That No Trespassing sign is on public land; I checked.
  • Log is getting full.
  • Did you know this is a pickle park at night?
  • No TBs found in cache.
  • [great pictures; I wanna see that view]
  • ...etc.

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
11 minutes ago, Viajero Perdido said:

Many helpful logs aren't spoilers at all.

  • There's a wasp nest in the ground right next to the cache!
  • That No Trespassing sign is on public land; I checked.
  • Log is getting full.
  • Did you know this is a pickle park at night?
  • No TBs found in cache.
  • [great pictures; I wanna see that view]
  • ...etc.

 

Those are some good examples, and some of them also show how this feature wouldn't be particularly useful.

 

This feature allows you to sort the logs so you can view the logs which have been marked as "helpful" (I'm going to ignore the "Great story" flag for now). If I do that, it isn't very useful to see logs like "log is getting full" or "no TBs found in cache". These are transitory states which won't be helpful or useful once those states have changed. Their "helpfulness" is only temporary, but the logs will remain marked as "helpful" for long after that was true. Marking those logs as "helpful" wouldn't actually be helpful at all.

 

That being said, the other examples are cases where the information would be useful far in the future. I fear that those would be drowned out be less-helpful logs, though.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
15 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

This feature allows you to sort the logs so you can view the logs which have been marked as "helpful" (I'm going to ignore the "Great story" flag for now). If I do that, it isn't very useful to see logs like "log is getting full" or "no TBs found in cache". These are transitory states which won't be helpful or useful once those states have changed. Their "helpfulness" is only temporary, but the logs will remain marked as "helpful" for long after that was true. Marking those logs as "helpful" wouldn't actually be helpful at all.

 

That being said, the other examples are cases where the information would be useful far in the future. I fear that those would be drowned out be less-helpful logs, though.

 

Time will tell, but I don't think "transitory state" logs will get that many helpful votes and therefore cause much of an issue in the long run.  I think you'd see the same trend with, for example, hotel reviews... "Construction noise from next door made it hard to sleep" doesn't get many helpful votes, or even if it gets a few, it gets drowned out by "The breakfast buffet is amazing" simply because people look at the dates of reviews and know that the construction work from years ago won't still be happening so it's not helpful anymore, so won't mark it as helpful.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

 

If those 50 FPs are on a cache with 2000 finds (a P&G with a novelty container, perhaps), whereas the one with 5 FPs has only had 5 finds (because it's off the beaten track, tougher to reach or only recently published), I'm sure there's a greater chance I'll think the latter is a good cache.

 

The cache page shows %FPs; it’s a pity this isn’t the stat that we can use to id good caches.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
4 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

You know *exactly* where they did this.  They built a rewards system and favourite points was one of the factors.  This is accepted fact and I'm not going to debate it any more.

 

I addressed that long ago, so yeah, don't want to debate that again.

 

4 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

I do find it interesting that you did NOT quote me saying the below, I assume because it didn't help you in painting me as super negative in this discussion...

On 10/2/2018 at 4:10 PM, funkymunkyzone said:

I actually think that the great story and helpful log buttons are a cool idea.

 

Nope, I saw it, which was why I never implied you thought the voting was a bad idea.  Apologies if the way I replied to what I disagreed about made you appear super negative about it entirely. I was only addressing what I felt warranted addressing.

 

4 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

I believed the same about favourite points until such time as they were (ab)used to help figure out who were the top 1% of geocachers, as above. 

 

They expressly stated by rewording that the intent was not to say the reward receivers were "the best" or "the top". Also, they weren't chosen merely by favourite points (as you mention above).

 

 

3 hours ago, barefootjeff said:
11 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

50 FP doesn't mean one cache is great and that another with 5 is not. It just means there's a greater chance you'll think it's a good cache.

 

If those 50 FPs are on a cache with 2000 finds (a P&G with a novelty container, perhaps), whereas the one with 5 FPs has only had 5 finds (because it's off the beaten track, tougher to reach or only recently published), I'm sure there's a greater chance I'll think the latter is a good cache.

 

Yes, because you've just weighed other factors than mere favourite point count. Which demonstrates why they cannot and I believe will not say that a certain number of favourite points makes "a good cache", only that 'more is better' in that you have a higher chance of finding a cache you'll like if you search for more favourite points. As far as I'm concerned, that's always how favourite points have been promoted.

 

And just like when you scroll through the logs, there's a better chance the logs voted up for some reason may be more relevant for that reason. It's not a guarantee that such logs will be relevant to you.

 

 

4 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

Precisely what I am talking about - meaning no worries, unless they get (ab)used to start pseudo-objectively judging people based on how many ticks they get.

 

Excellent, agreed!

Link to comment
2 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:
2 hours ago, The A-Team said:

This feature allows you to sort the logs so you can view the logs which have been marked as "helpful" (I'm going to ignore the "Great story" flag for now). If I do that, it isn't very useful to see logs like "log is getting full" or "no TBs found in cache". These are transitory states which won't be helpful or useful once those states have changed. Their "helpfulness" is only temporary, but the logs will remain marked as "helpful" for long after that was true. Marking those logs as "helpful" wouldn't actually be helpful at all.

 

That being said, the other examples are cases where the information would be useful far in the future. I fear that those would be drowned out be less-helpful logs, though.

 

Time will tell, but I don't think "transitory state" logs will get that many helpful votes and therefore cause much of an issue in the long run.  I think you'd see the same trend with, for example, hotel reviews... "Construction noise from next door made it hard to sleep" doesn't get many helpful votes, or even if it gets a few, it gets drowned out by "The breakfast buffet is amazing" simply because people look at the dates of reviews and know that the construction work from years ago won't still be happening so it's not helpful anymore, so won't mark it as helpful.

 

Exactly. In the long run, I think the expectation is that the signal will drown the noise. I mentioned a while back, the FP system got flack when it was implemented for its ability to be abused. Not much complaining about it now, and I don't recall seeing any real complaints about the system or abuse for quite some time. I believe it's mainly because it's only positive, and it's a whole lot of work to bubble up the bad as though it were good (sabotage the system), when the vast majority of people will continue to bubble up the good.  Will it be perfect? Not likely, but it adds value for people who will use it the way it was intended

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
15 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:
4 hours ago, barefootjeff said:
11 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

50 FP doesn't mean one cache is great and that another with 5 is not. It just means there's a greater chance you'll think it's a good cache.

 

If those 50 FPs are on a cache with 2000 finds (a P&G with a novelty container, perhaps), whereas the one with 5 FPs has only had 5 finds (because it's off the beaten track, tougher to reach or only recently published), I'm sure there's a greater chance I'll think the latter is a good cache.

 

Yes, because you've just weighed other factors than mere favourite point count. Which demonstrates why they cannot and I believe will not say that a certain number of favourite points makes "a good cache", only that 'more is better' in that you have a higher chance of finding a cache you'll like if you search for more favourite points. As far as I'm concerned, that's always how favourite points have been promoted.

 

Sorry, but I still disagree. I've just done a search centred on Sydney Harbour and ordered by FPs. Top of the list is an old virtual, created in 2004, which has 281 FPs, but they've come from nearly 3600 finds spanning 14 years. Logging that cache involves taking a photo of yourself at one of the quay-side tourist attractions, an area that's packed with muggles pretty much 24/7. That's really not the sort of cache I like; I really don't go much for urban hides at all, preferring the more isolated bushland ones. One of my favourite favourites is GC6T5PZ, which has just 4FPs from 5 finds, but caches like that are going to be almost at the bottom of a search ordered by number of FPs. For me, being able to search by FP percentage would be far more useful, but that isn't available.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
19 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Sorry, but I still disagree. I've just done a search centred on Sydney Harbour and ordered by FPs. Top of the list is an old virtual, created in 2004, which has 281 FPs, but they've come from nearly 3600 finds spanning 14 years. Logging that cache involves taking a photo of yourself at one of the quay-side tourist attractions, an area that's packed with muggles pretty much 24/7. That's really not the sort of cache I like

 

You know you've just added other exclusive parameters to your definition of 'good' but not filtered those out? Undoubtedly the results will include caches you don't like, regardless of favourite point count. Additionally, as expected, top count is not a guarantee of 'good' for you.  You just demonstrated how the point count alone does not guarantee that you will like a cache. If you know what you don't like, you'll exclude it if you can. From whatever remains, would you knowingly always search from the bottom to the top? I don't think anyone in their right mind would. You'd start your search from the ones with the most points and work your way down until you find one you think you'll like, because you stand a better chance of locating a 'good' one to you faster. That's how it works. That's the definition of more is better, and higher chance you'll like what has more. No absolutes. No guarantees. Just guides.

 

Just like if I were to filter out logs with zero upvotes (or sort and view from highest). It's a guide. Not a guarantee.

Edited by thebruce0
Link to comment
33 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

You know you've just added other exclusive parameters to your definition of 'good' but not filtered those out? Undoubtedly the results will include caches you don't like, regardless of favourite point count. Additionally, as expected, top count is not a guarantee of 'good' for you.  You just demonstrated how the point count alone does not guarantee that you will like a cache. If you know what you don't like, you'll exclude it if you can. From whatever remains, would you knowingly always search from the bottom to the top? I don't think anyone in their right mind would. You'd start your search from the ones with the most points and work your way down until you find one you think you'll like, because you stand a better chance of locating a 'good' one to you faster. That's how it works. That's the definition of more is better, and higher chance you'll like what has more. No absolutes. No guarantees. Just guides.

 

Any list sorted by number of FPs, or upvoted logs for that matter, will have two biases. Firstly it'll heavily favour older caches because they've had a lot more time to accumulate FPs. Secondly it'll favour caches whose location means they get more visitors. For two otherwise identical caches, one close to a motorway off-ramp and one not, the former will get a lot more finds and, with the same percentage of FPs, a lot more FPs. If I look at my own hides (excluding a couple of old ones that I recently adopted), third on the list of FP count, with 16 of them, is GC4X42A, which is close to a motorway rest stop and has 259 finds, ten times more than most of my other hides. But with an FP percentage of just 8%, I doubt anyone would rank that as anywhere near my "best". It's actually second from the bottom if I rank them by percentage FPs.

Edited by barefootjeff
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
46 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Any list sorted by number of FPs, or upvoted logs for that matter, will have two biases. Firstly it'll heavily favour older caches because they've had a lot more time to accumulate FPs. Secondly it'll favour caches whose location means they get more visitors.

The times I've used FP to select the caches I wanted to search for (generally when I wanted to select "better" caches to a group trip that I was leading), I've narrowed down the selection a lot before sorting by FP. For example, for a tour of different cache types for a group of new geocachers, I might filter for EarthCaches, then sort by FP, and then filter for multi-caches, then sort by FP, and then filter for LBH caches, then sort by FP, and then filter for mystery/puzzle caches with the Field Puzzle attribute, then sort by FP, and so on. That kind of filtering before sorting by FP can help avoid the easy high-traffic caches that get a lot of FP simply because they get a lot of visits.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
12 hours ago, cerberus1 said:
14 hours ago, TriciaG said:

On a local Geocaching Facebook page, the ability to tag logs has only been met with positive responses. "It's about time!" "Yay!" "This is great!"

Funny how the community at large doesn't seem to see the down side like forums folks do. :)

 

You explained it nicely.    It's popular with faceboook, where people "like" each other, and everyone's your "friend".        :D

Believe it or not, not everyone's on faceboook, preferring to stay in reality and keeping some privacy secure.  Go figure...

 

Interesting observation - how many of those Facebook Geocaching "regulars" are likely to be forum "regulars"?  Opinions, and basic mindset of forum contributors and readers is different than that of Facebook folks, I think.

 

Facebook thrives on likes, loves, and other various reactions to "posts" so it seems only logical that folks that use Facebook will see the addition of likes or reactions to logs as a positive thing.

 

Forum users and contributors are more discussion based - you don't NEED the likes and all that other stuff as people react by posting more discussion.  How much have you used the upvote, like, helpful, etc options on this forum?  Me, I use it now and then if a particular post stands out for one reason or another.  But I don't use it often; I'll hit the quote button and react through a post of my own.  But you can't do that with cache logs, can you?  And logs aren't meant for discussion anyway, like Facebook posts or forum posts for that matter.

 

I'm still deciding if I like the feature or not.  Just as an aside, I don't award a lot of my favorite points that I have available either.  Out of the 115 I have earned, I still have 75 left to award.  I'm not sure what that all means, I'm just typing off the top of my head with random thoughts!

Link to comment
4 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

They expressly stated by rewording that the intent was not to say the reward receivers were "the best" or "the top". Also, they weren't chosen merely by favourite points (as you mention above).

 

Yeah, too late. They stated what the algorithm did, and then later tried to take it back and say something else. The algorithm still did as it was designed.  And come on, we are all smart here, do you thing GS wanted to reward the average and mediocre? No, their intention was to reward the best, the top. And they used FPs as part of that, knowing that was never the intention of FPs, and that FPs are a vague indication of cache quality at best, quite flawed (eg often guideline breakers got lots of FPs).

 

I am concerned that GS may in the future may do the same with this, and judge/reward cachers based in part on these great story and helpful log points. I think that would be really wrong.

Edited by funkymunkyzone
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
8 hours ago, CAVinoGal said:

I'm still deciding if I like the feature or not.  Just as an aside, I don't award a lot of my favorite points that I have available either.  Out of the 115 I have earned, I still have 75 left to award.  I'm not sure what that all means, I'm just typing off the top of my head with random thoughts!

 

heh, I'm at around half. Of 1182 points, I have 518 still to award. Most of the time I forget, so I typically only add one on really memorable caches. :)

 

 

7 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:
12 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

They expressly stated by rewording that the intent was not to say the reward receivers were "the best" or "the top". Also, they weren't chosen merely by favourite points (as you mention above).

 

Yeah, too late.

 

Oh, well that's unfortunate.

 

7 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

do you thing GS wanted to reward the average and mediocre? No, their intention was to reward the best, the top. And they used FPs as part of that

 

Yeah, as part of that. FPs are not an indication that a cache or the cache owner is objectively, universally better than one with fewer. It's a guide. That's why there were many parameters. Because yes, on a very general basis, "more is better".  They did not mean to state that these top 4000 people are "the best geocachers in the world". That's ludicrous to believe that and to infer that, which is why they changed their wording to be more clear. You can't just hand-wave that away.  Is #4001 not as good a geocache owner as #3999?  No, we aren't privy to the parameters of the algorithm that weighed certain owner practices and cache habits higher than other for the sake of this reward.

It's just far too complex a context to state definitively that Groundspeak think a cache with 50 points is objectively better, all around, universally, than a cache with 5.

*points back to how people generally search for good caches to find*

 

(which again to relate it to the topic, is generally how someone will seek out helpful or informative logs with this feature -- I for one won't call the voting system a failure merely because the first log I look at with a "Helpful" vote wasn't, in fact, helpful to me)

 

 

7 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

I am concerned that GS may in the future may do the same with this, and judge/reward cachers based in part on these great story and helpful log points. I think that would be really wrong.

 

Sure, that's a legit concern I'd say. I wouldn't want that to happen.  I don't think it'll ever happen though.  Certainly not in its current iteration.  If you do, well we'll just have to disagree :)

Link to comment

From the blog, article (Thanks to Pontiac_CZ for the link!!!), only Found It, DNF (did not find), Attended, and Webcam Photo Taken logs can be upvoted on both active and archived caches on Geocaching.com. I believe there is a good case to be made that Write Note and Announcement logs should also be allowed. I base this on looking at an event cache held on a frozen lake. There was an announcement log that had a list of access points where you could drive a car out onto the lake. Very helpful, but it could not be marked as such. Likewise, there were some notes that I would also consider helpful, but they couldn't be marked as such. There is also a case to be made that a Will Attend log could be helpful. For example, a will attend log that noted a willingness to give people a ride to the event. 

 

I played around marking some of the log entries (and removed them when I was done), and tried out the various sort orders. As expected, sorting by helpful or great story put just those entries marked as such at the top. For a great story sort, that is just fine. However, I think that there are some specific log types (NM, OM, NA, Annoucements, etc.) that should automatically be considered helpful, and appear in date order on the helpful sort. 

 

 

Link to comment

Hey.

 

Why on earth can't you tag a Write Note log as Helpful?!?

 

Sometimes, often, the whole point of posting a note is to be helpful.  For examples, see my bullet points near the top of this page.  More:

  • Access from the south is closed until further notice.
  • Park open hours have changed from those noted in the listing.  They are...
  • Dunno about the DNFs, but I found it again just now.
  • ...etc

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
I like yelling
  • Upvote 7
Link to comment
On 05/10/2018 at 2:49 AM, thebruce0 said:

Yeah, as part of that.

Yes. I'm glad you agree. The rest of your discussion about "the algorithm" is utterly irrelevant to this discussion.

 

My point is, and always was, that FP began as the vague indicator they are (just as these great story and helpful log points will be), and then got misused by GS as part of a measure of how good a geocacher is (which GS could also misuse these for, and have a track record of doing so).

 

You can disagree, as you have, but ad nauseam about the virtual rewards algorithm has no relevance to this topic.

Link to comment

I just noticed this Great Story /  Helpful feature and immediately came here to see what it is about.  I realize that I am a cache finder, not a cache owner, so some people may not find my feedback helpful.  For me, this looks like a way that I can get feedback for my contributions:  Logs.  I assumed that they are appreciated, I don't know.   This feature will remind me (and possibly others) that people do read logs, so I should always put in the effort.  (I saw this feature after I posted my last logs :))

 

This does add two numbers to the database, so you can expect that people will count and compare them.  Some will make it part of their game,  just like best day or longest streak. My bet is that most will ignore these new flags, and the game will survive.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
On 10/5/2018 at 6:23 PM, funkymunkyzone said:

My point is, and always was, that FP began as the vague indicator they are (just as these great story and helpful log points will be), and then got misused by GS as part of a measure of how good a geocacher is (which GS could also misuse these for, and have a track record of doing so).

 

I'm not sure why you have such vehemence against FPs used in this manner.  GS came up with an idea to provide cachers with some new virtuals.  Rather than open up the idea to ALL the cachers, they decided they needed a way to come up with a limiting subset of cachers,  With the possible exception of community volunteers, it's my understanding that all the rest of the cachers that received the award had to have hidden caches at some point in time.  That was probably the only easy criterion to remove cachers from consideration, seeing as how they were going to be asked to hide a cache.  If they've never done so, they probably shouldn't be included in this program.

 

All the rest of the criteria used from that point on couldn't be so cut and dry.  They couldn't really be used one at a time either, as each criterion used individually would mean that the importance of each category would be artificially inflated, particularly the first one that makes the initial cut.  Why was that criterion used as the first "marker" to determine who should get a virtual?  What if FPs were the very first cutoff for slicing down the eligible cachers to a more manageable number?  Number of hides?  Types of hides?  Why should that one single statistic be the starting point for eliminating cachers, whatever it might be?

 

I'm under the assumption that GS thought the same thing and decided to come up with a program that combined all of these individual markers so that the relevance of individual categories wouldn't be unbalanced.  They decided to collect all relevant data that might indicate a good CO and then run that through the program.  I would think that FPs would be part of that relevant data.  I would also think that a lack of FPs would be part of that relevant data, as would the % rate of FPs awarded to a cache.  Wouldn't they want everything about cache ownership to influence the decision, including information that shows a lack of concern about cache ownership?  NMs, OMs, number of hides, types of hides a CO has, number of types of hides a CO has, response time after a reviewer log, number of finds on their caches, etc...  Perhaps they even looked at the finds a cacher had, although I would think that would be irrelevant from the standpoint of hiding a cache.  All of those things rolled into a program to select the cachers that were going to receive an award so that, to some extent, subjectivity wouldn't be claimed after the decision was made.

 

FPs, to me, don't mean that they're a better cache than other caches with less FPs.  They only tell me that for some reason, people think this cache was a great experience for them, be it the hide, the container, the location, the experience they had while finding the cache, and a host of other factors.  The more FPs a cache gets, the more likely I am to believe that this cache might be worth a visit to see what all the fuss is about.  Sometimes it's a great experience; sometimes it's just a cache. However, my so-so experience at a high FP cache doesn't negate the great experiences many others had there.

 

You seem to be saying that FPs should have never been included in the program written to determine who would receive a virtual.  Why would GS choose to leave out something that many people found good about geocaching, as it pertains to an individual cache?  It's a positive experience someone had and they want to reward the CO who placed the cache they had this experience at.  Why would anyone want to remove positive experiences from a program that is to determine who might be a cache hider that will provide positive experiences for cachers?

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment

While my last post is certainly off topic, it applies to this particular topic in the sense that even if this new possible feature does get used in a manner beyond its intent (although I'm hard pressed to come up with anything that makes sense), it's still designed to be something positive in nature.  

Link to comment
On 04/10/2018 at 2:49 PM, thebruce0 said:

Yeah, as part of that. FPs are not an indication that a cache or the cache owner is objectively, universally better than one with fewer. It's a guide. That's why there were many parameters.

 

On 04/10/2018 at 2:49 PM, thebruce0 said:

No, we aren't privy to the parameters of the algorithm

 

If we aren't privy to the parameters of the algorithm, how can we possibly know that there were many parameters? And how many is many?

 

Or are you just emphasising your imagination-based claim of many parameters in a bid to play down the use of FP's?

 

On 04/10/2018 at 2:49 PM, thebruce0 said:

They did not mean to state that these top 4000 people are "the best geocachers in the world". That's ludicrous to believe that and to infer that, which is why they changed their wording to be more clear.

 

I'd be very cautious about branding the beliefs / understandings / inferences of other people as ludicrous based on nothing better than mind reading what 'they' meant.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
11 hours ago, coachstahly said:

 

I'm not sure why you have such vehemence against FPs used in this manner.

 

Because FPs are just a vague indicator of what might be a good cache, and even more vague and less of an indicator about who is a good geocacher.

 

There are a lot of reasons why FPs can't be used as any objective measure - caches that predated the FP concept for example, caches in popular touristy spots, etc.  FPs beget FPs.  They can also be a bit of a popularity contest.

 

But again, none of that is particularly relevant aside from the point being that something introduced as an innocuous gimmick was later misused as an objective measure.

 

That's all.  I've got nothing against FPs themselves, in isolation, as the vague and understandably flawed indicator they are.

Edited by funkymunkyzone
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

In case this thread is watched by the devs - in the drop-down, please add counts of Best stories, resp. Most helpful logs so one does not have to blindly select both options to see whether it filters out some logs. Like this:

 

Newest

Best story (2)

Most helpful (0)

 

Why increase the load of the server if it's not necessary...

 

By the way, it would be even better if it was displayed as a RADIO button instead of SELECT box. The information would be directly visible and we wouldn't have to open the drop-down at all.

 

Like this:

 

radio.png.6b97e040436de131a601770c0cd0a88b.png

Edited by Pontiac_CZ
add image
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
7 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

There are a lot of reasons why FPs can't be used as any objective measure - caches that predated the FP concept for example, caches in popular touristy spots, etc.  FPs beget FPs.  They can also be a bit of a popularity contest.

 

The cache page shows a FP% (FP / PM finds).  Not perfect, I know, but it seems a fairly decent measure of a cache worth visiting. (I’d love to see it in search results.)  Do we know for sure that absolute FPs, rather than the FP%, was used in the virtual reward algorithm?

Link to comment
4 minutes ago, IceColdUK said:

 

The cache page shows a FP% (FP / PM finds).  Not perfect, I know, but it seems a fairly decent measure of a cache worth visiting. (I’d love to see it in search results.)  Do we know for sure that absolute FPs, rather than the FP%, was used in the virtual reward algorithm?

 

Actually we know for certain that it was percentage FPs used, not absolute numbers, as it said so in the blog release.

 

Quote

Cache quality means many things to a hider, a finder, and the community. For this promotion, the algorithm included many factors but it heavily favored cache quality over quantity. Among these factors were percentage of Favorite points on active caches (not the total number of Favorite points) and current geocache Health Score.

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
1 hour ago, IceColdUK said:

 

The cache page shows a FP% (FP / PM finds).  Not perfect, I know, but it seems a fairly decent measure of a cache worth visiting. (I’d love to see it in search results.)  Do we know for sure that absolute FPs, rather than the FP%, was used in the virtual reward algorithm?

 

Sorry, I didnt realise that FP% *is* an objective measure of how great a geocacher is... lol

 

1 hour ago, IceColdUK said:

 

Thankyou.  Not sure what all the fuss is about then. ;-)

 

Me neither. I made a statement of fact that FPs, which it seems most agree are a vague indicator of cache quality, got used as part of an objective measure of how great a geocacher is. I'm not sure why that should cause a fuss.

 

My opinion, which is total speculation, and you can mock me for it for all I care, is that while I like the idea of the helpful and great story buttons, I fear they will be similarly misused in the future to officially score geocachers against each other.

 

No fuss needed :)

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
1 hour ago, funkymunkyzone said:
2 hours ago, IceColdUK said:

The cache page shows a FP% (FP / PM finds).  Not perfect, I know, but it seems a fairly decent measure of a cache worth visiting. (I’d love to see it in search results.)  Do we know for sure that absolute FPs, rather than the FP%, was used in the virtual reward algorithm?

 

Sorry, I didnt realise that FP% *is* an objective measure of how great a geocacher is... lol

 

Now, as you know, I didn’t say that FP% is an objective measure of a cacher, just “a fairly decent measure of a cache worth visiting”.  That said, it seems a reasonable (though imperfect) indicator of COs that set cache(s) that a good percentage of their finders like.

 

1 hour ago, funkymunkyzone said:

My opinion, which is total speculation, and you can mock me for it for all I care, is that while I like the idea of the helpful and great story buttons, I fear they will be similarly misused in the future to officially score geocachers against each other.

 

I don’t believe the virtual awards algorithm was close to perfect, but I don’t think using FP% was wrong.  And if it had the effect of COs striving to place caches more likely to get FPs (in the hope of receiving future awards) then so much the better.

 

Similarly, if the new ‘up votes’ for logs encourage a better story then I’m all for them.  And if in future they’re used sensibly as an (imperfect) indicator of a good story teller then I don’t have a problem with that either.  (Maybe I’m too trusting.)

 

Just sharing opinions.  No mocking necessary. :-)

Edited by IceColdUK
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
1 hour ago, funkymunkyzone said:

Sorry, I didnt realise that FP% *is* an objective measure of how great a geocacher is... lol

 

Why aren't you coming out against those other criteria used as well?  Weren't  they just as "randomly" chosen to create the algorithm?  What makes any of those things stronger indicators that one CO is a better CO than another?  

 

Link to comment
2 hours ago, coachstahly said:

 

Why aren't you coming out against those other criteria used as well?  Weren't  they just as "randomly" chosen to create the algorithm?  What makes any of those things stronger indicators that one CO is a better CO than another?  

 

 

I did.  I thought the whole thing was done very badly, creating a 1% and 99% in the game of geocaching - I think we have enough of that in the rest of society in general.  However, that's not on topic of this particular discussion. :)

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
On 10/1/2018 at 2:45 PM, IceColdUK said:

This is a danger, but that’s still up to the COs to deal with.  Checking for the ‘most helpful’ logs may actually give them a tool to help. ?

Maybe it would be good to let CO's remove tags on their owned caches.  For example, if a log that has many "helpful" flags is no longer helpful because the CO changes the hide - then allow the CO to remove those "helpful" flags, to try and prevent seekers from getting steered in the wrong direction.

 

On 10/3/2018 at 3:56 PM, funkymunkyzone said:

Time will tell, but I don't think "transitory state" logs will get that many helpful votes and therefore cause much of an issue in the long run.  I think you'd see the same trend with, for example, hotel reviews... "Construction noise from next door made it hard to sleep" doesn't get many helpful votes, or even if it gets a few, it gets drowned out by "The breakfast buffet is amazing" simply because people look at the dates of reviews and know that the construction work from years ago won't still be happening so it's not helpful anymore, so won't mark it as helpful.

I disagree.  Half of the 'helpful' log examples that VP listed are what I would consider to be "transitory" - full log, no tb's, wasp nest.

With hotel reviews, "transitory" conditions, like construction noise or closed pools will affect a hotel's rating when those reviewers give the hotel fewer stars because of those "transitory" conditions.  And since many users of review sites look at the stars to weed out hotels from the outset, then they won't even get to the text of those reviews if a hotel's star rating is too low. My point being, "transitory" conditions do have an effect.

 

On 10/3/2018 at 6:29 PM, thebruce0 said:

Exactly. In the long run, I think the expectation is that the signal will drown the noise. I mentioned a while back, the FP system got flack when it was implemented for its ability to be abused. Not much complaining about it now, and I don't recall seeing any real complaints about the system or abuse for quite some time. I believe it's mainly because it's only positive, and it's a whole lot of work to bubble up the bad as though it were good (sabotage the system), when the vast majority of people will continue to bubble up the good.  Will it be perfect? Not likely, but it adds value for people who will use it the way it was intended

The other thing to consider is that FP's are limited.  Cachers don't get unlimited FP points, so they are more likely to put thought into how they allocate them - as opposed to log votes that are currently unlimited. Also, cachers can only give FP's to caches they have found, while log flags are not similarly limited.

 

On 10/8/2018 at 7:42 AM, coachstahly said:

While my last post is certainly off topic, it applies to this particular topic in the sense that even if this new possible feature does get used in a manner beyond its intent (although I'm hard pressed to come up with anything that makes sense), it's still designed to be something positive in nature.  

There are plenty of things that are "designed to be something positive", but end up not being so.

Link to comment

I agree that the 'helpful' designation defines a transitory state. Future events can negate the 'helpfulness' of a log. So, what can we do to mitigate that problem?

 

We could allow the CO to remove the helpful flag. But this adds to the CO's responsibilities. And, what do we do with an absentee CO?

 

Because the helpful designation defines a transitory state, the only sort order that make sense is date order. The most recent helpful log is probably to most relevant helpful log. This still has a couple of flaws. Only a limited number of log types can be marked helpful (and based on a blog posting, Write Note is not in that list). So, we need to allow the helpful flag on more log types. And, I don't believe that you can mark your own log as helpful. If that is true, then a CO cannot mark their OM log as helpful.

 

At the risk of appearing to be beating a dead horse, I re-submit my suggestion. The sort order for helpful log needs to be in date order, and there are a number of log types that should automatically be considered helpful. All of the status type log entries (NM, NA, OM, Reviewer Note, HQ Note, etc.) should automatically be consider helpful. Without them included, the filter is simply a 'spoilers that may still be valid, I have more research to do' filter (and that helps me how?). If those log types are included as helpful logs, I can see that the old log that 10 people found helpful because it suggested updated coordinates has been rendered moot because the CO moved the cache afterwords. If the sort order is based on date, I start with the most recent, and review up until I get to the log that shows the cache was moved. No sense in continuing, the cache has changed. This would help mitigate that fact that the helpful flag is transitory. At least I have a tool that helps me to better evaluate whether or not a helpful log is still helpful.

Link to comment

Yes. I think the sort order for 'most helpful' should be changed. Most votes for great log is fine. Helpful will almost always be temporary.

One could say that later logs negating a previous helpful log may also be rated helpful (in explaining why a past helpful log is no longer helpful), but then it's no longer helpful for the cache directly, but for the log-reading process. Messy.

 

I don't see why the CO shouldn't have the ability to remove a "Helpful" flag on a log. I don't see it as necessary additional responsibility. It falls right under checking logs for spoilers, invalid logs, etc. One of an absentee CO's least concerns I'd think is dealing flags on past logs.

 

I think Helpful logs should have a filtered view, but not sorted. And include essential logs like NM/NA/OM/RN/etc) as WPTC mentioned above.

Link to comment

The CO should be allowed to remove the helpful flag, I just wonder how often a CO would do this. Will the CO be notified when someone marks a log as helpful? Or, will they have to manually check on new logs every so often? Maybe the system could remove all of the helpful flags if the coordinates are updated? Or, maybe give the CO a 'remove all' button?

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...