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Cache Carnival


Harry Dolphin

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All I can say is that activity (finding and placing) has increased dramatically in our county since the 25th. Also more great caches have been found (in a small caching community it is possible to know which caches are good, even if they have only 3 or 4 finds with 100% FPs) and people are trying to place good caches that will earn FPs.

 

The souvenirs have served their purpose. Generated interest in caching.

 

My only change would be to try to get better recognition for % FPs

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On 2/21/2019 at 12:16 AM, Harry Dolphin said:

So, with the new souvenir challenge:  https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2019/02/cache-carnival-faqs/  We need 500 points.  Ten caches with fifty favorite points between March 25 or April 15?   Or some other accumulation of 500 points?  Plus a Creation Celebration event for the sixth souvenir?    

 

I wonder why there's never a really challenging souvenir. 500 points as highest level? really? Yesterday was a sunny day here so we went out with our bikes to go after caches that were high on out todo list. After logging I noticed I have 1980 points already and that's just one day. The same goes for all other "promotions", it looks like GS want everybody to "get them all" and doesn't want to make it the least difficult. This is the reason I don't care about the promotional souvenirs.

 

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31 minutes ago, on4bam said:

 

I wonder why there's never a really challenging souvenir. 500 points as highest level? really? Yesterday was a sunny day here so we went out with our bikes to go after caches that were high on out todo list. After logging I noticed I have 1980 points already and that's just one day. The same goes for all other "promotions", it looks like GS want everybody to "get them all" and doesn't want to make it the least difficult. This is the reason I don't care about the promotional souvenirs.

 

 

Clearly you benefit from living in/near a cache-rich location.  Many players are not so fortunate. Where I currently spend most of my time (work location away from home) there are about 15 caches within a 20 mile radius. At my home location, there are many more caches, but I have found all of them.

The promotions are likely marketed toward those newer in the hobby.

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2 hours ago, K13 said:
2 hours ago, on4bam said:

I wonder why there's never a really challenging souvenir. 500 points as highest level? really? Yesterday was a sunny day here so we went out with our bikes to go after caches that were high on out todo list. After logging I noticed I have 1980 points already and that's just one day. The same goes for all other "promotions", it looks like GS want everybody to "get them all" and doesn't want to make it the least difficult. This is the reason I don't care about the promotional souvenirs.

 

 

Clearly you benefit from living in/near a cache-rich location.  Many players are not so fortunate. Where I currently spend most of my time (work location away from home) there are about 15 caches within a 20 mile radius. At my home location, there are many more caches, but I have found all of them.

The promotions are likely marketed toward those newer in the hobby.

 

Yes, in my region, which covers some 600 square kilometres just to the north of Sydney (Australia), there are only 2 caches with 50 or more FPs and another 10 with 25 or more, from a grand total of 573, many of which are T3+ or higher difficulty puzzles, so getting to 500 points without leaving the region would take more than just going out on your bikes for a few hours, especially for anyone who has cached in the area for a year or two and has already found most of them.

 

So far I have 117 points, 50 of which came from FPs a couple of people awarded to my hides, the rest bar one have been from finds outside my area, including a two-hour drive north to Maitland for a CC event and a similar length drive to Catherine Hill Bay where there was one with 25 FPs. Sometime this week I'll probably go down to Sydney harbour (an hour and a half on the train) where there's a cluster of 50+ FP caches that will hopefully nudge me closer to 500 points. There's a local CC event next weekend then a bit more travelling down to Sydney the following week will probably get me over the line.

 

But I'm lucky, with higher density cache regions just a couple of hours north or south of me. There are many other parts of the country where cache density is too low for anyone to make much headway in this promotion, and in other parts of the world there are whole countries that don't have enough caches to get all the souvenirs.

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3 hours ago, K13 said:

 

Clearly you benefit from living in/near a cache-rich location.  Many players are not so fortunate. Where I currently spend most of my time (work location away from home) there are about 15 caches within a 20 mile radius. At my home location, there are many more caches, but I have found all of them.

The promotions are likely marketed toward those newer in the hobby.

 

I have 329 unfound caches in a 50 Km radius from home with 50+ FP. There are 9500+ unfound caches within a 50Km radius too.

Our finds yesterday were 51 in total, 30 of which were 50+ FP (18 of those were 100+ and of 4 them were 200+) most of them 25-75%  favorited (is that a word?).

We tend to go for high FP anyway (as most here will know). Some are too far for a daytrip so we plan 2-3 day weekends in a B&B rather than picking up micro's behind utiltiy poles.

Anyway, why not make these souvenirs interesting and up the scores to 2000-5000-10000 so they are least worth to remember (as they are now I just "hide" them since we get these souvenirs doing what we always do.

 

Edited by on4bam
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1 hour ago, on4bam said:

 

I have 329 unfound caches in a 50 Km radius from home with 50+ FP. There are 9500+ unfound caches within a 50Km radius too.

Our finds yesterday were 51 in total, 30 of which were 50+ FP (18 of those were 100+ and of 4 them were 200+) most of them 25-75%  favorited (is that a word?).

We tend to go for high FP anyway (as most here will know). Some are too far for a daytrip so we plan 2-3 day weekends in a B&B rather than picking up micro's behind utiltiy poles.

Anyway, why not make these souvenirs interesting and up the scores to 2000-5000-10000 so they are least worth to remember (as they are now I just "hide" them since we get these souvenirs doing what we always do.

 

Lucky for you but you are part of the minority so please don't complain withthe stomach full. I am ok with the 500 pts because for some people they might need up to 167 caches to get that score. 

 

Where I live in Nova Scotia Canada there are 31 caches with 50+ and I already found 29 because I was targeting them. Good thing I am traveling at the moment

 

I will also hide most of them from my board those souvenirs are useless.

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2 hours ago, Lynx Humble said:

Lucky for you but you are part of the minority so please don't complain withthe stomach full. I am ok with the 500 pts because for some people they might need up to 167 caches to get that score. 

 

Where I live in Nova Scotia Canada there are 31 caches with 50+ and I already found 29 because I was targeting them. Good thing I am traveling at the moment

 

I will also hide most of them from my board those souvenirs are useless.

 

Living in an area with lower intensity caching is a double-edged sword in this promotion, as not only are there fewer caches to find, most that do exist will be unlikely to have had 50 finds, let alone received 50 FPs.

Edited by barefootjeff
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9 hours ago, on4bam said:

 

I wonder why there's never a really challenging souvenir. 500 points as highest level? really? Yesterday was a sunny day here so we went out with our bikes to go after caches that were high on out to do list. After logging I noticed I have 1980 points already and that's just one day. The same goes for all other "promotions", it looks like GS want everybody to "get them all" and doesn't want to make it the least difficult. This is the reason I don't care about the promotional souvenirs.

 

 

I disagree that it seems like GS wants everybody to get them all. I think the 500 pt threshold is plenty high and for many many geocachers will be a significant challenge. I see the above statement as a humble-brag, kind of like saying "Why doesn't GS make something challenging to ME, and take into consideration the geocaching situation where I live. There are just so many awesome caches where I live that I'm wading knee-deep through 100 FP caches every time I go out."

 

It is awesome for you to get 1980 points after a single day of caching in your area. I too recently spent a full day caching, and did a 10 mile hike involving 5th class rock climbing, post-holing through snow at 10,000ft, and strenuous route finding in desert heat for a descent. Found over a dozen caches that are well regarded by those that have found them (have FPs) and got maybe 75 points. I think getting to 500 will be challenging... but then... that's just me.

 

GS is in a difficult position of creating something for an entire globe of geocachers. It would be tricky for them to tailor the challenge to every communities needs. But I give them the benefit of the doubt in that they can assess data regarding how may caches the average cacher finds in a 3 week period and what amount of those have high favorite points. And that they used this data to set the levels for their promotion.

 

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One idea would be to add one 'extreme' challenge for each souvenir, just to give maybe the top 25th percentile of geocachers (by finds/activity/access to caches) a bit more of a challenge?  I know deciding that level would be pretty subjective since even 2000 by on4bam's standard might be low end of difficult but impossible for others (so 10,000 would be impossible for way more of the community).  But at least something that's a bit more of a jump from "hard".

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1 hour ago, Fugads said:

I see the above statement as a humble-brag, kind of like saying "Why doesn't GS make something challenging to ME, and take into consideration the geocaching situation where I live. There are just so many awesome caches where I live that I'm wading knee-deep through 100 FP caches every time I go out."

 

Not at all. However, I'm sure there are a lot of areas (not only here) where the same situation exists. Without really checking I'm sure The Netherlands, Germany and other W/C-European countries have the same "problem". Of course GS can't cater for all but so far I haven't seen any souvenirs that cater for "cache rich" areas.

 

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14 hours ago, on4bam said:

 

I have 329 unfound caches in a 50 Km radius from home with 50+ FP. There are 9500+ unfound caches within a 50Km radius too.

Our finds yesterday were 51 in total, 30 of which were 50+ FP (18 of those were 100+ and of 4 them were 200+) most of them 25-75%  favorited (is that a word?).

We tend to go for high FP anyway (as most here will know). Some are too far for a daytrip so we plan 2-3 day weekends in a B&B rather than picking up micro's behind utiltiy poles.

Anyway, why not make these souvenirs interesting and up the scores to 2000-5000-10000 so they are least worth to remember (as they are now I just "hide" them since we get these souvenirs doing what we always do.

 

 

I don't know why they're called souvenirs.  A souvenir isn't a reward for obtaining a score in a game.   A "real world" souvenir is something that one chooses  as a token of remembrance for visiting some location or attending an event such as a concert or sporting event.   If I were to visit Koln, Venice, Rio, New Orleans, or Nice I *might* choose a souvenir as a token of remembrance of the trip but I might choose not to as well (I've been to New Orleans and didn't bring back a souvenir...not even some beads).   These promotional souvenirs are more like digital trophies, and some so easy they're like participation trophies.   

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7 hours ago, on4bam said:

Of course GS can't cater for all but so far I haven't seen any souvenirs that cater for "cache rich" areas.

 

 

Those that live in cache rich areas will have a much easier time obtaining the current promotional souvenirs in a cache sparse.   They may not be specifically catering to cache rich areas but for anyone living in a cache sparse areas many of these promotional souvenirs would be nearly impossible without traveling a long distance to a more cache dense area.  

 

 

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Keep in mind that the souvenirs are a marketing promotion,  their purpose is to increase website and app use. So Groundspeak are going to make sure the targets are not beyond the reach of 99% of cachers, because that would discourage the very people (casual or occasional participants) they want to motivate.

 

So inevitably such things will be more like a kindergarten athletics event (everyone gets a badge !) than the olympics ( only those who  devote their entire lives get a medal).

 

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20 minutes ago, hal-an-tow said:

Keep in mind that the souvenirs are a marketing promotion,  their purpose is to increase website and app use.

 

 

I'm well aware I'm not the "target audience" for these souvenirs. I don't change my caching habits one bit, promotions or not. So far I guess I've just got about all of them (except the ones for CITO, events or T5 ) as we never do them anyway (ok, went to a few events but generally avoid them).

 

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1 hour ago, hal-an-tow said:

Groundspeak are going to make sure the targets are not beyond the reach of 99% of cachers, because that would discourage the very people (casual or occasional participants) they want to motivate.

 

Ever hear of the term 'influencers'? Basically the small proportion of a general demographic that has much more reach and effect on the greater community.  In geocaching, some of most passionate, active, and prolific cachers are of a high and small percentile. Having something to keep them engaged and excited and challenged is not a Bad Thing. Now, HQ has previously included, once or twice, a higher challenge in some promo periods. But for the most part they certainly cater to the vast majority of the community -- also not a Bad Thing.

There's no necessary thing they're missing here. But, at least for my part, I'm arguing it would be smart, or better for the overall community to provide something for the higher end of the activity scale. When it comes to these digital pixel souvenirs, why not?  There's no cost to adding an 'extreme' tier for these types of quantity souvenir promotions. It doesn't even have to be for every promotion. At least occasionally, provide a high-end challenge. That would go a long way to keeping that percentile engaged (who don't hate souvenirs on principle, at least :P)

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Today I had a look at Caches with 50 or more favorite points around where I live. 1,5 hrs up the road there are 20 Caches in a round ( 6 - 7km) with well over 100 favorite points each, I would have to use the car to get there. In the other direction there are 25 Caches on a 17,5km round trip with 155 favorite points and I can get there in 45min using the train. Im going for the 17,5km - more than likely 18 - 20km walk next Sunday. Points are not everything

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1 hour ago, speakers-corner said:

1,5 hrs up the road there are 20 Caches in a round ( 6 - 7km) with well over 100 favorite points each, I would have to use the car to get there.

 

If you're talking about Geist des Hagen et al., they are worth the trip.  I only have a couple but intend to do the rest.  They're about the same distance from me, maybe a little less, and they are on my list of caches to get before we leave Germany.

 

But since next week is spring break, we don't have to rush - plenty of caches with enough FPs to get us over the hump in Lisbon and the southern Netherlands. 

 

(Plus we keep collecting favorite points on our caches, so we're already over halfway to 500 points, even though we've only found three caches since last Monday.  It's entirely possible we could just sit here and get to 500 based on our hides alone.)

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6 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

I don't know why they're called souvenirs.  A souvenir isn't a reward for obtaining a score in a game.   A "real world" souvenir is something that one chooses  as a token of remembrance for visiting some location or attending an event such as a concert or sporting event.   If I were to visit Koln, Venice, Rio, New Orleans, or Nice I *might* choose a souvenir as a token of remembrance of the trip but I might choose not to as well (I've been to New Orleans and didn't bring back a souvenir...not even some beads).   These promotional souvenirs are more like digital trophies, and some so easy they're like participation trophies.   

Every year that I participate in and complete the Seagull Century (a "century" is bicycling 100 miles in a day for those not familiar with the term) I am given a unique to that year long sleeve shirt. I cherish all of those, yes, souvenirs.  I have no problems with GS calling these bits of digital art "souvenirs" even though they celebrate an accomplishment rather than a visit to a location or event.  Like you, I am fond of the location based bits of digital art (although I wish GS would hurry up with the 8 or 10 they still owe me) but I see no need to have a separate category for them.

Edited by Michaelcycle
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I have had trouble with numbers souvenirs in the past. I have found a fair number of caches near me, and in order to finish the promotion, I'd almost be getting as many caches as I normally find in a year. :laughing: Not worth it, to me.

 

This time, I'm temporarily living in another state, so I have a fresh swath of caches. I've been happy to be able to actually finish a series like this. 

 

I really like this promotion, because I firmly believe in the favorites system, even though it's not perfect. I have found a lot of really cool caches while traveling, using favorites. I've found some fun caches in the past few days, and I'm halfway there. I'll continue to keep these caches in a pq to find even after the promotion is over. :cool:

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On 4/1/2019 at 7:32 AM, barefootjeff said:

So far I have 117 points, 50 of which came from FPs a couple of people awarded to my hides, the rest bar one have been from finds outside my area, including a two-hour drive north to Maitland for a CC event and a similar length drive to Catherine Hill Bay where there was one with 25 FPs. Sometime this week I'll probably go down to Sydney harbour (an hour and a half on the train) where there's a cluster of 50+ FP caches that will hopefully nudge me closer to 500 points.

 

Well today I did the train trip down to Sydney Harbour to attempt some of those "cream of the crop" 50+ FP caches. Oh brother.

  1. The first one I went to was an EarthCache about the stone facing on a structure. One of the questions asked, "Where would the granite used rate on the Mohs scale? You will need to do further research on the Mohs scale to answer this question." I have no idea. From what I remember of my high school geology (and that was fifty years ago), to position a rock on the Mohs scale, you need to try scratching it with other rocks of known hardness, but I didn't have any rocks to scratch it with nor was I about to do that to a monumental structure. Most of the other questions also left me scratching my head, which is pretty low on the Mohs scale - I don't know whether there used to be a sign at GZ with some info on it, but if there was it's gone - so that one will be a DNF.
  2. This was a traditional, presumably attached under a bench in a park as that was the only object at GZ, but there was a muggle sitting on the bench showing no signs of going anywhere anytime soon. Another DNF.
  3. This was a virtual circa 2004 that simply required me to pick one of 49 plaques celebrating Australian authors and take a photo of myself next to it. Yay, something I could actually do.
  4. Across the harbour on the ferry to another old virtual which started life as a traditional until the container went missing and it changed its type. The description really only talks about the missing container and doesn't specify any requirements for logging the virtual, so I just did what everyone else has done and included a photo of myself with GPSr at GZ.
  5. Back across the harbour for some lunch and then a walk around the foreshore to a traditional near the Opera House. I spotted what I thought was the cache wedged deep inside a pipe and didn't have anything I could hook it out with, so logged a DNF. But when I looked at the gallery photos on the cache page, it quickly became apparent that the cache was something else entirely. Dang.
  6. Headed further east along the waterfront for another Earthcache. Again I struggled with a couple of the questions as I couldn't really see the geological characteristic they were referring to. I've sent some answers and an explanation to the CO and will await their verdict (if they respond at all).
  7. Up into the Botanical Gardens for what looked like an interesting multi. I found the first waypoint easily enough, but it was then I realised that it wasn't a walk around the garden, it was a drive to another garden 1000km away in Melbourne. Sorry, not today.
  8. Back towards Circular Quay and two more close-spaced Earthcaches. One of them I could make a reasonable fist of the answers, which the CO accepted, so I've logged that as a find. The other one, well, again I'm scratching my head as my geological ability doesn't extend to identifying minerals or figuring out what happens when you polish them. I really couldn't answer enough of that one to bother submitting answers.

So that was my big day out. I'm now on 267 points, just over halfway to the final souvenir, but I don't think I have much chance of getting it now. Today's experience has cemented my dislike of urban caches and I'm now building a growing dislike of EarthCaches too. If I do any more caching at all between now and the end of the souvenir period, it'll be on some remote T4 bush cache with only a couple of finds and preferably no FPs, then I'll give it one just to say thanks for getting me away from this souvenir promotion and all those "creative" caches.

 

OperaHouse.jpg.2db9af4125b86e68ed0cbc418ddb5d00.jpg

Edited by barefootjeff
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On 4/1/2019 at 5:38 PM, Harry Dolphin said:

Does one have to get the first five souvenirs before getting the souvenir for attending a Creation Celebration Event?  I attended an event today, but do not see the souvenir.

Quote

Dear Creation Celebration participants,

Thank you for celebrating cache quality and cache creation with us.

Due to the large volume of Creation Celebration Events submitted to Geocaching HQ, approved Creation Celebrations will have to receive their souvenir awarding qualities in batches.

Unfortunately, this Event was submitted to Geocaching HQ after it had taken place. It was not captured by the regular souvenir assignments and Geocachers logging this Event will hence currently not be awarded the Creation Celebration souvenir.

How do I get my souvenir?
Missing souvenirs will be awarded retroactively via a script after the end of the promotion.

Thank you for your understanding and happy celebrating.

Cheers from Seattle!

 

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7 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Well today I did the train trip down to Sydney Harbour to attempt some of those "cream of the crop" 50+ FP caches. Oh brother.

 

That's unforunate, I feel for you.

But once again, none of this is a guarantee that if a cache has 50 favourite points, you're guaranteed to have a great experience, let alone what kind of experience each FP indicates. Especially in areas where there is significant PM geocaching activity with FPs all over the place.  And just as if any cache with fewer than 50 favourite points is not worth anyone's time.

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On 3/29/2019 at 8:15 AM, The A-Team said:

 

While I agree with what you said, there is a bit of a downside in that people will tend to target the caches that already have lots of FPs in order to get all of the souvenirs in the relatively short timeframe, neglecting caches with fewer FPs. Caches with lots of FPs will get even more FPs, while a good cache with only a few FPs may not get the love it deserves. If the promotion had been made even just a couple of weeks longer, it would have given people time to find more of those lower-FP caches and possibly award more FPs to the ones that deserve it.

 

Yep, that seems to be the way it's panning out. Last week I said there were 17 caches in my region that had an FP percentage of 70% or higher and I'd wager none would get any finds during this promotion as their FP totals were too low to attract much points. We're now halfway through so here's how they're standing:

 

GC Code      Number of FPs     Pecentage FPs    Number of finds during this promotion

GC7H4RW           6                               100%                                         0

GC7YP51            4                                100%                                         0

GC5TMBE          10                                91%                                          0

GC68VZP            7                                 88%                                          0

GC5HW5M         19                                83%                                         0

GC6XHHJ            4                                 80%                                         0

GC6T5PZ             4                                 80%                                         0

GC5E7A3             7                                 78%                                         0

GC62WZJ           19                                76%                                         0

GC6WPQ5            3                                 75%                                         0

GC5JZQM           17                                74%                                         0

GC4ATHC            11                                73%                                         0

GC59NNC            24                                73%                                         0

GC6RKKH            13                                72%                                         0

GC6XVK3              5                                 71%                                         0

GC6JMDK           20                                 71%                                         0

GC7GT14              7                                  70%                                         0

 

So yes, it looks like the caching activity here is being drawn away from this region towards the much higher FP totals to the south (Sydney) and north (Newcastle). What are, in my view at least, some of the most creative caches here, as indicated by the percentage FPs, are being shunned. If the purpose of this promotion is to highlight creative caches and encourage people to visit them, it's having the opposite effect here.

Edited by barefootjeff
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Whilst it isn't perfect, I like this promotion more than most previous ones.    I won't reach 500 points unless I target high FP caches, which I've started to do.

 

Yesterday I found a nice multi.    It is a cache which was published in 2005 and only 14 miles away (as the crow flies), but I never would have targeted without the promotion.    I enjoyed it - interesting stages and theme and good final.    Had > 50 FPs.    

 

 

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4 minutes ago, redsox_mark said:

Yesterday I found a nice multi.    It is a cache which was published in 2005 and only 14 miles away (as the crow flies), but I never would have targeted without the promotion.    I enjoyed it - interesting stages and theme and good final.    Had > 50 FPs.   

 

Strange, those are exactly the caches we go after. No need for promotions ;)

 

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2 minutes ago, on4bam said:

 

Strange, those are exactly the caches we go after. No need for promotions ;)

 

 

I do too...

 

The "issue" with this one is the location; on the map looks like an urban hide.   And it is in a suburban sort of place.   But there is this lovely church and interesting walk to unexpected greenspace, that I just didn't notice before.       

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I usually just cache by. Would have nerver reached 500 points by accident. But now I started to search for highly decorated caches.

So, do you more or less get 500 points on the fly? No, not me. But is it kinda easy to get the 500 Points when you live in high cache density area? Yes, sure. But do one (like me) have to put in a specific effort for it? Yes indeed. So does the promotion work, does it bring more people to high bemedaled caches? I´d say clearly yes!

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I just checked my found database and out of 8858 finds there are 903 (10.2%) with 50+ FPs, (including 419 with more than 100 FPs). 19.2% of my finds has more than 20 FPs. This is what I meant by "doing nothing out of the ordinary" when going out and finding caches (promotion or not)

Out of 1400+ caches on our todo list there are 467 with 20+ FPs, so at least here there is no effort needed.

 

YMMV

 

 

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13 minutes ago, on4bam said:

I just checked my found database and out of 8858 finds there are 903 (10.2%) with 50+ FPs, (including 419 with more than 100 FPs).

 

Out of my 986 finds, just 20 have 50+ FPs. 3 of those are now-archived travelling caches, 4 were amongst those I found on my trip to Sydney yesterday for the current promotion, 9 were from previous trips to Sydney, 2 were on trips to the north coast of New South Wales and the remaining 2 were in New Zealand. None are local to me.

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Bad timing for this series of souvenirs. I had to travel about 185 miles to find any number of caches that have over 20 favorties. Who knows how many miles I put on once I was there. Saw some fun caches. Right now I am trying to put together a series of challenges but I need to have a number of cachers that live in 150 miles of the challenge series. If I had 180-190 miles to play with it wouldn't be a problem to put together the series. That is how far away the urban area I had to travel to for the caches I found for the favorite points. It would be nice if that road could run both ways. For the event I'll need to travel at least 185 miles. That is the carnival event that is closest to me.

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On 4/3/2019 at 7:15 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

Yep, that seems to be the way it's panning out. Last week I said there were 17 caches in my region that had an FP percentage of 70% or higher and I'd wager none would get any finds during this promotion as their FP totals were too low to attract much points. We're now halfway through so here's how they're standing:

 

GC Code      Number of FPs     Pecentage FPs    Number of finds during this promotion

GC7H4RW           6                               100%                                         0

GC7YP51            4                                100%                                         0

GC5TMBE          10                                91%                                          0

GC68VZP            7                                 88%                                          0

GC5HW5M         19                                83%                                         0

GC6XHHJ            4                                 80%                                         0

GC6T5PZ             4                                 80%                                         0

GC5E7A3             7                                 78%                                         0

GC62WZJ           19                                76%                                         0

GC6WPQ5            3                                 75%                                         0

GC5JZQM           17                                74%                                         0

GC4ATHC            11                                73%                                         0

GC59NNC            24                                73%                                         0

GC6RKKH            13                                72%                                         0

GC6XVK3              5                                 71%                                         0

GC6JMDK           20                                 71%                                         0

GC7GT14              7                                  70%                                         0

 

So yes, it looks like the caching activity here is being drawn away from this region towards the much higher FP totals to the south (Sydney) and north (Newcastle). What are, in my view at least, some of the most creative caches here, as indicated by the percentage FPs, are being shunned. If the purpose of this promotion is to highlight creative caches and encourage people to visit them, it's having the opposite effect here.

 

Yeah, this promotion hasn't done much for my higher rated caches in terms of getting increased (ANY) activity.  Something like 15 FPs with a 60%+ percentage would have been a fair number for Groundspeak to pick.   I also have one multi with 71% and 24 FPs.   So close, yet so far.  ?

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On 4/4/2019 at 10:15 AM, barefootjeff said:

 

Yep, that seems to be the way it's panning out. Last week I said there were 17 caches in my region that had an FP percentage of 70% or higher and I'd wager none would get any finds during this promotion as their FP totals were too low to attract much points. We're now halfway through so here's how they're standing:

 

GC Code      Number of FPs     Pecentage FPs    Number of finds during this promotion

GC7H4RW           6                               100%                                         0

GC7YP51            4                                100%                                         0

GC5TMBE          10                                91%                                          0

GC68VZP            7                                 88%                                          0

GC5HW5M         19                                83%                                         0

GC6XHHJ            4                                 80%                                         0

GC6T5PZ             4                                 80%                                         0

GC5E7A3             7                                 78%                                         0

GC62WZJ           19                                76%                                         0

GC6WPQ5            3                                 75%                                         0

GC5JZQM           17                                74%                                         0

GC4ATHC            11                                73%                                         0

GC59NNC            24                                73%                                         0

GC6RKKH            13                                72%                                         0

GC6XVK3              5                                 71%                                         0

GC6JMDK           20                                 71%                                         0

GC7GT14              7                                  70%                                         0

 

So yes, it looks like the caching activity here is being drawn away from this region towards the much higher FP totals to the south (Sydney) and north (Newcastle). What are, in my view at least, some of the most creative caches here, as indicated by the percentage FPs, are being shunned. If the purpose of this promotion is to highlight creative caches and encourage people to visit them, it's having the opposite effect here.

My apologies Jeff. I had intentions of doing some of yours on my return from New Zealand but I was medivacced home, business class, with a foot broken in four places. No more caching for a few weeks until foot is heeled (that's kinda an intended pun as my left heel is broken in two places).

  • Surprised 1
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35 minutes ago, colleda said:

My apologies Jeff. I had intentions of doing some of yours on my return from New Zealand but I was medivacced home, business class, with a foot broken in four places. No more caching for a few weeks until foot is heeled (that's kinda an intended pun as my left heel is broken in two places).

 

So sorry to hear that. I hope your recovery goes smoothly and as quickly as possible.

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On 3/28/2019 at 4:32 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

Except many of the highest FP caches in this part of the world are park and grabs, they just happen to be in the tourist hot spots around Sydney harbour. People here are talking about spending a day or weekend there to grab as many of those as possible, not planning a day out in the wilds for that one great cache that might have 100% FPs but has only had a handful of finds so it won't score much. That's fine, I'm sure they'll have lots of fun out around the harbour (and I'll probably join them at some point), but many of those caches don't have any great redeeming qualities other than being in popular or scenic spots.


I agree.  Maybe next time they will focus more on the % favorite instead of the points.

  • Upvote 1
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1 hour ago, medoug said:

Maybe next time they will focus more on the % favorite instead of the points

That would give PMO caches a huge advantage.

Non PMO Caches uaually have a smaller ercentage due to the fact that logging basic members can not give fav. points to these caches.

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9 minutes ago, DerDiedler said:

That would give PMO caches a huge advantage.

Non PMO Caches uaually have a smaller ercentage due to the fact that logging basic members can not give fav. points to these caches.

 

Sorry, not true, it's already taken into account. The percentage FPs is calculated as the percentage of PM logs that award FPs - basic member logs are ignored in the calculation.

  • Upvote 1
  • Helpful 1
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2 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Sorry, not true, it's already taken into account. The percentage FPs is calculated as the percentage of PM logs that award FPs - basic member logs are ignored in the calculation.

No reason to be sorry. Thanks for this information, didn´t know till now.

Edited by DerDiedler
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Has anybody noticed many archived caches are receiving favorite points during this souvenir round? Some of the CO's of the archived caches have only found a few caches and have over 500 points?!!  

 

I am wondering if GS thought of that?

 

I feel you should not be able to give favorite points to archived caches.

 

 What you think?

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15 minutes ago, trailtrekn said:

Has anybody noticed many archived caches are receiving favorite points during this souvenir round? Some of the CO's of the archived caches have only found a few caches and have over 500 points?!!  

I am wondering if GS thought of that?

I feel you should not be able to give favorite points to archived caches.

What you think?

 

My favorite points, as per the Help Center, are a simple way to track and share the geocaches that I enjoyed the most.

When FPs came out in 12/10, we favorited all caches that were our favorites.  Many were already long-archived.

 

The fact that some are "gaming the system" for yet-another promotion,  by adding FPs to archived caches doesn't mean anything to me.

I don't believe Groundspeak thought that this would happen, but I'd bet that along with other methods of "rigging things" they've seen, they're not surprised by it.  :)

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15 hours ago, medoug said:

Maybe next time they will focus more on the % favorite instead of the points.

 

That would be nice, but currently there's no way to search for caches by the FP percentage. They would need to give members some way of identifying the relevant caches (without having to use third-party tools).

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2 hours ago, The A-Team said:
18 hours ago, medoug said:

Maybe next time they will focus more on the % favorite instead of the points.

 

That would be nice, but currently there's no way to search for caches by the FP percentage. They would need to give members some way of identifying the relevant caches (without having to use third-party tools).

 

A pity, because I think that's a much more equitable way of identifying high quality caches regardless of where they are. Perhaps the percentage has to be calculated on the fly so the server load would be too great to use it for searching, let alone for a souvenir promotion when server resources are being stretched beyond their limits.

 

Just an update on those 17 caches in my region that have 70% or more FP percentage. After the second weekend of the promotion, with perfect weather here for caching, they're all still sitting at zero finds for the souvenir period, although one had a note posted from a previous finder awarding it a belated FP. We did have a local CC event on Saturday, though, which was well attended, so not everyone fled the Central Coast for the weekend to do all those high FP caches around Sydney harbour.
 

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