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What's the Favorite Thing All About, Anyway?


BigOpe

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I personally am not all that interested in collecting "favorites," but obviously some folks are, so I've started awarding them the past few months.  Who can 'splain me what the benefit is  about having or awarding lots of favorites?  Are there prizes or something?  Like maybe a free year's membership or a free GPS upgrade or a hundred free magnetic nanocaches?

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You get nothing for collecting or awarding favorite points.  They are simply a way for you to tell others that you thought a particular cache is one of your favorite ones, or for finders to leave a mark on your cache that they really liked it.

 

Caches with lots of Favorite Points are usually ones to find when caching in new areas - for me.

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In the Help Center, it simply says, "Geocaching Favorite points are a simple way to track and share the geocaches that you enjoyed the most. "

 - And  that's how we awarded them.   :)

When "Favorites" first came out in '13, the first thing we did was award them to all caches we liked, that we did years before. 

Many were long-archived.    For us they were our favorites.  

 

Edited by cerberus1
explainafication...
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1 hour ago, K13 said:

Caches with lots of Favorite Points are usually ones to find when caching in new areas - for me.

 

I've found the caches with the most FPs are just the ones at tourist hotspots like Sydney harbour. Nothing wrong with that, but having grown up in Sydney, I don't find a magnetic mint tin in a guard rail overlooking the harbour all that appealing. I find a high FP percentage is a better indicator than just the number of FPs alone, as the types of caches I enjoy the most often get few finds.

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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

I've found the caches with the most FPs are just the ones at tourist hotspots like Sydney harbour. Nothing wrong with that, but having grown up in Sydney, I don't find a magnetic mint tin in a guard rail overlooking the harbour all that appealing. I find a high FP percentage is a better indicator than just the number of FPs alone, as the types of caches I enjoy the most often get few finds.

I would also love to see a % of FP in the filter options because 100FP and 1000 finds isn't the same as 100FP and 200 finds.

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4 hours ago, BigOpe said:

I personally am not all that interested in collecting "favorites," but obviously some folks are, so I've started awarding them the past few months.  Who can 'splain me what the benefit is  about having or awarding lots of favorites?

Before the Favorites system was created, people would sometimes create public bookmark lists like "Beautiful Views" or "Historic Places" or simply "Great Caches". This was a way to recommend caches to others. If you noticed a really good cache was on a bookmark list like this, then you could check the bookmark list for other caches that the creator of the bookmark list also enjoyed.

 

Favorites are pretty much the same thing, except formalized with points. Plus, you don't have the ability to say WHY you thought the cache was one of your Favorites, other than mentioning it in your log. (That is, you can't create separate Favorites for "Beautiful Views" or for "Historic Places"; they're all just Favorites.)

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13 minutes ago, niraD said:

Favorites are pretty much the same thing, except formalized with points. Plus, you don't have the ability to say WHY you thought the cache was one of your Favorites, other than mentioning it in your log. (That is, you can't create separate Favorites for "Beautiful Views" or for "Historic Places"; they're all just Favorites.)

 

Maybe that's just as well, as most of my favourites are caches that are memorable on a number of levels, including an interesting cache page, a fun/challenging puzzle if that's part of it, the journey to GZ, the grandeur of the location, the manner of concealment, the container and even the logbook if it's something special. Trying to categorise my favourites would be difficult.

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I use favorites all the time when I've traveling. I will pick a random cache in the middle of the area that I'm visiting, then go to "find...all nearby caches". From there, sort by favorites, and keeping in mind the distance from your center of search, look at the highest favorited caches. If I have the time, I go through each of them, read the description, look at pictures and a few logs, and decide if the cache is something I want to look for. Sometimes, it's just a highly trafficked area by tourists (as barefootjeff mentions), but a lot of times doing this has taken me to some really cool places. Sometimes, it's a touristy spot that I didn't know about, sometimes it's a cool spot that most people don't know about, or a great container.

 

When you are looking at the drop down menu for Favorites on a cache page, you can click on "View Who Favorited". From there, you can click on the link beside each name that says, "View Log". A lot of times people say why they liked the cache enough to favorite it.

 

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37 minutes ago, Bear and Ragged said:

... And then you get the cachers that get the First To Find on a new cache, and give it a Favourite Point - because they are FTF!


I give FPs for a number of reasons - as the Help Center says, to those caches I enjoyed the most.

 

In most cases, they are a recommendation to other cachers - cool hide, great location, clever puzzle, interesting history lesson; etc. - but not always.  You’d need to read my log to be sure...

 

It may be that I just had a really good time finding the cache with friends.  It may be for the satisfaction of finally avenging DNFs.  And it might even be for the extra buzz of a FTF.

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Favorites are a way to acknowledge your favorite Finds.

 

If I'm traveling somewhere I usually look first for caches with at least 5 or 10 Favorites. I've been pretty successful with this method. I don't necessarily want to give them a Favorite too, but I almost always enough finding them.

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Okay, and thanks to all responders.  For the most part I give them to caches that involved a bit of construction effort, as opposed to just stuffing a log in a pill bottle.  Not to poohpooh the latter, my score would be a lot lower without them, but it's especially nice to find one that stands out for its cleverness and clearly required a bit of the owner's time at his desk or workbench.

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29 minutes ago, Vooruit! said:

For me as a cache owner, the amount of favourite points plays a big part in my cache being a success or not - and when push comes to shove, archive it, or keep it alive for a while. I tend to maintain kind of a 10% finds/favourites ratio threshold.

 

One of my caches, GC4X42A published in 2014, now has 300 finds with 22 FPs. It's the only one of the caches I've placed that has reached triple digits. It's in an interesting historical spot with nice river views, with the cache itself in a dry hiding place and in good condition. I think it's been pretty successful as a cache even if it doesn't get many FPs.

 

By contrast, GC6WPQ5 published in 2016, has 6 finds with 4 FPs. The most recent find was almost a year ago. It's probably in that no-mans-land of being too challenging for most cachers but not challenging enough to be on anyone's bucket list.

 

Different types of caches appeal to different people and caches can be successful without being anyone's favourite or without being popular. As long as someone enjoyed it, I'd consider it a success.

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I really think a nice feature HQ could add would be including the FP star in the log history itself. If you want to see why someone favourited, you have to first go to the 'who favorited' list, then examine each log individually by link   That info is readily accessible on the back end and public knowledge. Why not just add a flag on the log list so when you're browsing the log history you can, if you like, choose to focus on the ones that marked it favourite?

 

At least until / if HQ provides the option to include a short reason for the FP awarded (still crossing my fingers for that, but not expecting it) :P

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