"a character of our own", another look

[+mhfares]

Dick Turpin the Highwayman had a post few days ago on “a character of our own” .. I like to borrow that title here to highlight some other characteristics of our geocahcers in Saudi. Back in February I talked about ratings using the 52 caches available at that time,

 

http://ubbx.Groundspeak.com/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=5726007311&f=8416058331&m=8896099

 

Today, with 81 active caches (out of 85), I think it is time to update my graph analyzing the rating pattern we used in this part of the world..

 

Pic 1: shows the number of caches hidden versus total score:

 

Just like before, we still have two well-defined peaks at total scores of 4 & 7. However, a new peak emerges at low rating of 3. I concluded before that the scale was more towards medium to high side and was wondering if this trend will continue. I also concluded that we were not catering for 2WD and families. But now I think we are seeing a change towards lower end of the scale which means we may be paying more attention to families and 2WD (18.5% of the caches score total points equal or less than 3.5, as opposed to 9.6% few months ago).

Here are the numbers:

 

23.5% of the caches score a total of 6.5 points or more (compared to 28.8% before)

58% of the caches score total points between 4 & 6 (compared to 61.5% before)

18.5% of the caches score total points equal or less than 3.5 (compared to 9.6%)

 

Pic 2: shows the number of caches for each of the categories (Difficulty & terrain)

 

 

This diagram (square for terrain, star for difficulty)shows we have all types of terrain (1 to 5) but distributed somewhat evenly among the caches hidden. On the other hand, the difficulty rating is concentrated on the lower end of the scale (maximum at 2) and decreases as we go down the scale. What this means is that we like to try different terrains (good thing, we have varying landscapes) but we don’t like to make things difficult for our fellow geocachers (I like that too).

 

Pic 3:

 

The cross plot of Terrain vs. Difficulty does not show a particular trend. The trend I was trying to advocate before was to associate high scores of terrain with low scores of difficulty and vice versa ( I realize this may be a lot to ask). With such trend, we’ll see some correlation around the 45-degree line. Do we see that here? .. I don’t know since I don’t have the tools now for this quick investigation. However, one can see that the population of pairs fills the terrain area more regularly while the difficulty area is skewed towards the lower end of the scale.

 

Pic 4:

 

Here I wanted to see when we hide our caches. The plot shows the caches (total score for each) versus time over the last 12 months. There is some concentration of activity around the Feb. to May period that is also marked with high scores. Perhaps this is explained by the nice weather we have at this time of the year. The high score may be explained by the enthusiasm and good mood of the geocachers brought by the good weather. On the other hand, the period from June to Sept. is marked by low activity with somewhat low scores. The weather is hot and geocachers are not in the mood to go out and even if they do, the rating (total score) will be low.

 

It would be interesting to see how we compare to other parts of the world ..

 

Happy geocaching ...

 

[This message was edited by mhfares on October 18, 2003 at 04:29 AM.]

[swdecato]

Interesting analysis. It seems activity has dropped significantly from last year. I'm out and about each weekend exploring the wonderful wadi's in the area.

 

My caches tend to be on the more difficult side because I'm an "explorer" boldly going where few men has gone before. I now have two caches posted that have yet to be logged by anyone. I'm not sure if that is good or bad -- or perhaps my descriptions scare people off.

 

There are those who like a challenge -- maybe not this year, but the cache will still be there when somebody is brave enough to attempt it.