Meaningless Milestones?

[+TommyGator]

Now that Adventure Labs seem firmly embedded in the geocaching psyche for many if not most geocachers, isn't it time to include AdLab finds in the "real" find count, because those tallied on our individual profile pages are NOT the same number that appears on our day-to-day find count as displayed with our avatar and on our dashboards?

 

For those who have complained about the 1 vs five (or other stage count) method of counting finds, please bear with me a moment, as my point applies regardless of this issue.

 

At present, the find count published with our avatar and on our dashboards includes AdLabs.  The find count on our profile page does not.  As a result, our idea of how many finds we have may in no way resemble what GC considers "finds" unless you have taken the time to go to your profile page and see what number they are using, as opposed to the one displayed with our avatar.

 

If you've never done any AdLabs, or you've only done a very small number, these "find totals" won't be much different. However, if you live in an area with LOTS of AdLabs, have taken the time to get involved in Adlabbing, and have well over a thousand AdLab finds as I do, the "find totals" are markedly different.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't routinely take time to click over to my profile page to see how many finds GC credits me with.  Maybe you do, but that's a lot of repetitive effort for day-to-day caching, when our find count is so nicely displayed with our avatars and on our dashboards.

 

This thread is about milestones----so what's the issue?

 

Regardless of whether you are a new or experienced cacher, if you've been doing Adlabs, you've included them in our hobby regardless of what some may think about the righteousness of so doing.  I can tell you that Adlabs are a popular discussion topic at events in my area and, at least around here, Adlabbing has become integral to what we do as geocachers.

 

Milestones are another way by which we measure progress and experience, and many of us choose specific caches with which to celebrate particular milestones.  Some have even involved an event for the purpose of watching an individual attain a particularly difficult cache as a milestone find.  Unfortunately, what you think is a milestone find and what GC considers a milestone find can be two different things, and therein is the rub.

 

I'll just give you a personal example:

 

In my daily caching, I noticed I was approaching 12,000 finds and wanted to be sure and do something special for that find.  So, I carefully chose a cache, then adapted a geocaching run to ensure that that particular cache was accomplished and logged in the appropriate order.  My wife even took pictures.  Afterwards, I wanted to see the results of my efforts on my profile milestone page and saw something was amiss.  Not only was my 12,000th find not listed, neither was my 11,000th, for which I have a nice engraved memento 11,000-find geocoin sitting in front of me.  It took some looking around, but I finally found out that GC doesn't recognize Adlabs in milestones, and as a result, with my well-over 1000 Adlabs, my GC-find count hasn't reached 11,000 yet!

 

Now, I don't know about you, but I've spent a lot of gas money driving to Adlabs, sometimes solely for them.  I've put effort into finding them.  I've had fun at events discussing them.  I've done them at Mega events.  In short, Adlabs are part of my geocaching.  To ignore all of that effort makes any further milestones based on GC Adlab-less numbers meaningless to me.  Milestones celebrate effort and accomplishment.  Adlab-less find numbers fall far short on both counts, at least to me.

 

It's not just high-number cachers that have this issue.  Newbies who have just gotten into geocaching with their smartphones, and have gotten excited by getting some geocaches under their belts as well as some AdLabs, will likely be dismayed when, after bragging at an event that they finally got 100 caches, they find that GC didn't count any of the Adlabs and the find count that they saw on the app and on the website was just a mirage.

 

My recommendation (that of others may vary)?  As far as I can see, Adlabs are now part of geocaching in the minds of geocachers around me and I suspect that is true pretty much in general.  GC wove finds into the overall find count they display, and people have become accustomed to that.  It is time to count them in the milestone figures as well, especially if we want milestones to mean anything.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by TommyGator

[+barefootjeff]

6 hours ago, TommyGator said:

At present, the find count published with our avatar and on our dashboards includes AdLabs.  The find count on our profile page does not.

 

Yes it does. This is what I see when I look at your Profile:

 

[+Hügh]

6 hours ago, TommyGator said:

The find count on our profile page does not. 

 

Which page? My profile says 9036 which matches the banner?

 

6 hours ago, TommyGator said:

It took some looking around, but I finally found out that GC doesn't recognize Adlabs in milestones

 

Yes, it does? As you can see the website does list Adventure Labs as options for milestones. 

 

 

Are you perhaps using the Project-GC website? They are a separate website not managed by Geocaching HQ. Inclusion of Adventure Labs on the Project-GC website is a paid feature.

[+Hügh]

6 hours ago, TommyGator said:

Not only was my 12,000th find not listed, neither was my 11,000th,

 

Also, keep in mind that the Geocaching website does not add milestones for 11,000 or 12,000. Once you reach 10,000, your next milestone is at 20,000. Here are the milestones off someone who has almost 22k finds. 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Hügh

[+TommyGator]

31 minutes ago, Hügh said:

Also, keep in mind that the Geocaching website does not add milestones for 11,000 or 12,000. Once you reach 10,000, your next milestone is at 20,000. Here are the milestones off someone who has almost 22k finds. 

Hugh,

 

Thanks---I wasn't aware of that.

 

Here's the list of my most recent caches with total.  The big total on top is 10,908

 

My 12Kth  cache was the W.C.O.G. event cache which I logged at 12,000..  Note that it is listed on top, not five below the 12,005th (which is the one right below it).....but that's another issue.  There's also a difference of 4, but I'm aware of that, which is from long ago, probably retracted or "bonus" smilies that were allowed way back when.

 

It would be handy if the "results" on top reflected the actual count.  Also note that determining the nth milestone cache from this list is virtually impossible since the Adlab finds are interspersed in the "real" count but not listed in the chronology.   I had been depending on my own notes as well as the locked milestone statistics. It was this top banner, along with the lack of 11k and 12k milestones, that caused my belief that something was amiss.

 

Thanks to all who responded and relieved my anxiety.

 

 

 

 

 

[+Hügh]

3 minutes ago, TommyGator said:

It would be handy if the "results" on top reflected the actual count.

 

Unfortunately, this is one of the places where Adventure Labs are yet to be integrated into Geocaching.com.

 

Although if you think about it, it does make sense. Adventure Labs do not have FPs, a container size, a DT rating, or a trackable inventory, so many of those columns would be blank. 

[+barefootjeff]

1 minute ago, TommyGator said:

Here's the list of my most recent caches with total.  The big total on top is 10,908

 

That list is generated from the Search engine. It can't include ALs because they don't have anything the search engine looks for, like a GC code, state, country, FP count, size, difficulty, terrain, etc.