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Release Notes (Geocaching® app: Favorite point indicator) - February 14, 2023


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Release Notes (Geocaching® app: Favorite point indicator) - February 14, 2023

 

With the latest release, we are adding an indicator that highlights the most-Favorited caches in an area. The indicator shows the number of Favorite points of the top 10% of most-Favorited caches right on the map.

 

As you pan around the map, the algorithm highlights the top 10% of caches. While the top range of Favorited caches you see varies in every region, the algorithm only highlights caches with at least two Favorite points.

 

With this feature you can 

  • see the most-Favorited caches in an area to plan your next outing or make an impromptu detour;
  • easily find cache clusters of highly Favorited caches to plan your outings;
  • filter out finds (Premium member feature) to see the most-Favorited caches to find or adjust the Filters and see the indicator of most-Favorited caches within filtered caches. 


If your caching goals are unrelated to Favorite points and you would like to turn this feature off, you can find the toggle to do so in the map settings.

 

To commemorate this occasion (and to celebrate Valentine’s Day), we’re awarding Premium members with 10 extra Favorite points to give away, or 20 extra Favorite points for Premium members who currently own a cache (excluding Event Caches and Adventure Labs). Learn more in the Geocaching Blog.

 

Nicole (nykkole), Product Manager, is watching this thread to answer questions whenever possible.

 

Any posts in this thread should relate to features in this release. Comments unrelated to the release may be removed. Please direct unrelated comments to other appropriate threads. Thanks!

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9 minutes ago, Chalupa_Dad said:

Are these points being granted in waves? I believe I was granted 10 points, but I do own multiple caches. 

 

Correct, the awarding is currently in progress and may take until tomorrow. So you should get additional points soon. :smile:

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I Like the feature but:

Wouldn't it be better to display the top percentage of favourite points instead of just by number?

This way, "new" caches also get a chance to appear on the map more quickly with a heart...

Moreover, cache types such as multies, mysteries, ... which get fewer logs than traditionals seem so at a disadvantage to me.

A cache with 10 points but 10 logs is possibly more rewarding than one with 100 points and 1000 logs....

 

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I'm not seeing any favorite point numbers on the map in my app. (Android phone).  Is this something that needs to be turned on?  Or do I need to delete the app and re-add it?  Or...?

UPDATE:  Never mind.  Once I panned outside of my area, I'm now seeing it.  Strange, though, I thought it was meant to show the top favorited caches (percentage) as you panned around on the map, no matter what caches you had on your screen.  In other words, if you've panned on the screen to a point that only had 10 caches showing, at least one of them should display a number.  Isn't that what the announcement said?  ("As you pan around the map, the algorithm highlights the top 10% of caches")

Edited by Spacemann Spiff
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1 hour ago, Spacemann Spiff said:

 In other words, if you've panned on the screen to a point that only had 10 caches showing, at least one of them should display a number.  Isn't that what the announcement said?  ("As you pan around the map, the algorithm highlights the top 10% of caches")

 

This is based on the caches that load on the map. About 300 caches will load on your map so about 30 will display the FP number. Zooming in to only see 10 caches will not re-trigger the algorithm calculation.

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9 hours ago, nykkole said:

 

This is based on the caches that load on the map. About 300 caches will load on your map so about 30 will display the FP number. Zooming in to only see 10 caches will not re-trigger the algorithm calculation.

 

My entire "county" (here they're called Local Government Areas), covering 1854 square kilometres, only has about 500 caches so seeing 300 on the map is unlikely unless zoomed way out. When I look in my local area, there are only five caches with Favourite Point Indicators:

 

LocalFavourites.jpg.47122ef6411b509f26b828e3342b096a.jpg

 

As simon_cornelus said, these are all older caches, specifically:

  • GC4YYD1 (top just left of centre) with 20 FPs from 39 finds, published in 2014.
  • GC6JMDK (my cache at Koolewong) with 29 FPs from 39 finds, published in 2016 and most recently found in October 2020.
  • GC61HCN (my cache at Umina Beach) with 19 FPs from 38 finds, published in 2015.
  • GC2G3YX (lower right) with 19 FPs from 165 finds, published in 2010.
  • GCQQ4H (bottom left of centre) with 20 FPs from 275 finds, published in 2005.

In the blog article, it says "The introduction of highly Favorited caches is part of our continued efforts here at HQ to refresh and revitalize the game board year over year" but how is highlighting caches that are seven or more years old refreshing and revitalising the game? It looks like 19 FPs is the cut-off for getting an indicator around here, but most new caches, particularly those that aren't urban traditionals, struggle to get anywhere near 19 finds, let alone 19 FPs.

 

This might be a fine tool in cache-dense urban areas where the map will show 300 caches and 30 with indicators at moderate zoom levels, but in more sparse regions where many of the caches get few finds, it instead focuses the attention on old caches at the expense of newer (and perhaps better) ones.

 

Edited by barefootjeff
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19 hours ago, Geocaching HQ said:

While the top range of Favorited caches you see varies in every region, the algorithm only highlights caches with at least two Favorite points.

 

At least in the US, two FPs doesn't mean anything. Could simply be two people who found the cache are friends of the CO.

 

My personal minimum threshold for FPs mattering is 10. Maybe 5 for a higher terrain cache that gets fewer visits.

 

2 FPs is fine for a more remote area and/or small geocaching community like Latin America or Africa or the Australian outback. 

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5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

In the blog article, it says "The introduction of highly Favorited caches is part of our continued efforts here at HQ to refresh and revitalize the game board year over year" but how is highlighting caches that are seven or more years old refreshing and revitalising the game?

 

You could adjust the filters to what you're looking for. One solution would be for them to (finally?) include a date placed filter so you only list search results that are recent.  Sadly the official app does not have a date placed filter option.  For that matter, the filter options in the official app could be given a whole lot more functionality, even if grouped under an "advanced" section.

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3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

 

You could adjust the filters to what you're looking for. One solution would be for them to (finally?) include a date placed filter so you only list search results that are recent.  Sadly the official app does not have a date placed filter option.  For that matter, the filter options in the official app could be given a whole lot more functionality, even if grouped under an "advanced" section.

 

Since I've either found or own practically all the caches around my local area, it doesn't affect me, I'm more thinking about visitors to the area and which caches they might be encouraged to do. While many of our older caches are still quite good, I'd like to think the newer ones have something to offer too. I can't speak for the other COs here, but I'd rather see my newer hides get some finds beyond just the same handful of regulars who appear in all their logbooks. Looking at my more recent hides:

 

image.png.fd10769f59f59ae61fea57e42f99d7b5.png

 

these are the ones I'd like to see get a bit more encouragement rather than the ones I hid seven or more years ago, but if visitors actually use the FP Indicators as a guide to the caches they'll do while they're here, the newer ones won't stand a chance of ever reaching those lofty heights.

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Here are some actual stats. Across all of my state (New South Wales, Australia), there are currently 19988 caches (excluding events), which have a median age of 5 years. Ranked by the number of FPs, to get in the top ten percent a cache would need 14 or more FPs (2093 caches). The median age of those top ten percent ones is 8 years, and only a tenth of those were published in the last 3 years. Getting in the top decile of FPs really is an old-cache game, which seems totally at odds with the stated goal of refreshing and revitalising the game board.

Edited by barefootjeff
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16 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm more thinking about visitors to the area and which caches they might be encouraged to do. While many of our older caches are still quite good, I'd like to think the newer ones have something to offer too. I can't speak for the other COs here, but I'd rather see my newer hides get some finds beyond just the same handful of regulars who appear in all their logbooks. Looking at my more recent hides:

 

I'm visiting your area and I've got limited caching time. Why should I roll the dice on a new cache rather than seeking a sure bet on an oldie with many FPs?

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4 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Getting in the top decile of FPs really is an old-cache game, which seems totally at odds with the stated goal of refreshing and revitalising the game board.

 

I find it funny that when FPs came out people bemoaned how they disadvantaged older caches because few people would go back and retroactively award FPs.

 

Now FPs disadvantage new caches because they can't get FPs fast enough to compete?

 

"Refreshing and revitalizing" should be about clearing out deadweight. Abandoned caches in need of maintenance particularly. After about 5 years, most caches with zero FPs should be archived and removed even if in good shape because the area doesn't warrant a geocache or maybe someone else with place something better. I don't mean that as something Groundspeak should implement as policy; merely a suggestion to COs.

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7 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

 

I'm visiting your area and I've got limited caching time. Why should I roll the dice on a new cache rather than seeking a sure bet on an oldie with many FPs?

 

That's your perogative, of course, but looking at my own hides (and excluding ones I've adopted), the one with the highest number of FPs (29) is GC6JMDK, a 2.5/4 multi I placed in 2016. Although popular in its early years (and having a Geocaching NSW event near its first waypoint in 2018 no doubt helped), it was last found in October 2020. A lot has happened around here in the two and a half years since that find, including record-breaking heavy rain and floods, so I'm not sure if that cache would be a surer bet than the one I hid last week that's had two finds and received two FPs or the multi I hid a year ago that's had five finds with four FPs.

 

Much the same is true for the other caches with FP indicators around here. They're older ones that were popular in their day but now get few if any finds. A fair few have owners who have long since left the game, so who knows what condition those once-popular caches are in now?

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9 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

 

"Refreshing and revitalizing" should be about clearing out deadweight. Abandoned caches in need of maintenance particularly. After about 5 years, most caches with zero FPs should be archived and removed even if in good shape because the area doesn't warrant a geocache or maybe someone else with place something better. I don't mean that as something Groundspeak should implement as policy; merely a suggestion to COs

 

Maybe that makes sense in cache-dense areas, but in places where caches are few and far between, we need the nine mundane ones to find in order to give an FP to the tenth. Getting rid of older caches that are in good shape simply because they're no-one's favourite just means we'll have fewer mundane caches to find and hence fewer FPs to give out to what's left, a slippery slope to wiping the board clean of any caches at all.

 

Take, for example (and yes, this is perhaps an extreme example but not all that uncommon in more remote locations), two caches in the Barrington Tops area by Samuel737 (lee737's son), GC6TWTT and GC755GD, both more than five years old and with no FPs from 29 and 20 finds respectively. The next nearest cache is 11km away (GC8FMTK), placed in 2019 by Samuel and also with zero FPs. There's nothing wrong with those caches, apart from not being at majestic mountain-top vistas which are the Barrington Tops' FP magnet. Archive those (and maybe the next one along by Lee's other son Oliver with just one FP) and that whole area will be devoid of caches. Is that a good outcome for the game?

 

Then there are caches in a small series of maybe half a dozen to a dozen caches where people who've really enjoyed the experience will just give an FP to the first one, as most of us don't have enough FPs on hand to give out to all of them. What then happens is cache #1 has heaps of FPs but the rest have none.

 

Also bear in mind that many of the newer phone-only never-visited-the-website PM players don't award FPs, probably because they don't know they exist or how they work. I've had PM logs on some of my hides saying "this is the best cache ever!" yet not giving it an FP.

 

My experience has been that caches with high numbers of finds typically have few FPs because they're in mundane urban locations, but those more remote or time-consuming ones that have high FP percentages get very few finds so their total FP count is also low. What tends to rise to the top in the FP-count stakes are older urban caches with novelty containers. If that's your thing, great, but otherwise the raw number of FPs isn't much of a guide to quality.

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I Agree with barefootjeff, the raw number of FPs isn't much of a guide to quality.

The example of series is indeed also a problem, you can't say that the bonus or first cache is alway's the best because it has lots of FP's. These are awarded to the entire series as a token of appreciation.

 

I have a number of puzzle caches, this genre gets fewer visitors anyway, the higher D puzzles least of all. For fans of this genre, this does not mean they are any less enjoyable because they only have a hand full of FP's. Although of course for this genre it might matter a little less because you have to solve them before going out to log them.

But multi's in particular get fewer visitors and would be considered less fun as a result. Although I usually find these more rewarding...

 

I get the idea and it is sometimes useful but it puts too much emphasis on numbers.

It sometimes seems too much like a race for the most number of finds, where in my opinion it should be more about the experience.

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On 2/16/2023 at 6:49 PM, barefootjeff said:

Maybe that makes sense in cache-dense areas, but in places where caches are few and far between, we need the nine mundane ones to find in order to give an FP to the tenth. Getting rid of older caches that are in good shape simply because they're no-one's favourite just means we'll have fewer mundane caches to find and hence fewer FPs to give out to what's left, a slippery slope to wiping the board clean of any caches at all.

 

If you're not removing stale caches how do you refresh things, as referenced on your earlier post?

 

Besides as my post said: most caches, not all.

 

The reality of geocaching is that how things are done in the US, Canada, and much of Europe (and maybe Japan?) is different than Australia and all the other parts of the world where caches and cachers are few and far between.

 

The major problem inherent in geocaching is that while the basics of the hobby are universal and worldwide, the reality on the ground varies a lot. A lot of decisions can't effectively serve both America and Australia. Since Groundspeak is an American company, half the caches in the world are American, and probably more than half of cachers are American those decisions are going to lean American.

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46 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

If you're not removing stale caches how do you refresh things, as referenced on your earlier post?

 

You just place new ones, like Samuel's and Oliver's 2019 hides along the road to the Barrington Tops. There was no need to archive their earlier two hides as they're 11km away and there are no other caches at all along there. As long as the old ones are in good condition, they're still a fresh experience for anyone who hasn't been there before.

 

Even in more populated areas, such as the Central Coast region where I live, it's rare that an existing old cache will be blocking a new one, and of the 15 caches I've archived, only once has a new cache appeared within 161 metres of it and that was where the archived one at the base of a waterfall opened up an interesting scenic spot for me near the top. Natural attrition, with owner and reviewer archivals of broken or missing caches, is more than enough to prevent oversaturation, in fact there are far fewer urban caches around here now than there were when I first started a decade ago.

 

There seems to be a contradition here, on the one hand old caches are deadwood that need to be cleared to reinvigorate the game, yet on the other hand they're the ones that get the FP indicators and which people apparently prefer over newer ones.

Edited by barefootjeff
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6 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Since Groundspeak is an American company, half the caches in the world are American, and probably more than half of cachers are American those decisions are going to lean American.

 

If you go by cache numbers, of the 3,355,450 caches worldwide, only about a million are in the USA, with about 1.8 million in Europe, a quarter of a million in Canada and just under 100,000 in Australia. Given our muggle population is about a twelfth of the USA's, we're not doing too bad on a per capita basis.

 

Just to add to the deadwood debate, looking at the finds on the caches I own since the beginning of last year, the one way out in front with 39 finds is GCMHXX, one of the two 2005 caches I adopted. It has a total of 57 FPs from 689 finds. Second on the list is the other one I adopted, GCMMNT, with 12 finds in 2022/23. Overall it has 20 FPs from 214 finds. My own creations, including all the newer ones, are doing pretty poorly by comparison, with only one reaching ten finds in 2022/23 and six not getting any finds at all in that time. How old does a cache have to be for it to become stale?

Edited by barefootjeff
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13 minutes ago, Rock Chalk said:

Please remember this thread is about the Favorite point indicator feature. The last several posts are about Favorite points in general and refreshing the game board, which would be better for a separate thread.

Yes, the discussion touched on refreshing the game board, but it seemed to me that the "Favorite points in general" was very relevant to the Favorite point indicator feature because it relates to exactly what the Favorite point indicator should indicate, in order to be most useful.

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58 minutes ago, Joe_L said:

Thank you for providing a way to turn the indicator off.  But it seems that you can only toggle it on and off through the app.

 

It's functionality that's only available on the mobile app for now. Having the setting be part of the same platform hence makes sense.

 

If this were to come to the web at some point there'd also be a web setting, but not before then.

Edited by Bl4ckH4wkGER
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Looking at the caches around Bulahdelah (NSW, Australia) perfectly illustrates the problem I'm seeing with the FP indicators. Of the seven caches in that town, the only one with an FP indicator is Tooth Fairy (GCV0Y4) with 32 FPs:

 

Screenshot_20230222_100905_Geocaching.jpg.45357783140ae9cbabb3b55261ff659a.jpg

 

Taking a closer look using the website Search function, though, reveals a somewhat different story. These are those seven caches, sorted by their FP count. I've added in brackets after the FPs the number of finds those caches have had:

 

Details.jpg.4f3967e71f8dd88ca3c40be6fef14664.jpg

 

With the exception of aluns foot, the order of those caches by FPs is exactly the same as the order by placed date. The oldest cache gets the FP indicator, simply because it's had by far the greatest number of finds and by far the greatest amount of time to accumulate them in. But is that the best cache in Bulahdelah and the only one worth bothering with if visiting the town?

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12 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Taking a closer look using the website Search function, though, reveals a somewhat different story. These are those seven caches, sorted by their FP count. I've added in brackets after the FPs the number of finds those caches have had:

 

Details.jpg.4f3967e71f8dd88ca3c40be6fef14664.jpg

 

With the exception of aluns foot, the order of those caches by FPs is exactly the same as the order by placed date. The oldest cache gets the FP indicator, simply because it's had by far the greatest number of finds and by far the greatest amount of time to accumulate them in. But is that the best cache in Bulahdelah and the only one worth bothering with if visiting the town?

 

If I only have enough time for one cache? Yes. Most Favorites, by far, oldest, and a Regular. I'm definitely skipping the Mystery if I'm just passing through.

 

Although I'm not sure you can draw meaningful conclusions from a sample size of only 7 caches.

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12 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

 

If I only have enough time for one cache? Yes. Most Favorites, by far, oldest, and a Regular. I'm definitely skipping the Mystery if I'm just passing through.

 

Although I'm not sure you can draw meaningful conclusions from a sample size of only 7 caches.

 

That one is actually a rather underwhelming cache by the time you've made the climb to it, just a large plastic jar buried in bark and leaf litter at the base of a tree away from the views. It's not even original anymore, it got muggled sometime last year and was replaced by someone with the owner's permission. The impressive stuff is what you see along the way as you climb the mountain, which is what inspired the cache I placed at one of those spots. If you're only stopping off for a coffee in the town and just want to find one cache, I'd recommend Big Bass, if you have a little more time then the AL and bonus give a pretty good tour around the town. Just because those are new and have had few finders so far doesn't mean they're rubbish. As for the puzzle (Bat Cave), that was the one I gave my FP to on my first caching trip to the town in January last year, when that, aluns foot and Tooth Fairy were the only caches there. The piece de resistance now, by my reckoning at least, would have to be the T4.5 Alum Ridge, but you'd need to allow at least a couple of hours to do it and be prepared to do a lot of climbing. But all those caches have merit depending on where your interests lie, even aluns foot could be someone's pick if they just want to experience the state forest and its history without climbing the mountain.

 

Yes, it's only one town with seven caches, but everywhere I've looked since the FP indicators became available it's the same story. Down in Sydney, where I've done a lot of caching around Manly, Watsons Bay and the CBD, almost all the highlighted caches are more than a decade old. In the CBD, the one with the highest number of FPs (in fact the second-highest in the state), is a 2004 virtual where you just have to pick one of 49 brass plaques dedicated to Australian authors, take a selfie and name the author and one of their works. It's obviously popular with tourists, with 366 FPs from 4431 finds, but I'd hardly call it Sydney's best cache.

 

I suppose there must be places in the world where there are just a few lone beacons of quality in a sea of LPCs, and maybe the FP indicators are useful there. But in this part of the world, they're just totally biassed against anything reasonably new, providing even less incentive for people to hide new caches. Again I ask, how is that working towards the stated goal of revitalising the game board?

Edited by barefootjeff
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