So you want a stats site: (Long)

WPWU826

2.1k · September 5, 2003

There's 96K users?!

Brian

As long as you're going to think anyway, think big. -Donald Trump

September 5, 2003

Sorry about that I must have read it wrong the first time..

from http://www.geocaching.com/about/

quote:
As of today, there are 66967 active caches in 184 countries.
In the last 7 days, there have been 43600 new logs written by 10407 account holders.

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SpongeRob

WPWU826

September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Renegade Knight:
Stats are secondary to the main goal which is geoaching.

Sometimes I'm pretty sure that's not the case for everyone.

Charlie

"One should never begin a journey by heading in the wrong direction."

September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by SpongeRob:
I have offered to pony up for some time. http://www.keenpeople.com has both SQL and PHP services at my disposal. I could easily extract summary data and publish it on my site. It has currently over 1GB of available space. Which based on the 96K users on Geocaching.com should be plenty of space for such a task.

I have asked repeatedly to do a point system and/or stat system. I've been turned down. I've already implemented a cache rating system on http://www.keenpeople.com which many people use today - free.

I'm willing to pony up resources, time and development effort. All I need is DATA!!!!

If somone wants to assist, great. So long as it does not become extremely cost prohibitive I'm willing to do it all for FREE!!!

How many times do I have to offer?

--

Sponge_Rob_

rwmech@keenpeople.com)

http://www.keenpeople.com/

WPWU826

http://www.keenpeople.com/geocaching/cr.shtml

http://www.keenpeople.com/geocaching/images/crlogo.gif

Look at this, someone ready willing and able. Jeremy, take the offer.

GF

********************************************

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

24.7k · September 5, 2003

SpongeRob, how much time do you have on your hands? Is Keenpeople going to host or own the stats?

September 5, 2003

I should have enough time to take the task on. I work a 40 hour a week job. Have 3 kids and enough time to maintain keenpeople.com and still get out to geocache. Keenpeople.com can host the stats. The data of course necessary for the stats. What I need though is the source data.

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SpongeRob

WPWU826

September 5, 2003

And as far as the stats go, my philosopy is that the users own the stats. It's their data.

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SpongeRob

WPWU826

1.5k · September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by SpongeRob:
I should have enough time to take the task on. I work a 40 hour a week job. Have 3 kids and enough time to maintain keenpeople.com and still get out to geocache. Keenpeople.com can host the stats. The data of course necessary for the stats. What I need though is the source data.

--

Sponge_Rob_

rwmech@keenpeople.com)

http://www.keenpeople.com/

WPWU826

http://www.keenpeople.com/geocaching/cr.shtml

http://www.keenpeople.com/geocaching/images/crlogo.gif

Translation: He's going to work on the code for the stats at work, and plans his caching adventures there as well.

Brian

Team A.I.

September 5, 2003

quote:
Translation: He's going to work on the code for the stats at work, and plans his caching adventures there as well.

Ok, that's a little scary.

--

SpongeRob

WPWU826

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/default.aspx?A=130470

1.3k · September 5, 2003

Registered Members: 47902

This number is taken from the bottom of the forums. I believe (I may be wrong) that when you sign up for an account on geocaching.com it also creates a Groundspeak Forums account.

So currently, there are approximately 48k registered users, and approximately 10k wrote approx 44k logs. (That includes Finds, DNF's, notes and archivals) I'm not sure if that's caches only or if it includes travelbugs and/or benchmarks.

So - with roughly 48k users and 10k active - 1 out of 5 registered users was active in the last week.

Back to the thread - contact Dan and see if he still wants somebody to take over. It'd be a place to start. If nothing else you could see what works and what doesn't.

Of course, if it was possible to get the info straight from Geocaching.com it'd solve a lot of the problems that occured on Dan's site (missing logs, duplicate accounts, etc).

southdeltan

"Man can counterfeit everything except silence". - William Faulkner

1.5k · September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by SpongeRob:

quote:
Translation: He's going to work on the code for the stats at work, and plans his caching adventures there as well.

Ok, that's a little scary.

--

Sponge_Rob_

rwmech@keenpeople.com)

http://www.keenpeople.com/

WPWU826

http://www.keenpeople.com/geocaching/cr.shtml

http://www.keenpeople.com/geocaching/images/crlogo.gif

BUSTED!

Brian

Team A.I.

24.7k · September 5, 2003

Well SpongeRob. That's the quickest way if Dan will give you his site and you can port it to your new host.

6.4k · September 6, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Woodsters Outdoors:
There's 96K users?!

Registered users? WAY more then that. Heck Woodster, you are user number 130,470.

How many people have signed up since then? As for the number listed for forum users, that's just that. Forum. These forums are hosted at another website. Most cachers have never used the forums, so they are not part of that number.

Someone might want to ask Dan just how much bandwidth the stats site ate up. Once you get beyond the range of the typical personal homepage or small company, those costs could kill a site before it even got off the ground.

"This is gc.com, love it or leave it "

6.4k · September 6, 2003

OK, so I'm bored.

As of right this second, there are 157,195 registered users of geocaching.com. Of course, many of those are inactive, but you would still need to keep stats for those users.

"This is gc.com, love it or leave it "

September 6, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Renegade Knight:
Well SpongeRob. That's the quickest way if Dan will give you his site and you can port it to your new host.

I have thought about doing that as well or starting from scratch. I can't speak for him but I think Dan has offered in the past to turn over what he has to someone that has the ability to run such a site. But my guess is that he wants to make sure the person understands the amount of work involved.

I have a database that I think has a pretty complete list of all the caches as well as a large number of logs. I have played around with some code and worked up some pages that will display stats based on the data I have. It is still rough so it is nothing that I would release, but I only spent a couple of hours working on it. But it did help me see that it is very doable without a lot of effort.

I can't really remember all the the functions Dan's site provided because I really did not use the page. But I was thinking this might be fun to work on and had considered doing it as well and just offering it up for whoever might want it.

Two problems I ran into. The first was the same one that Dan had in that getting accurate data is a pain. It can be done but as everyone has knows some of the logs fell through the cracks because of the way Dan was forced to get that information. Not a major problem but one that still has to be overcome. This is not a problem for GC they have the data. The other problem is I don't want to spend time working on this and then have GC step in and start doing it themselves after they see how popular it is and may even be able to charge a few dollars for its use. I was not looking to make any money off of it but I don't want to create a site knowing that with a change in thinking from GC it would become obsolete overnight.

Elias has stated in the past that the way PQs are set up they currently have little to no effect on the servers. So I can't even remotely figure out what the problem is. Either offer up a stats page or allow someone to get at the data in full so they can do it. I suspect they don't want to get into a stats page because that opens up a whole other stream of feature request. This is one of the problems when one allows all the information to be kept in one basket. And that basket is concerned with a profit margin. I don't have a problem with making a profit and wish those involved with it well. But it has reached a point where on this and many other requests we have all seen raised here in the forums that they are unwilling or unable to meet.

This sport is growing and I think we are right on the edge of seeing the need for a change in the direction of how it is run. But so many have so much invested here that change is going to be difficult. They were the first to market and that is a tough nut to crack. How long (and maybe some still do) were we calling them IBM compatiable computers? But that has changed and IBM is now not really the mover and shaker it once was in the PC market.

September 6, 2003

Oh, another (but shorter) Stats thread.

I like stats and miss the leaderboard tally. I'd pony up $15 or $20 for stats, and imagine the most cost effective way is for gc.com to implement. They own the data; we cachers do the finds and furnish the data.

GC.com can probably help things by enabling the Total Find tally on the profile page, making sure Member-only data is exchangeable, and deciding if Locationless really is a find.

To cut down on bandwidth, perhaps a filter, Finds >100, can be set.

September 6, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Mopar:
OK, so I'm bored.

As of right this second, there are _http://www.geocaching.com/profile/default.aspx?A=157195_ registered users of geocaching.com. Of course, many of those are inactive, but you would still need to keep stats for those users.

+ _"This is gc.com, love it or leave it "_

Mopar, how did you get GeoGus and Team's id number?

Alchemist2000

2.1k · September 7, 2003

Mopar...that number is up to 157836, now.

Brian

As long as you're going to think anyway, think big. -Donald Trump

1.3k · September 7, 2003

You've got me on that one Mopar. The two websites are integrated to some degree, however. I also still don't remember setting up a seperate account. Perhaps you have to login to activate it? I'll double check by creating another account later (my wife needs one anyways).

It's interesting to see that only 30.5% of registered users have signed up for the forums. Of course it's obvious that all 48k people do not post regularly. I'd guess that only a fraction of that follows what goes on and a smaller fraction posts.

I'd guess that a lot of those 157k accounts have only found 1 or 0 caches. I base this on viewing several of the states pages (mainly the ones around mine) on Dan's site. MS had well a list that included approximately 600 people who had found or hid at least 1 geocache within the state. Of those 600 people - over 1/3 of them had only found (or hid) one ANYWHERE. There were also probably less than 1/3 that had more than 20ish hides/finds.

Check this out: (from ABOUT GEOCACHING)

As of today, there are 67244 active caches in 184 countries.

In the last 7 days, there have been 44904 new logs written by 10700 account holders.

Based on the numbers, less than 7% of registered users found a geocache in the last 7 days.

That backs up (but doesn't prove) that a lot of the accounts are inactive. It'd be interesting to see how many of those 157k accounts have been access in the last week or month, etc.

It's also interesting to note that there is an active geocache for roughly every 2.5 registrants.

southdeltan

"Man can counterfeit everything except silence". - William Faulkner

5.3k · September 7, 2003

[ bringing this back to intended topic ]

FWIW, I am an accomplished programmer that is probably recognizable in the geocaching community. I have offered to put my code where my mouth is. I have the resources, computer and human, within reach, even when not within immediate disposal - to help make this kind of thing happen.

Despite a couple of contact attempts, I've gotten no response from contact@geocaching.com.

If "the house" would give us a little wiggle room from the terms of service, this could happen in relatively short oder. If they could actually open up SQL access to a selected parntner, it could happen almost immediately.

But the fact that such requests are repeatedly ignored doesn't fare well.

24.7k · September 8, 2003

roberlipe, with you that's a team of three.

September 8, 2003

without cooperation and sanction from tptb ... this is going nowhere ... except perhaps to the creation of a completely new site that would take time to reach critical mass and be a lot of work, though perhaps fun as well ...

24.7k · September 10, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by hmarq:
without cooperation and sanction from tptb ... this is going nowhere ... except perhaps to the creation of a completely new site that would take time to reach critical mass and be a lot of work, though perhaps fun as well ...

Absolutly True hmarq.

Are there any states groups willing to back a stats site?

It geocaching.com willing to back one stats sight rather than tons of them?

September 10, 2003

Here's the problem ...

Stats != Leaderboard

Stats == data mining and many applications

gc.com somewhere, somehow believes there is a profit model based on having complete control of the data and that is at odds with the concept of data mining and syndication.

I don't see a solution here except perhaps starting 'opencaching.com' and starting from scratch with an open data lisence type deal. ... if that were to begin to take shape, tptb might have a change of heart just to keep some control, but pursuing that road is a long haul, more from a usage standpoint than technology ... I believe there is a core group of folks that could do the tech stuff without much problem ...

I believe that ultimately tptb will give us a leaderboard .. .but that won't give us all the other stuff ... ie, activity in an area, etc.

Just more random $0.02

September 10, 2003

My 2 cents, FWIW. We were paying members of GC.com for one year. We joined mainly for the opportunity of member caches and to support an activity we enjoy. When the member dues came around for year #2, however, we were watching the budget a little closer and making some cuts. We still enjoy geocaching but found that none of the member services really offered us anything more than we were getting with the *free* membership. There was only 1 member's only cache within 100 miles and we never did go search it. All the other stuff, we never used. What we DID enjoy was Dan's stats page. Were GC.com (or anyone else) to include a stats page as part of a membership, we would reconsider being paying members. Again, just my 2 cents...

GeoMedic - team leader of GeoStars

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

September 11, 2003

quote:
My 2 cents, FWIW. We were paying members of GC.com for one year.

quote:
Were GC.com (or anyone else) to include a stats page as part of a membership, we would reconsider being paying members.

This was my point in some earlier posts. Figure you have to have around 1000 paying members which results in 3K a month (at least). This does not include any "Gear sales". It's an online community of which voulenteers are your employees. So Jeremy pulls in the bucks and when the community asks for things we're told "It was never designed to be played this way". Get off your butt and respond to your CUSTOMERS Jeremy.

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SpongeRob

WPWU826

September 11, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by SpongeRob:

So Jeremy pulls in the bucks and when the community asks for things we're told "It was never designed to be played this way". Get off your butt and respond to your CUSTOMERS Jeremy.

Or, since Geocaching.com doesn't own the concept, you could create your own site that provides all those things the 'customers' are asking for, sell membership, and 'pull in the bucks' yourself...

Ron/yumitori

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Remember what the dormouse said...

September 11, 2003

The thought has crossed my mind but with other wildly successful sites like Navicache.com It's doubtful the user base would relocate regardless of features. Most people are too lazy to switch sites when they already have something that works. What we need is more features not another site.

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SpongeRob

WPWU826