Publicity- Good Or Bad

[+Confucius' Cat]

I wonder if more publicity for our sport is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand more publicity might dispel a little of the suspicion and result in fewer blown-up caches, on the other hand more publicity might result in more lost caches from people who learn about it but just don't "get it".

 

perhaps there are other considerations. Discussion open.

 

(This would make a good poll Yea or Nay for publicity- but the system says I cannot start a poll Whazzup with that?)

[+Renegade Knight]

I want acceptace by the people who have the ability to regulate geocaching adn the land managers who's land we need for our hobby.

 

After that I'm happy with a few friends who go with me. That and the cache owners who place caches...

[+jeff35080]

At first thought, I would agree with RK. However, I have met so many really nice people/families that have been recruited into geocaching that I can also disagree with RK.

 

Every time that I think that I have seen everything, a newcomer comes along and shows me something new via a geocache.

 

I guess I could argue it either way.

[+briansnat]

Good and bad. The good means there are more geocachers, thus more caches and more people to find your caches. The bad means there are more geocachers and in some cases more caches.

 

Positive publicity can also bring a level of legitimacy to the sport in the eyes of the public, on the other hand it cah bring the sport to the attention of radical environmentalists and land managers who mistakenly view the sport as a menace. It can also bring the sport to the attention of a handful of miscreants who think its fun to go out and steal, or vandalize caches (Thankfully, they usually lose interest after a few weeks and go back to shoplifting and smoking dope behind the school).

 

I know there is a contingent of "old timers" who wish the sport was still "their little secret", but in reality without publicity and the new blood it brings, the sport probably would have died a long time ago. You only have to look at the forums from 3 years ago (and the top 20 geocacher standings from then) to see how many people have dropped out of the sport along the way. Some may say its BECAUSE of the growth they dropped out and that may be true in a few instances, but without new geocachers to replace them, there'd be about 50 geocachers left in the world by now.

[Earthdog Patrick]

I don't care what you print about me, just spell my name right.

The reason people band together in groups is that a group can accomplish things that an individual can't, and the bigger the group, the more you can accomplish. You can play checkers with yourself, but what's the point? So big is good, and publicity creates bigness...

[+writer]

One thing that attention does is help ensure services and products for geocachers.

[Find Now, Log Later?]

I know there is a contingent of "old timers" who wish the sport was still "their little secret", but in reality without publicity and the new blood it brings, the sport probably would have died a long time ago. You only have to look at the forums from 3 years ago (and the top 20 geocacher standings from then) to see how many people have dropped out of the sport along the way. Some may say its BECAUSE of the growth they dropped out and that may be true in a few instances, but without new geocachers to replace them, there'd be about 50 geocachers left in the world by now.

Ah, yes ... the "Ylem" of the sport. The growth of geocaching does seem to be following the "Theory of the Oscillating Universe," and at some point "the rubber band" will be fully stretched and then the "universe of geocaching" will begin its contraction. It will be interesting to observe.

[dampeoples]

What's all the secrecy for? This website is public, free to, I might add. They put articles about it in the paper, mention it on the news from time to time, new people will come along when they are interested, some might try to steal a cache, wonderful. There are what, a million more? No matter what you do, someone will try to derail your efforts. Put another cache out there, keep having fun.

[+Confucius' Cat]

quote by Earthdog Patrick

<QUOTE>

You can play checkers with yourself, but what's the point?

</QUOTE>

 

No doubt, having just a few cachers would soon become like playing checkers with yourself. We would soon be reduced to begging each other to please place another cache.

 

The sheer numbers resulting from publicity means there will naturally be more caches to hunt. This is an absolute necessity. But those sheer numbers also mean there will be a lot more lame caches (by whatever definition each individual uses) that you must try to filter out to find a few good ones.

 

After a while, finding lame cache after lame cache would get more than a little frustrating. But OTOH this is a treasure HUNT. If you found treasure every time you sallied forth it would be a very unusual "hunt".

 

Six of one half a dozen of the other. You can have a few caches to find and a long ways between them, or a lot of caches of which only a few are good.

 

Overall though I think more is always better. (perhaps until you start to trip over them)

[+welch]

I guess I look at the issue like this. You can't determine who will be watching the news or reading the paper and will get the geocaching stuff. And you can't exactly tell the media "Don't talk about this or else!", what you can do is try to focus the image that is presented. If geocachers are involved in building the stories, maybe there will be fewer errors.

 

"they hack their way threw the parks, and dig up some nice treasure"

[+Two Geeks and a GPS]

We are avid cachers and get kind of frustrated when we hear or see stories that make cachers seem eccentric. However, Inow understand how that can happen without intending to. We took a reporter out with us today to show her what caching was about. We picked what seemed a nice, easy cache that we had not done before to give her a good impression. But the weather has a funny way of interfering with disastrous results. The cache was very near a river and it has been raining for several weeks so the river overflowed its banks. My husband thought the cache might be flooded and took a step into the water to get a better look. Alas, the water was deeper than expected and he fell in with the reporter snapping photos all the while. We never did find that cache and I'm sure the reporter thought we were nuts. (We did take her to another cache and successfully found it. Thank goodness - but I am afraid that she did not get the impression we were aiming for)

[+Confucius' Cat]

We picked what seemed a nice, easy cache that we had not done before to give her a good impression.

A lawyer once said something like "never put anyone on the witness stand unless you know what they are going to say".

 

The lesson to be learned from this is that if you are helping a newsbabe get a story, use a cache that you KNOW VERY WELL, perhaps even one of your own. It would even be a good idea to check it out just before the appointed hunt to make sure everything is OK

 

This way you can have a little better control of the overall impression although there is no way to be sure what kinda "spin" the reporter will put on the story.

 

I heard a news blurb the other day on WOWO in Ft Wayne, INdiana where the reporter said "they have things like cameras and VCRs in them?" and the cacher did not correct him. Well, sure there COULD BE cameras and VCRs in caches, but I'll bet I'm old and dead and gone before I ever FIND one.

 

Little things like this could cause a rush of cache hunters that are in it for the wrong reasons and could get messy.

[+Two Geeks and a GPS]

They specifically told us that it had to be one we hadn't done before, and since they can get that ibfo online we thought it best not to lie. The time frame made it impossible to go find it before (and not log it). Besides, she got the real jist of caching, sometimes rivers flood and hide caches and make trails muddy, sometimes while caching, you fall into rivers. Luckily, the next one we took her to we found w/ no problem.

[Da homies]

More publicity means more caches for me to find. I hope that one day I can find a cache anywhere I choose to travel.

[Find Now, Log Later?]

I know there is a contingent of "old timers" who wish the sport was still "their little secret", but in reality without publicity and the new blood it brings, the sport probably would have died a long time ago.  You only have to look at the forums from 3 years ago (and the top 20 geocacher standings from then) to see how many people have dropped out of the sport along the way.  Some may say its BECAUSE of the growth they dropped out and that may be true in a few instances, but without new geocachers to replace them, there'd be about 50 geocachers left in the world by now.

Ah, yes ... the "Ylem" of the sport. The growth of geocaching does seem to be following the "Theory of the Oscillating Universe," and at some point "the rubber band" will be fully stretched and then the "universe of geocaching" will begin its contraction. It will be interesting to observe.

I went back to another topic I posted a few weeks ago to gauge the level of activity since then.

 

Last time (May 8th and 9th), I mentioned that there were approximately 223,000 registered members of geocaching.com and that fewer than 5% of them had posted a log of any type in the previous week. (At the time, there were 97,759 active caches available to find.)

 

Since then, the number of registered members has increased approxmately 5.8%, to 236,000. The number of active caches has increased approximately 3.5%, to 101,189 active caches.

 

The one constant seems to be that all of the logged geocaching activity was (again) accomplished by approximately 12,900 registered geocachers. (5.4% of all registered geocachers were apparently active last week.)

Edited May 30, 2004 by Bassoon Pilot

[Earthdog Patrick]

But next week's sampling might contain a wholly or partially different set of cachers... In our area, even our most active cachers don't post finds EVERY week... Also, I wonder how many of the total cachers have not visited the site in say six months?

[CoyoteRed]

I would think publicity would be good if newcomers were indoctrinated properly. There is no emphasis on protecting the cache and leaving it suitable for finding for the next person. Other than that, I think "lame" is in the eye of the beholder.

 

Geocaching is no different than some other sports that have rules of etiquette. Violate them and you make the sport less enjoyable for you and others.

 

I've recently got into PWCs and I'm learning that many people view them as a nuisance. Mainly because of buzzing docks, other boats, and fishermen; driving erratically in buzy areas; or playing too near homes. I'm sure there are other things, too, but my point is the "bad guys" aren't thinking about others. Sometimes they don't care, but most of the time it's just being clueless.

 

It's the same with all offroad vehicles be it 4x4, ATV, or mountain bike. You've got to be considerate.

 

You think most stripmalls would have signs prohibiting skateboards if all skaters had been considerate? Probably wouldn't have been an issue in the first place.

 

I think gc.com's and TPTB's single largest failing is the lack of properly indoctrinating newcomers into the sport. If that took place, I'd welcome all newcomers to the sport.

[+JMBella]

Publicity can definitely have some negative effects. However, I am of the opinion that, overall it is a good thing. I myself would not have known about it if not for a newspaper article. (maybe that's a bad thing. Ask some of the Long Islanders) There have been quite few new cachers in my area since I started just about year ago. Most have added to the overall cache experience in the area. They've hidden great caches, helped others when needed, helped maintain caches if needed etc... Sure there's the occasional Gladware container with broken toys and dirty golf balls in it thrown in a bush for no apparent reason, but those instances are few and far between. My vote is: Publicity is GOOD.

Edited May 30, 2004 by JMBella

[Find Now, Log Later?]

But next week's sampling might contain a wholly or partially different set of cachers... In our area, even our most active cachers don't post finds EVERY week... 

Absolutely right. The topic of this thread is "publicity - good or bad." Perhaps the topic is not so "polarized" as that, because despite the increase in the number of registered members (and the increased number of active caches), the number of people actually logging caches has remained relatively static. To me, that suggests that despite the steadily increasing number of "registered" geocachers, little "real growth" has occurred.

 

In other words, while the steadily escalating number of registered members clearly suggests that publicity leads to an increase in the number of registered members actively geocaching, the number, (and percentage) of registered members actively logging caches suggests a much more static environment ... it suggests to me that newly registered members are merely replacing registered members who remain on the "active" roster but are no longer actually "active." And to me, that means that publicity, regardless of it being good, bad or indifferent, has little effect on growth ... rather, publicity seems to help sustain a constant level of activity.

Edited May 30, 2004 by Bassoon Pilot

[+The Jester]

A constant 5 percent doesn't mean the same number of cachers. The total number is growing, so the number of cachers is growing - 5 percent of 120 is greater than 5 percent of 100. Besides, you can make statistics say just about anything.

[Find Now, Log Later?]

A constant 5 percent doesn't mean the same number of cachers.  The total number is growing, so the number of cachers is growing - 5 percent of 120 is greater than 5 percent of 100.  Besides, you can make statistics say just about anything.

Yes, you are correct ... so work with the numbers. The newer numbers posted earlier today (approximately 12,900 of 236,000) actually indicate a slightly smaller percentage of active cachers than the May 9th figures of approximately 12,800 of 223,000. It's a small enough decrease that I labled the percentage of registered cachers posting logs as "static."

Edited May 31, 2004 by Bassoon Pilot

[+briansnat]

Yes, you are correct ... so work with the numbers. The newer numbers posted earlier today (approximately 12,900 of 236,000) actually indicate a slightly smaller percentage of active cachers than the May 9th figures of approximately 12,800 of 223,000. It's a small enough decrease that I labled the percentage of registered cachers posting logs as "static."

 

I don't think comparing random weeks a few weeks apart is valid. Comparing a week with same week the previous year is a better method.

[+sept1c_tank]

It is not a good thing. It is not a bad thing. The question is moot.

 

Publicity is a fact of life. It will continue to occur as long as the public finds our hobby a curiosity; we, as a geocaching community really have no control.

 

But for the sake of discussion: Yes publicity is a good thing. Think of it as education. I doubt there are many who would argue that education is a bad thing.

 

Except those who condone book burning.

[Find Now, Log Later?]

I don't think comparing random weeks a few weeks apart is valid. Comparing a week with same week the previous year is a better method.

Doesn't 'the business world' also rely on monthly, weekly, daily, and even hourly trends as indicators?

 

I do agree that it would be nice to have figures from one, two and three years ago. If you can conjure them up, that would be great. In any case, bookmark this thread and you will have some numbers and percentages available to refer back to next year.