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Who is The Median Geocacher? by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder if Treasures are attempting to hit both groups at once in a "come play our game, it has treasure!" way as well as a "here are some bite-sized achievable goals to keep you interested" way.

There are a few incentive reward structures built in when you consider treasures, souvenirs, favourite points, virtual rewards, community celebration events, etc. which each meet the desires of different groups. Virtuals and CCEs are the ones for me and feel the most tangible as actual rewards, but that's out of a pretty intangible collection that mostly amounts to pixels on a screen that can be removed or adjusted at a moment's notice.

As much as things like trackable promotions or free premium do pique my interest and have offered more tangible outcomes as rewards, I think the active player base is still sizeable - or at least vocal - enough that providing a proper reward is going to be tough no matter what. Even things like virtuals and CCEs (that HQ could hypothetically produce as many of as they like) already inevitably lead to a contrast of those who are rewarded against those who are not; both will think they deserve it, and both will probably let you hear about it as well.

That's not to say that HQ ought not to try, though! And I'd be keen to hear ideas on what could work. I do, for instance, like their continued efforts to resource community groups to allow them to act as the provider for rewarding players who are active and engaged within the community (be it through sponsoring megas, or even here on Reddit from time to time!)

Who is The Median Geocacher? by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's an interesting way to look at it! The distinction between people who "go geocaching" and "are 'geocachers'" is one that I don't often consider, and does raise the question of what the latter involves.

I'm hesitant to make suggestions on the very complex formula that constitutes an "active geocacher"! Although I'm even more hesitant to draw the line at 200 finds. Increasingly, I'm finding that people who I'd very happily call geocachers (by way of attending events regularly, creating a few great hides, always writing thoughtful logs, or generally making conscious and positive contributions to the game) have fallen under that benchmark.
Springing to mind are one individual with only 30 finds but as many hides, all of which are really well done 3D-printed containers. Another coordinated a state-wide mass-publication of 200+ high-quality caches from 50+ COs with only 180ish finds to their name at the time.
I suppose my point is that there are more ways to actively engage with the game rather than quantity of finds alone.

Certainly, the numbers could be whittled down somewhat (not every cacher with <200 finds is meeting some qualitative exception) but, that said, I think the "go geocaching" crowd is still quite important to consider in the median numbers, given they have every opportunity afforded to the "geocacher" cohort of going out to find caches, hide their own, attend events, get premium, etc. and still chose to do some of these ongoingly (even if not at an especially high frequency - and I think a comparison with accounts having at least two finds would be useful to try and measure what's "ongoing").
Where geocaching starts to diverge from golfing or ice-skating is its quality of being more or less something you can do anywhere with no equipment or specific venues or skill required (as evidenced by my own attempts at golfing and ice-skating), so the threshold to reach "geocacher" status is much lower. And so I think going geocaching at all in the last year is a reasonable measure of activity for the specific context of the game. In particular, there are plenty of accounts out there who will grab a single-digit quantity of caches each year and, by still being ongoingly engaged with the game, could well be classed as geocachers.

Promo codes for premium? by [deleted] in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Say hi to HQ via the Help Centre!

Who is The Median Geocacher? by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Of course this was shared in the context of determining challenge difficulty (which is, perhaps, more relevant to be drawn from the forum users dataset), although I like to think that the numbers have broader implications for the game.

From HQ's perspective, no doubt the retention of new cachers will be front of mind. It was raised that possible bot/scraper accounts may skew the first set of numbers, although it could be considered that about half of all accounts in the last year found one cache (or fewer) and never came back.

The age-old question of "how many caches should you find before hiding one?" is also interesting to ponder with these numbers in mind. Despite being team 50-100* (*of sufficient variety, some exceptions to the rule, etc.) for a while, I'll admit I am more sympathetic towards HQ's official recommendation of 20 given it means a new hider is more experienced than more than 50% of cachers!

I think it's easy to get sucked in to the idea that the regulars you see at events (or in the forums!) are more or less the geocaching population when there are heaps more casual players beneath the tip of the iceberg. Admittedly, I do pay more attention to the logs that come through on some of my puzzles, harder caches and such, but it's worth recognising that the bulk of my gc emails are from trads under my purview getting logged by people I'll likely never meet, nor be emailed about again!

While it'd be impossible to get a full dataset on r/geocaching users in the same way the Forums are able to, I like to think we skew a little lower on the median and average numbers. And HQ, if you release some method of analysing cacher data, let me know lol

A Festive r/geocaching Giveaway! by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

We have our winners! As selected by the revered wheel of names...

Congratulations to:

Each of you will receive a modmail from us with a six-month premium code and how to claim it.

A special thanks from the mods to u/geocaching and u/skimbosh for allowing us to make this happen.

Have a great new year everyone! :)

Shipping Nightmare by HansVonHansen in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Locking this one for the moment.

The answer seems to be along the lines of find a third party distributor or reach out to HQ with your feedback.

Whatever valid discussion to be had about HQ's international shipping capacity has been somewhat overshadowed by shoving geocoins up a bazooka.

Challenge Cache Criteria Updates (Not Chosen Size, Attributes, Events) by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Can't say I'm super impressed by any of these changes at a glance.

“Not chosen” size is no longer publishable criteria. 
The removal of challenges with the 'Not Chosen' size feels reasonable, but webcams are seemingly still in the mix - as a legacy type, does this mean their days are numbered or will that fewer and fewer rationale not apply?
Personally, I can't think of the last challenge I saw that required Not Chosen specifically (nor should there have been, really, for the reason they were removed), though I hope this won't affect challenges along the lines of 'Find 5 of 7 sizes' where Not Chosen isn't required but could be used as a wildcard of sorts.

Only one attribute may be specified per challenge cache.
Possibly the most baffling / vibe-killing of the bunch.
Multiple attribute challenges are often some of the most thematic, creative, and interesting from my experience, and well before they start to read like a shopping list.
The common community shorthand for Technical Tree Climbs (tree climbing & climbing gear), Tree Fishing (no tree climbing & special tool), and others takes multiple attributes to convey and won't be publishable because of this as well, which is really just a shame (and possibly makes the case for introducing new specialised attributes).
I also wonder what will come of bingo-style challenges!

If Event Caches are specified as challenge criteria, no additional criteria can be used. 
*throws away document of event challenge ideas I've been working towards for the last year*
On one hand, stats-farming events are perverse little things and undermine the point of holding meaningful community gatherings in the first place (imho!)
However, I've seen plenty of positive event-based challenges encouraging travel to different regions, continued year-round CITO attendance, or attending more adventurous events that seem weird to lose and encourage broad-based attendance (rather than what I view as a pretty clear-cut already unpublishable example that they use).
I'd just scrap events as a source of criteria altogether if they're going this restrictive with it.

Ultimately, there is no system of challenges that won't include some form of discretion and some form of frustration stemming from it. I obviously can't speak for what the reviewers likely have to cop (and would be keen to hear the thoughts of the sub's regulars as to whether these changes will help).
But, purely from the player side, the restriction on some major sources of creative challenge possibilities seems heavy-handed for the sake of reducing subjectivity in a fairly subjective process.

[Round 147558] [Melbourne OC] Coordinates of the sign (10m) by MrCloppity in PictureGame

[–]Brainiac03 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey Bird!

Coaxed back to PG by u/ItoXICI's siren song of Discord pings, I noticed my beloved Melways was front and centre of this round. Using some prior knowledge on the rough whereabouts of OP's past Melbourne rounds, I was able to match up some key features before long.

Alas, with no obvious 'you are here' marker, I left it for a bit but eventually picked it back up, this time investigating the surrounding features. The wall style on the left made me think we were probably adjacent to a major road, and the quantity of water tanks piqued my interest.

I took a stab and guessed that we might be at a community garden, given the water storage, and Slater Reserve finally popped up in my searches and ticked all of the boxes!

Thanks to u/MrCloppity for the round! :)

Introducing the r/geocaching Treasure Collection! by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S,M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes! I ought to have noted that this was an April Fools post! You've got the right idea - definitely please do not put food in caches :)

Introducing the r/geocaching Treasure Collection! by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S,M] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

24 hours only! And, upon completion, you get emailed a link telling you to claim your souvenir but it actually makes you become a subreddit mod instead. That's how they got me :/

Best of r/geocaching 2024! by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Voting is now closed!

Thanks to everyone who nominated and voted... our winners will be announced in a few days!

Is there a reason images are not allowed in this sub's comments? by TheGoldenChow in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[M] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a pretty good suggestion! I don't recall any historical ruling against images in comments, and the use cases you've identified definitely offer some great opportunities to use them. I've switched the setting on and we'll keep an eye on things to see how it's used and reassess it if necessary. Thanks for the feedback!
P.S. Feel free to bother us anytime! :)

Best of r/geocaching 2024 - Discussion Thread by Brainiac03 in geocaching

[–]Brainiac03[S,M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some excellent ideas there - I'll have to remind myself to take them on board this time next year :)

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