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DeeJay,
Hopefully Jeremy can get you the info in some sort of a database file (csv or otherwise). If not, the manual process is a bit of a pain, but could be done in an hour or so. If jveschminski can’t do it easily, I can take care of putting that together for you.
Team GeoPink – Co-conspirators to make the world a better place…
– Jeff Rahmlow
WGA President
geopink at wi dash geocaching dit comThe comments and opinions above are those solely of Team GeoPink (arcangl7) and are not those of the WGA, the WGA board, or its other fine members.
Here are a couple of Bookmark lists that were put together to highlight caches:
http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=c39895c0-17fe-4232-a6b1-469dbf886ac6
http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=65d413b8-362b-4258-a127-b34b83c09894After some thought on the subject, I think that Marc’s idea at the start of this thread has some merit. I don’t favor distinction by region or cache type. JMHO.
~tb
quote:
Originally posted by Team Deejay:
Jeremy, If you could send me the information for past months, I will put together the honorable mention list and maintain it. Any format is acceptable (even handscrawled on a napkin) as long as I can either see it or read it into some sort of program.
I put together an “unofficial” list of COTM honorable mentions and sent it to Deejay. Unofficially there are about 130 caches in the list going back to February of 2003. This count may be a little high, and I’m going to rely on Deejay to let me know about the problem caches in the list. Once the list is cleaned up, I will make it publicly available (there will be a link to it off the main COTM page).
Note that I also added links to the COTM winners and COTM honorable mention geocaching.com bookmark lists to the WGA COTM page. I think having the bookmark lists in addition to the official lists on the WGA site is a good idea, and I thank the folks who are/will be keeping them updated.
quote:
Originally posted by jvechinski:
I put together an “unofficial” list of COTM honorable mentions and sent it to Deejay. Unofficially there are about 130 caches in the list going back to February of 2003. This count may be a little high, and I’m going to rely on Deejay to let me know about the problem caches in the list. Once the list is cleaned up, I will make it publicly available (there will be a link to it off the main COTM page).Note that I also added links to the COTM winners and COTM honorable mention geocaching.com bookmark lists to the WGA COTM page. I think having the bookmark lists in addition to the official lists on the WGA site is a good idea, and I thank the folks who are/will be keeping them updated.
The bookmark list is out on GC.com. Note that the list does not include any archived caches, nor any inactive caches which don’t show activity by the owner within 3 months (my personal pet peeve). There are currently 86 caches on the list, including 2 inactive: Get Fit Travel Bug Hotel and The Big Payout. Both of these show recent owner activity. If you have an inactive cache that you want on the list, just activate it and let me know.
When I first started visiting the WGA site and saw the category of COTM, I thought it would be a NEW cache that came out THAT month. That just seemed logical to me. In fact, it still seems like the logical thing to do. Beyond that, I initially figured, NEW caches nominated would be reviewed by some appointees of the WGA, that would use a defined criteria to select a COTM. Still seems like the logical thing to do….. I’d think with a little effort cache evaluation criteria could be set up, and let’s say (2) individuals from each of the (4) regions of the state could be appointed to actually go out and review caches based on the criteria. These people would then communicate with each other what they found and ultimately select the COTM. That way it would mean something. I also believe that would encourage MORE excellent caches to be placed as well. Having it open to ALL that have ever been placed is too large of a community, which leads to many caches being nominated and only getting one or two votes. This would keep it up to date and relevant as well as give recognition for the effort, and encourage high quality hides to be made. Then, as now, Cache-Of-The-Year (COTY) would come from those choices. Would be nice if COTY could be announced at the Annual WGA picnic with perhaps some kind of plaque or something. I really feel, done in a relevant manner, it would generate more enthusiasm.
I still think that the generic concept of ____ of the Month -vs- Geocaches, is always prone to conflict.
Should a cache “win” because it’s well hidden … or because it has a cool container … or because it takes you to the coolest spot in Wisconsin … or because the whole theme is well thought out.
If I was voting on the Cherry Pie of the Month … I could decide what pie I liked the best. And in the case of voting for a Cherry Pie, one could assume I tasted all the Pies in the contest … and that all the Pies in the contest were tasted by the same amount of judges.
Very few people have “tasted” ALL the geocaches in Wisconsin, so maybe only those few people should be allowed to vote. I really enjoy a well done cache and we’re picky about what caches we go to, since I know we’re only going to find a few, I try to pick ones that will be the most memorable or at least an enjoyable hike. So, since we’ve only found 3 or 4 hundred caches … do we even have enough of a knowledge base to vote for a COTM?
My point … not sure I really have one … other than I think there’s NO truely right way to run COTM.
Thanks a lot Team Deejay and Team Geopink on working on the honorable mention list. I think that was a great idea, and a real asset to the geocaching community.
I think the honorable mention list can be helpful in identifying “quality” caches. I know quality is very subjective, and we probably all have differing opinions of what makes for a quality cache, depending on our personal preferences. However, it does mean that at least someone thought a cache on the list was high quality, and hopefully we will like it too.
Again, thanks a lot Geopink and Deejay for making this happen.
zuma
It is all one cache.[This message has been edited by zuma (edited 03-07-2006).]
Looking at the parent post, that reminds me of a cache rating system that I proposed on the GC.com site.
My plan was that everyone would get a “token” for every ten caches they’ve found with a maximum of ten tokens per cacher. They could then assign any or all of their tokens to up to ten of their favorite caches. There wouldn’t be any sort of a ranking; it would just signify that “this cache is one of my ten favorite caches.”
On the cache page, you would then see something like “This is a favorite cache of 24 people.” Thanks to the miracle of technology, you could then click on that text and get a page listing all of the other caches that those 24 people have listed as a favorite, grouped by cache. So of those 24 people that liked cache A, you could see that 19 of them liked cache B. That way, you could determine that if that many people liked cache A and so did you, that maybe you’d probably enjoy cache B as well.
If you find a cache you like better, you can reassign your tokens to new caches at any time. In order to keep the system from going stale, tokens would expire after six months and return to your inventory. This would keep deteriorating caches from keeping high ratings from cachers who ranked it as a favorite but are no longer active cachers so their tokens get “stuck” on old or archived caches.
This is something that could probably be created externally where if you choose to participate, you could register your caches on a site and get a graphic to paste into your cache page. Finders would have to go to that page to vote for your cache.
The idea was shot down, but I still like it better than a rating system.
Thanks for the kind words, Zuma. Thanks are also due to jvechinski (I hope I spelled that right!), who made the whole thing possible. I haven’t been around long enough to know which caches were nominated (as if I could remember them.) He extracted the nominees for the system and created the webpage version of the list. I just did the GC list version.
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy & the beast:
with over 80% of the State’s population in the South of the State; I think we should see more than 65% of the COMHere’s the breakdown… (Last couple months not included…)
This is what I think is around and between Madison and Milwaukee. Inside the red is reasonable caching area while yellow is extended and beyond that is a special trip.
This is my area.
[This message has been edited by pcfrog (edited 03-09-2006).]
Lots of interesting things have appeared in this forum, but what about my original suggestion? Please?!
I still think an ongoing list of all the caches anyone would recommend is worth considering. As more indidivuals ‘vote’ for a particular cache, it would rise in the list and serve as an indication that perhaps you should look into it.
quote:
Originally posted by marc_54140:
Lots of interesting things have appeared in this forum, but what about my original suggestion? Please?!I still think an ongoing list of all the caches anyone would recommend is worth considering. As more indidivuals ‘vote’ for a particular cache, it would rise in the list and serve as an indication that perhaps you should look into it.
I think it’s a good idea. Perhaps I’ll try and whip something together and see if I can come up with something that people might like.
At the risk of sounding like I’m whining… (which, I guess I might be a little bit), here’s a note I wrote to the board that I’d like to share with all of you… (in reference to: GCVM4W )
I felt I needed to write to express my disappointment at your new rule requiring that someone be a member of WIGCA to vote for COTM – and, that to become a member, one must reside in the state.
This has, in essence, made it so that nobody’s cache from a small, border community can realistically win the award. Superior is a small town on the border of WI/MN – and, most of the people who find my caches are from Duluth and the surrounding communities. However, these people are unable to vote for my cache for COTM. Further, for the people in Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, etc. – the vast majority of those who find their caches will be WI residents and will be able to join and, therefore, be able to vote. Yes, some with be from out of state, but by far, most will be from within.
It’s sad when the small town caches have absolutely no way to compete with the larger city caches – especially those located in the heart of WI. Your current voting requirements skew things to those caches – and, again, the northern half of the state goes unrecognized.
I realize my cache (GCVM4W) is still “in the running” for COTM, but it seems unlikely to be able to pull it out in the long run, because most of our caching community up here happens to live in Duluth (the larger population center).
Thank you for listening…
All the best, and happy caching to you all,
-Glen from Team Petey. (A Superior, WI resident)
@Team Petey wrote:
I felt I needed to write to express my disappointment at your new rule requiring that someone be a member of WIGCA to vote for COTM – and, that to become a member, one must reside in the state.
Just to set the record straight, you now need to be logged in to vote for COTM, but not necessarily a WGA member. You can create a user account on the WGA website even if you are not eligible to be a WGA member or don’t want to provide the necessary membership information… all you need is a valid email address. These “WGA Friends” are allowed to post in the forums, vote for COTM, and almost everything else a full member can.
The reason for requiring someone to be logged in was to eliminate the COTM vote fraud we’ve seen in the past. This has only happened a couple times (once or twice a year) and usually it is easy to spot, but with the logged in user requirement the chance of serious fraud is a lot lower.
Only accepting votes from logged in users also allowed us to give people the ability to delete their votes and recast them, something that several members asked for.
If there is enough interest/negative feedback, we could switch back to the old way of doing things.
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