Facebook groups versus the WGA website?

[Noonan]

At one point I had almost 6000 FB friends. I taught, ran for public office and was an early user of FB. I pitched it a opulent of years ago and don’t miss it. I am glad we have this forum for lurkers like me to see what is going on.

I had a few LCG questions a while back that never got answered, but I figured things out although it cost me a few lonely cache scores in the process. FB would’ve been a fast remedy but I really don’t want to go back on there.

I just wish there was more opportunity to meet others and cache together at times. With the low traffic I see from people in this area I will just keep waiting to bump into them while out and about in the electric geomobile.

Having said that, I hope no one else hits Spike’s newest caches before the weekend, I can get some more FTFs under my belt, half of them were taken on Wednesday with the warm weather.

Resuming lurk mode.

The best sig is no sig.

[Walkingadventure]

Noonen I personally am sorry that you had LCG questions that went unanswered.

Did you find what you needed if not PM me and best of luck for the new WGA State Park Cache (& others).

Following the signals from space.

[gotta run]

There are two parts of the answer to this IMO.

First, the Facebook experience is integrated. Everything comes into one place. Like most people here I belong to numerous groups, each of which has its own forums. However I simply don’t have the time to go out and check them all daily. Facebook consolidates everything from those groups’ pages into one feed.

The social aspect also is part of it–why is the thread stealer link the most popular page here despite having no inherent geocaching value?

Second, the decline of the forum is related to the decline of the WGA which is related to the decline of geocaching. I am talking about the decline of geocaching not in pure numbers, because numbers of caches and cachers obviously continue to grow. However, the game itself has diminished from something special into a lowest-common-denominator activity.

When we started playing this game eight 😯 years ago, it was truly a “high-tech treasure hunt” taking you to out-of-the-way places. The technology was also sketchier. There was much more to be gained from networking with people, through the forums, for advice about how to do things.

Today, geoaches are everywhere, park-and-grabs are ubiquitous, and geocaching is well-known. There are classes in school, girl scout and boy scout badges, youth programs, and on and on. There are freely available smartphone apps. There is simply less of a need for people to network because, quite frankly, the game has gotten a lot more easy and a lot less special.

My 2 cents which, added to $1.98, will get you a grande Pike’s Place black.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Trekkin and Birdin]

GR, Your second point really puts into words something we haven’t been able to articulate. We have long since realized that, yes….it’s changed. We’ve done plenty of those roadside caches, but miss the enjoyment a good old fashioned hike or paddle into a more remote area involves. We still put out those types of caches, but they sit unloved unless someone comes through to gather up Lonely points. Our favorite places to cache remain the northern parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, because that old school stuff is still around up there. When you put it that way, I see there’s less need for a forum to discuss geocaching stuff.

Facebook….I just struggle with that one. I discovered you can’t really leave facebook, just deactivate, and I wanted to keep it available because it is a nice “history” for me of when we did certain things. I actually stayed off it for four months and really didn’t miss it after a couple weeks except……birding stuff. So I’m back there but I get frustrated that often, it’s not really a social connection, but funny memes that I need to get past to find anything in the way of my connections and conversations. That’s why I signed off in the first place….it was too hard to actually connect and I didn’t want to spend my time sifting through all that stuff to find it. My facebook friends, all people I actually know in real life, fall into a few basic groups. Family, friends from geocaching, friends from birding and friends from storytelling. I find that as a group, my friends from storytelling are the ones with the highest rate of actual “let’s share our experiences and ideas.” It’s also probably a good thing then that we tend to cache on our own, so we don’t have the need to make all these connections. Because we aren’t in any of the “let’s get together” geocaching facebook pages where that kind of thing happens. We don’t want to be added to them, either. I still wish people would do more sharing here, because as someone commented, some of us are willing to travel to meet friends and make new ones and discover new places, but we aren’t going to know about them as things generally stand now.

It’s been nice to see people crawl out of the woodwork and add their insights here. Thanks for taking your time to do that, everyone!

[Northwoods Tom]

Noonan and Gotta Run summed up what I feel/felt.

Noonan, although I live in far northeast Wisconsin, I consider myself an up north cacher. New Richmond is leaning that way so I might suggest the following. Due to the mass of population being towards southern Wisconsin it’s going to be more heavily represented in the forums. There are still other cachers in the state from your area who although fewer are active and do check the forums and get together. Many don’t post real often but they do check it out. The events up north when they occur are great and many of the cachers from down south often attend. I’ve met some wonderful down south and north people at these events. Hayward Cheezehead has held many events where I have developed caching friends and made connections where we have latter cached together or just gotten together. Over in Rhinelander you’ll find events happening, Eau Claire, just watch the calendar (And I haven’t even mentioned the WGA events or those down south!).

Gotta Run identifies my feelings on my present caching style. I cache according to where I live and vacation. I go after those out of the way caches. Because it’s where I spend my vacation time and what’s available. Before I broke a 1000, I was out to grab any and all. After I hit it, I became more selective. Not a number but an experience is what I was looking for. I know that if I lived in the city with a high cache density, it would be check them all out! Because its there and easily available. Up north, it has become more of relaxed stroll rather than a sprint. Rural caching vs city caching, both fun but very different animals and which one is something you will be comfortable with, maybe even bears and ticks vs traffic and crowds of people, smart phone and cell service vs topographic map and compass.

[Noonan]

The real kicker to all this is, I lived in Marinette all my life (hi Todd!) but moved here before getting into caching and missed the state get together in Tommy’s park because we were over here when everyone was there!

Being close to Hudson (150+) caches, River Falls (180+) caches, and Stillwater (180+) caches I have plenty of opportunity to post numbers when the weather gets better. What is also great about here is the huge number of rural/park caches too.

The best sig is no sig.

[Hotdogs_Off_Trail]

Just another view from some older (in more ways than one) geocachers. I am on Facebook, but intermittently look at my page. I am a lurker on this page quite a bit, although not too much recently due to vacations, and usually do not post unless I find a topic that interests me.

I’m old school and still print cache pages, and, just before leaving for Arkansas 2 months ago, I finally bought a used laptop to take on vacation. Still figuring how to use it.

I like this website and refer others to it as representative of Wisconsin Geocachers.

[The Lil Otter]

I come here on this site… using Facebook for only my games.. (smiles) I still consider geocaching a sport… go figure (grins)

[kungfuhippie]

I try and come on the site daily if possible because when I got into caching, I found the WGA and the first cachers I met and learned from came through these forums. I’m also on FB and the various groups there and honestly it’s easy to connect with people there since most the notifications that I get are from caching related groups or caching friends.

One thing that would be nice and possibly regenerate some of the traffic here is some sort of “chat” feature. I’m a member of GONIL and they have a weekly chat on Tues nights. It’s nice to stop in and say hi to friends I’ve met in the Chicago area over the years or if I’m planning an outing in that direction. To be fair, I have no idea about the cost/effort to get something like that going, but other than the WGA, GONIL and their chat is the only group I keep up with regularly.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Ha ha, I’m glad I started this thread if for no other reason than to pull hotdogs and The Lil’ Otter out of hiding! 😉

[MissStephieFaye]

Coming from the twenty something group and a bit younger, I find the forums can be a bit overwhelming. While conversations on Facebook can be a bit more manageable. This could be because the newer catchers are those that grew up with sites like Facebook and MySpace when forum use has become a lesser form of communication. Thinking more into how forum conversations can be overwhelming, they can also be intimidating for new cachers that have an idea but they don’t know if that idea will be welcomed with the older cachers. Coming from a time when everything you do and say is judged its hard to get rid of the mentality that it will happen here as well. Though I personally know it’s rare and most of the cachers within the association are very open and willing to help.

It also could do with many people now a days stay with a few sites because (this might be a lazy factor) keeping track of conversations on multiple sites can just be a pain in the butt.

[sevencards]

@Trekkin and Birdin wrote:

Ha ha, I’m glad I started this thread if for no other reason than to pull hotdogs and The Lil’ Otter out of hiding! 😉

I agree…with the quoted as well as the opinions from the select. I left the group caching because I enjoy the satisfaction of completing a task alone or with a safety spotter.

Some of the fb groups post spoilers or heads up notifications of caches.

this is my opinion as I see it.

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