It’s Not About the Numbers! (Or is it?)

[Cheesehead Dave]

I’ve hinted at this site before, but now that it’s a little more polished, I’ll make a more formal announcement:

For fun, I’ve put together a little site that will look at your caching finds and mangle them into some interesting statistics. I realize that while a lot of people are into geocaching for the sport of it, there are also a few who take an interest in their find numbers, which is why I used sort of a tongue-in-cheek name for it:

http://www.itsnotaboutthenumbers.com/

You have to be a Premium Member at GC.com because you need to generate the “My Finds” Pocket Query. Go to the PQ generation page, click the button that says “Add to Queue”, wait for the email to arrive, and upload that zip file to the stat site.

There’s a number of stats currently available, such as finds by cache or container type, a list of your milestone finds, and a list of the counties in which you’ve found caches, including a county map.

It’s all browser based, and it’s been tested on Macs and PCs using IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari.

[TurkeyTime]

Wow, this is really cool! It looks like it works wonderfully.
Thank you! 🙂

[EnergySaver]

very cool … while my numbers are lower than most, my T/D ratings are “above average” … which is makes sense, since we tend to go after the caches with longer hikes and scenic setting … so it passes my testing

[Uncle_Fun]

Thanks Dave!

I have really missed this from House of Brews site. I like that it tracks milestones as well. Even predicts when the next one will happen. Talk about pressure.

Uncle_Fun

[Team Deejay]

I hadn’t been back since you added the nationwide counties map feature. This is very cool.

Ya know…..since we are at least “sort of” central in the US…. I’m thinking….What about the “itsnotaboutthenumbers.com ALL US COUNTIES Challenge Cache”? You could probably get sponsorship from Exxon/Mobil. You probably wouldn’t have to put the cache out in the woods for at least 2 years!

[LDove]

Link not working? ❓

[Cheesehead Dave]

@Team Deejay wrote:

I hadn’t been back since you added the nationwide counties map feature. This is very cool.

Ya know…..since we are at least “sort of” central in the US…. I’m thinking….What about the “itsnotaboutthenumbers.com ALL US COUNTIES Challenge Cache”? You could probably get sponsorship from Exxon/Mobil. You probably wouldn’t have to put the cache out in the woods for at least 2 years!

I’ll get to that right after my Nationwide DeLorme challenge cache… 😈

[Decrepit]

Great job! My only comment is that moving caches seem to throw a wrench in the works. For instance, it says I did a cache in California… the last time I was in California was in 1987. I took a look to see what cache was listed as in CA and it was a moving cache that I did when it was here in WI.

[Senior Searchers]

Dave:

Thanks for putting this great site together. Since the HouseofBrew’s site has been fading away I really missed something like this. Your’s really is filled with many interesting stats. Thanks for the fun site 😀

Senior Searchers

[Cache_boppin_BunnyFuFu]

The site is pretty darn nifty I think!! As much as I HATED statistics class, I love look at stats of all types and THIS site does a great job! Found out, now I have to get BACK to Missoutri to get 2 more caches to claim the state… A running joke with me and Digital Dan that we have to have at least 3 to claim the state. LOL I have only 2 in Wyoming too, but we got 2 ft of snow dumped on us in May and I was digging on an MIA, then my camera disk went to heck and all the info on my Virtual went out with it. Oh well…. such is the life pf a Geocacher.

Great job on this site…. something more to look at other than just a total #.!! Thanks bunches!!

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

Hmmm Maybe Jeremy could put a link to this on the WGA site?

This is a great site. I can’t wait to hit all the counties…..in the nation.

Now accepting gas coupons..

[Cheesehead Dave]

@Decrepit wrote:

Great job! My only comment is that moving caches seem to throw a wrench in the works. For instance, it says I did a cache in California… the last time I was in California was in 1987. I took a look to see what cache was listed as in CA and it was a moving cache that I did when it was here in WI.

I’m going to start flagging traveling caches so they don’t show up on the map. If you have the GCID number, please send it to me in a PM and I’ll mark it as such.

[Jeremy]

Very cool Dave. I had always thought of doing something similar (stats breakdowns) on the WGA site once the “My Finds” PQ parser was up, but I don’t think I would have ever been able to develop something as extensive or polished. It is probably better that you are hosting this… then this great tool is then available to cachers worldwide versus just WGA members.

Speaking of which, if this site does get used by 1000s of people won’t the cacher stats list get impossibly long? Maybe allow people to put themselves in groups for easier access… like I would be in the “Wisconsin Cachers” group and maybe the “Milwaukee Area Cachers”. This would make the lists more manageable and you could more easily “watch” the group of folks you are interested in.

If in the future you cannot handle the bandwidth costs or maintenance of this site, I’m sure we would gladly host it on the WGA site (but it would then only be for our members).

[Jeremy]

@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:

Hmmm Maybe Jeremy could put a link to this on the WGA site?

You can always help me out by submitting a link. 😉

Anyway, it has been added as an “Essential Geocaching Link” and appears in the Quick Links box in the left hand column. Also I have pulled the House of Brew site from the “Essential” category because it has been non-functional for so long and it is likely not coming back…

[Cheesehead Dave]

@Jeremy wrote:

Very cool Dave. I had always thought of doing something similar (stats breakdowns) on the WGA site once the “My Finds” PQ parser was up, but I don’t think I would have ever been able to develop something as extensive or polished. It is probably better that you are hosting this… then this great tool is then available to cachers worldwide versus just WGA members.

I’m deliberately trying to make this available for all, not just Wisconsin cachers, although some of the features (e.g. the county map) are only useful for folks in the US.

Speaking of which, if this site does get used by 1000s of people won’t the cacher stats list get impossibly long? Maybe allow people to put themselves in groups for easier access… like I would be in the “Wisconsin Cachers” group and maybe the “Milwaukee Area Cachers”. This would make the lists more manageable and you could more easily “watch” the group of folks you are interested in.

I didn’t feel like setting this up with a whole login/password thing, otherwise I could have options like setting your home coordinates. As it is, it has no way of knowing where your “home area” is. I’ll probably end up breaking it up a couple of ways: an alphabetical drill-down, and a list of the cachers with the most recent updates.

If in the future you cannot handle the bandwidth costs or maintenance of this site, I’m sure we would gladly host it on the WGA site (but it would then only be for our members).

I’ll be curious to see how this goes. I have 75 gigs available monthly for bandwidth. at a megabyte per gpx file, hopefully that’ll be enough…

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