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(note:just registered and this is my first post.)
We’ve been placing some members only caches with the intention of changing that option after one month or six finds. We’ve put extra work and money into these caches so we felt it appropriate to allow paid members first chance at the find. Turns out there must be very few paid members in our area or few people who travel this far north. The first MOC was only found once in the first month. I’ve found that the most interesting thing is to use the audit log to see who viewed our caches. Looks as if the premium members all come from south east WI. We had five MOC and are now starting to make them available to everyone. I’m getting the feeling there are not enough members in our area to justify making a cache MO.[This message has been edited by Crazy4 (edited 05-12-2005).]
I support the membership only concept. I liken it to getting a hunting or fishing license. As long as there are enough free caches for someone to determine if they are interested in the hobby, I’m for MO caches.
Steve Bukosky
Waukeshaquote:
Originally posted by Crazy4:
( I’ve found that the most interesting thing is to use the audit log to see who viewed our caches.[This message has been edited by Crazy4 (edited 05-12-2005).]
What is this audit log you speak of? Is it an option with a M.O. cache? I own 14 caches and do not recall being able to see these stats anywhere.
Another thing I would like to see as a cache owner is a list of the people that are “watching” your cache.
AstroD-Team
Welcome, Crazy4! It’s good to see a geocacher here from my neck of the woods.
quote:
Originally posted by Crazy4:
The first MOC was only found once in the first month.Well, at least one of the local geocachers didn’t know about your new caches for two reasons.
[*]I’ve been too busy with work and the campout stuff to look for caches.
[*]There are so many new ones in my area that your’s may not be showing up on my listing right now. (Just checked – they don’t show up until page 6.)I’d be happy to look for them. I have really enjoyed your caches in the past. I just need to get a bit of free time.
Again, welcome! Hope to see you at the campout.
Ruth
Hi there bnb! Geocachers seem to be few and far between up here! On email, I often sign myself as “Lost in the Wisconsin Northwoods” because of our being in the emiddle of nowhere.
To answer AstroD-Team’s question.The audit log link shows up when you designate a cache as members only. It shows who looked at your cache page, and when they looked, their first visit, their last visit and how many times they have visited that page. By looking at the profiles of who looked at each page, you can see where people have been caching. This info may then be used to deduce the general area where people live. We live in Northern WI, in a previously cache poor area where there seem to be very few geocachers. Most of the MOC that we have done have been viewed by a dozen or more individuals, usually only once or twice. The audit log was interesting at first, but because only one of our MOC has been found in a month, I’m losing interest in doing them, even tho we have (I think) made them high quality caches in interesting places.[This message has been edited by Crazy4 (edited 05-13-2005).]
Well, I hope you don’t lose complete interest in doing them. I’m sure I would have checked yours out on one of the caching weekends I was at Lake Wissota.
You’re right, though, I just checked on some of the more recent geocachers in our area and most are not premium members.
As I said before, I really like your caches so I hope you keep putting them out in one form or another. I promise I’ll make a caching trip out your way sometime after the campout.
quote:
Originally posted by Crazy4:
I’ve found that the most interesting thing is to use the audit log to see who viewed our caches. Looks as if the premium members all come from south east WI.I’ll bite too. What is the “audit log”?
[This message has been edited by RangerBoy (edited 05-14-2005).]
Howdy RangerBoy!
I explained just about everything I know about the audit log in my previous post. Don’t think I left anything out. If you send in your money and become a paid member it is a feature that becomes available to you when you make a new cache. You’re allowed to designate it “Members Only.” A Members Only designation makes your cache unavailable to “members” (geocachers who have not yet become paid subscribers to geocaching.com) and only available to “Premium Members” (geocachers who have paid $30 to geocaching.com) If you want your caches to be found, it seems to me to be a distinct disadvantage to make them Members Only, especially if you live in an area with very few paid members. Did I make that clear as mud? Oh well.[This message has been edited by Crazy4 (edited 05-14-2005).]
Whoops. I must have jumped in the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t looking. I didn’t notice your newer post with the explanation.
Cool. Now I understand, you have to designate a cache MO first. I didn’t have any like that so I was looking at my pages and not seeing any audit log feature. I’ll have to make my next one MO and give it a whirl. Thanks for the 114.
114? Must be a gene pool thing again!
All our new caches that we had made “members only” have now been changed to regular caches. One of the reasons I thought we should become paid members was that we would have access to more caches (i.e.- members only) in our area. Turns out there are almost no other “members only” caches in the whole state. The fact that our new caches were “invisible” to most people really defeats the purpose of putting them out there. Most of our MO caches were placed a month or more with no finders. I feel “members only” is an interesting concept but make little sense, at least for us. Has anyone else tried making “members only” caches and been satisfied with the results? This is probably a different topic, but at the moment, I’m pondering why all geocaching.com users shouldn’t be required to become paying members to use the service.
[This message has been edited by Crazy4 (edited 05-25-2005).]
I was hunting the “Find Jimmy Hoffa” multi, and it went Members Only in the middle. Great. Like remodeling isn’t enough time and expense at the moment.
Should everyone pay? Many people who do work for Geocaching.com volunteer, such as cache approvers. Should they now have to pay for using the service they dedicate time to? If the answer is no, then you can expect the quality to drop as some people hitch a free ride by using a magic 8 ball to approve caches.
Do YOU think you should place a Members Only cache is the question. You need to be a member to do so, and it’s fine by me if you do, but I’ll have to hold off on hunting it until the remodeling is done and I put my $30 in for an account.
I have to agree that not everyone should have to be a member to play. I liked the fact that I could enjoy this without paying. For me I paid for my membership when my dad got interested. Being able to scroll the maps are a great boon for my planning trips for the two of us. Also as I said before anything I enjoy this much I don’t feel bad paying $30 for. Of course talk to me again if I get the new house and mortgage.
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