Not just another rating system

[+rawkhopper]

I see lots of people asking for a way to rate caches and I think it is a great idea but a difficult one to accomplish. I thought of a way and would like to share it with others to see their response.

 

The reason is because there is definitely something special about certain caches. They are fun, take you to a beautiful place, or leave you scratching your head for a while or possibly all of the above. I love this type of cache and would love to be able to throw support to the more thought out caches.

 

I am still working on my first cache because I would like it to be a memorable one.

 

Anyway here is my idea. Lets say every one gets a favorites list. Only 5 caches can be on the list at a time. The favorites list can change at any time but can only have so many on it. Then you could look at the top caches in your area or the whole country. The favorite list would change and allow for trends. Maybe number 20 on the top list has never made it to number 1 but has been in the top 100 for 3 years.

 

Anyway I think this would be great way to do it. You would not put it on your favorites list for long if you didn't think it deserved to be there for some reason. You wouldn't have to worry to much about people ganging up to vote a cache in because a group of people could only escalate so many caches. Would be cool to if you could filter out votes from certain people. Say filter out people with less than 100 finds. This would keep people from creating a bunch of fake accounts. And I imagine those of us with less than 100 have a lot less to say about the quality of a cache.

 

This is my method and I like it what do you think?

[+Chokecherry]

I don't know how well it would work. Places with large caching/population centers are going to be consistently on the top of the list versus one of the caches where I live that maybe 10 people will look for this year for example.

 

And honestly, I have little interest in the caches across the country. I just care about the ones in the areas I'm going to be in.

[+StarBrand]

Markwell first suggested such a system a good 5 or 6 years ago - very very similar anyway.

 

Its always been my best suggestion as well.

 

Moot point - the good folks up at HQ have promised they are working on a rating system - even if it is only at a turtle's pace.

[+tozainamboku]

This is the method that Markwell and others proposed years ago. There was even an indication from Jeremy that he thought something like this could be useful. Then nothing happened

 

I agree that a rating system like this could be useful for finding "recommended caches". Most of the threads about rating systems are from people going on a trip. They are looking for the so-called "must do" caches in the areas they are visiting. The current method for finding these is to post in the local forums and hope someone responds with a list of recommendations.

 

Since premium members can already create lists of favorite caches, the proposed scheme can be easily implemented. Just allow premium users to designate a bookmark list as a favorites/recommended list, limit the size of the this list to just a few caches or just a small percentaged of found caches, and provide a query to search for caches that appear on some minimum number of these lists.

[+succotash]

 

<snip> ... there is definitely something special about certain caches. They are fun, take you to a beautiful place, or leave you scratching your head for a while or possibly all of the above. I love this type of cache and would love to be able to throw support to the more thought out caches.

 

<snip>

 

 

You can show support for the caches you like right now by creating a public bookmark called "Favorites" and putting all of those caches on it.

[+StarBrand]

This is the method that Markwell and others proposed years ago. There was even an indication from Jeremy that he thought something like this could be useful. Then nothing happened

 

I agree that a rating system like this could be useful for finding "recommended caches". Most of the threads about rating systems are from people going on a trip. They are looking for the so-called "must do" caches in the areas they are visiting. The current method for finding these is to post in the local forums and hope someone responds with a list of recommendations.

 

Since premium members can already create lists of favorite caches, the proposed scheme can be easily implemented. Just allow premium users to designate a bookmark list as a favorites/recommended list, limit the size of the this list to just a few caches or just a small percentaged of found caches, and provide a query to search for caches that appear on some minimum number of these lists.

I'll agree with Toz here.

 

It really gives 2 opportunities. You can serach for caches that a high percentage of finders added to a fav list and/or search for caches that a like minded cacher added to a fav list.

[+Isonzo Karst]

Edited May 20, 2010 by Isonzo Karst

[+Prime Suspect]

Markwell first suggested such a system a good 5 or 6 years ago - very very similar anyway.

 

Its always been my best suggestion as well.

 

Moot point - the good folks up at HQ have promised they are working on a rating system - even if it is only at a turtle's frog's pace.

Fixed.

[+rawkhopper]

I don't know how well it would work. Places with large caching/population centers are going to be consistently on the top of the list versus one of the caches where I live that maybe 10 people will look for this year for example.

 

And honestly, I have little interest in the caches across the country. I just care about the ones in the areas I'm going to be in.

I would think it would still work since one of my favorites is one that I was the first to find in over 6months. If everyone that finds it likes it then it would be ranked higher. I would bet that a majority of cachers like the remote caches slot more than the micros everywhere. I can't think of an urban one that would be on my favorites list. Others may love them but all in all it still might even out.

 

You could tweak the system a little and give each person 5votes per zip code or state or something. That would reduce the likelyhood of urban winning all the time.

[+rawkhopper]

Markwell first suggested such a system a good 5 or 6 years ago - very very similar anyway.

 

Its always been my best suggestion as well.

 

Moot point - the good folks up at HQ have promised they are working on a rating system - even if it is only at a turtle's pace.

Didn't realize someone else proposed such a thing. I am not a web expert bit I would think this is quite doable. I wonder why they aren't further along in implementing something like this? Have they said why?

[+Markwell]

Here's a link.

 

My guess as to why it hasn't been implemented in 10 years is that it's a moving target. The latest thoughts that Jeremy had mentioned was something similar to an affinity rating like amazon (cacher "markwell" likes caches similar to the ones you like, you might like GC123456)

[+GeoGeeBee]

Here's a link.

 

My guess as to why it hasn't been implemented in 10 years is that it's a moving target. The latest thoughts that Jeremy had mentioned was something similar to an affinity rating like amazon (cacher "markwell" likes caches similar to the ones you like, you might like GC123456)

 

I mentioned this in another thread, but it's relevant here: Amazon owns a patent on the affinity rating system. That might be another reason that it hasn't been implemented.

[+9Key]

I like this idea and think it's workable. In the short term if they made bookmark lists searchable that would help.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I like this idea and think it's workable. In the short term if they made bookmark lists searchable that would help.

 

It would be especially helpful if an additional "bookmark type" field were added so that one could search only bookmarks that were "favorites". As an alternative, some sort of tagging mechanism (like delicious) which allowed us to tag bookmarks, or even cache pages, so someone could search for bookmarks tagged with "New York" and "kayak" to find caches in NY which required a kayak.

[+sbell111]

This type of rating system would work only if it were linked to an affinity system AND all cache raters were to keep up with constantly reprioritizing their found caches. I don't imagine that the latter would happen. I think that many people would mark a cache as a 'favorite' and not think about it again. This would result in future 'better' caches not getting their share of 'favorites' and result in some caches being noted as faves even though they had long since lost their luster do to lack of maintenance, changing conditions, or changes in the 'fancy' of the rater and community.

[+wimseyguy]

While I concur that many cachers won't bother to keep up with their favorites, new cachers and new caches will get added to the system and get noticed. Simply noticing that a cache is on a lot of bookmark lists, especially ones with favorite in the title is also a way to determine 'popular' caches (and not just ones that are popular because they are found a lot.)

 

Since my 'ratings' bookmark list is my top 2 % all time favorite caching experiences, there are many archived listings and even some events on there. Quite a few are even in sbell's backyard.

YMMV

[+d+n.s]

I suppose it might stay fairly current if you kept it very simple.

 

For example, you have your "5 faves" but they aren't listed in any order you need to prioritize.

If you log a cache you liked especially you could just click the "favorite" button.

If you have exceed 5 caches, it brings a prompt telling you that you'll need to remove one.

 

If its not given a ton of weight and is kept pretty casual I could see people updating regulary. Granted there will always be a nostalgic strain to to these lists, but with enough people doing it I think you'd end up with some good lists for the curious.

 

That said, if you could just search bookmarks and let users "tag" caches it would all probably sort itself out organically.

Edited May 21, 2010 by d+n.shults

[+Markwell]

This type of rating system would work only if it were linked to an affinity system AND all cache raters were to keep up with constantly reprioritizing their found caches. I don't imagine that the latter would happen. I think that many people would mark a cache as a 'favorite' and not think about it again. This would result in future 'better' caches not getting their share of 'favorites' and result in some caches being noted as faves even though they had long since lost their luster do to lack of maintenance, changing conditions, or changes in the 'fancy' of the rater and community.

A comparison: Ask people who the best president of the U.S. was. I googled and found this wiki article

• A 1948 Schlesinger poll had the top three as Lincoln, Washington and FDR.
  
• A 1982 Chicago Tribune poll had the top three as Lincoln, FDR, Washington.
  
• A 2000 Wall-Street Journal poll had the top three as Washington, Lincoln, FDR.
  
• A 2002 Siena poll had the top three as FDR, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt (Washington was 4).
  

These polls were from different sources and different time periods. And yet those polled came up with three presidents that are well-respected in history, and marked as some of the best presidents in many sources. Individual people may think that Woodrow Wilson or Thomas Jefferson should have been in the top list, but most people would at least agree that FDR, Lincoln and Washington were pretty good presidents. If I only had time to read about 3 presidents' histories, I'd most likely choose FDR, Lincoln and Washington.

[+ADTCacheur]

I would like to voice my opinion on this matter:

 

1. I personally do not like the idea of a rating system for caches. (not yours specifically)

 

2. For your system, you would either have too many rules so that the algorithms would get very complicated, or you'd have urban caches getting highest priority over rural caches, though the latter is usually the most popular

 

3. more people can fit a park and grab into their schedule, but generally I prefer long multis

 

4. there is already a 3rd party 0-5* rating system in effect, though I forget where to go to get it...

 

5. with ANY rating system, you risk having people feel really bad because they thought that their cache was so good, but it turns out that people don't like it quite as much (sometimes people can even feel like that because they though their cache would surely be in the top spot of their area, but it got 5th place)

 

that's all, but remember, I'm against rating systems in general

[+rawkhopper]

I would like to voice my opinion on this matter:

 

1. I personally do not like the idea of a rating system for caches. (not yours specifically)

 

2. For your system, you would either have too many rules so that the algorithms would get very complicated, or you'd have urban caches getting highest priority over rural caches, though the latter is usually the most popular

 

3. more people can fit a park and grab into their schedule, but generally I prefer long multis

 

4. there is already a 3rd party 0-5* rating system in effect, though I forget where to go to get it...

 

5. with ANY rating system, you risk having people feel really bad because they thought that their cache was so good, but it turns out that people don't like it quite as much (sometimes people can even feel like that because they though their cache would surely be in the top spot of their area, but it got 5th place)

 

that's all, but remember, I'm against rating systems in general

1. I hate ratings systems myself. My ipod has no ratings on my music and my genius list almost never gets things right. But this is not really a rating system per se. A simple list of favorites with a limited number of favorites. Published results should be able to exclude people with less than 100 finds and limit the search to a region. It is quite simple actually. The framework for it is almost there on the website.

 

2. No special algorithms needed. Urban micros are not going to make it on many peoples favorite list. Now an urban puzzle or unique find will certainly get more attention but who cares it already is that way.

 

3. Park and grab is not on many favorite lists.

 

4. I am talking a list not a rank. So you can not rate which on is your actual fav but simple a random list of your favorites. Keep it simple.

 

5. Look if you feel bad just because you didn't make someone's fav list when they only get like 5 favs out of the million live caches too bad. Not to be mean but how many of you do anything that is on somones top 5 list?

 

This system is not perfect. This system is simple. I could create it my self by crawling the geocaching website if people would list their favs in a specific way. I don't think Groundspeak would find that to kindly though so I won't. The point is since this is simple and could provide a way of someone making interesting treks for guests or milestones. If you find something better go for it. The only reason I brought this up is I don't get to go very often so I really try to find some good finds for an area that I am in and as it is it is difficult. This system, without a lot of effort, would make it possible.

 

I realize that this type of system could always be improved on but its like buying a computer, sometimes you just have to say it's time to buy. Yes the system will possibly be obsolete in a few months but if you don't buy then what you do have is always inferior.

 

This system would not tax servers nor is it complex coding. Easy to code and hard to break. The results could be improved on but at least there are results.

[+redsox_mark]

I like this idea (of a limited sized favourites list).. and I know it's not a new idea. I like it as it addresses what I see as the main purpose - so that when I go to a new area, I don't miss those caches that people have found as really special.

 

In my local area, I have time to look through the logs; I am learning which cache owners tend to set caches that I like, I talk to others to get recommendations. I can often tell if I am likely to enjoy it simply by the location on the map. That is harder when I'm travelling to another area (or even country).

 

And it avoids the hurt feelings issue. If everyone rates one of my caches as poor, I'll feel bad. (Though also try and improve it). But if it's not listed on anyone's favourites list, that's ok; it doesn't mean it is bad.

[+rawkhopper]

This type of rating system would work only if it were linked to an affinity system AND all cache raters were to keep up with constantly reprioritizing their found caches. I don't imagine that the latter would happen. I think that many people would mark a cache as a 'favorite' and not think about it again. This would result in future 'better' caches not getting their share of 'favorites' and result in some caches being noted as faves even though they had long since lost their luster do to lack of maintenance, changing conditions, or changes in the 'fancy' of the rater and community.

A comparison: Ask people who the best president of the U.S. was. I googled and found this wiki article

• A 1948 Schlesinger poll had the top three as Lincoln, Washington and FDR.
  
• A 1982 Chicago Tribune poll had the top three as Lincoln, FDR, Washington.
  
• A 2000 Wall-Street Journal poll had the top three as Washington, Lincoln, FDR.
  
• A 2002 Siena poll had the top three as FDR, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt (Washington was 4).
  

These polls were from different sources and different time periods. And yet those polled came up with three presidents that are well-respected in history, and marked as some of the best presidents in many sources. Individual people may think that Woodrow Wilson or Thomas Jefferson should have been in the top list, but most people would at least agree that FDR, Lincoln and Washington were pretty good presidents. If I only had time to read about 3 presidents' histories, I'd most likely choose FDR, Lincoln and Washington.

Nice way to put it. And in my opinion there is a mistake in your example. Not trying to turn this political but just show how the system works. FDR is not (in my opinion) one of the best. That will happen with caches as well. Opinion is still a part of it. However I would never look at FDR and wonder how in the world you could think he is one of the best presidents. It has to do with what it is you are looking for in a president. The same goes for a cache. One of the top caches may be a two day hike with a rock climb at the end. I could never do that nor attempt it. I would rather take a leisurely walk in the woods and see some wildlife along the way and sleep in my own bed at night. But I would at least see why others would tag it as a favorite.

 

I read your old post about the method. I like the way you stated it as well. The one difference I would stick to is that I think all favorites should be accessible. This way I could be in a small Podunk town and one or two caches that were someones favorite, whether it had only one or two or 10 votes. This way I am more likely to find a favorite of the area. Like a pocket query for difficulty rating I can query for favs with a minimum vote level which could be 1.

 

10% could be better than my 5 votes so I like that Idea but maybe we could go with 5%. We need to keep the votes low so people with lots of friends can't escalate a cache like happens on digg all the time. The lower the number the less likely someone will throw away there votes on trash caches.

 

It is possible we could do this on our own with a numbered list in our profiles that includes the GCXXXX and zip code of your favs. Then use a google query and a php script to come up with a list of favs in your area. This would not tax Groundspeak servers. I would ask before attempting it but it would be possible depending on how often google crawls geocaching.com.

 

***edit***

google does not seem to update info about geocaching.com enough to do it so I would definitely need Groundspeak's permission to try it ourselves.

Edited May 22, 2010 by jameyp

[+d+n.s]

This type of rating system would work only if it were linked to an affinity system AND all cache raters were to keep up with constantly reprioritizing their found caches. I don't imagine that the latter would happen. I think that many people would mark a cache as a 'favorite' and not think about it again. This would result in future 'better' caches not getting their share of 'favorites' and result in some caches being noted as faves even though they had long since lost their luster do to lack of maintenance, changing conditions, or changes in the 'fancy' of the rater and community.

A comparison: Ask people who the best president of the U.S. was. I googled and found this wiki article

• A 1948 Schlesinger poll had the top three as Lincoln, Washington and FDR.
  
• A 1982 Chicago Tribune poll had the top three as Lincoln, FDR, Washington.
  
• A 2000 Wall-Street Journal poll had the top three as Washington, Lincoln, FDR.
  
• A 2002 Siena poll had the top three as FDR, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt (Washington was 4).
  

These polls were from different sources and different time periods. And yet those polled came up with three presidents that are well-respected in history, and marked as some of the best presidents in many sources. Individual people may think that Woodrow Wilson or Thomas Jefferson should have been in the top list, but most people would at least agree that FDR, Lincoln and Washington were pretty good presidents. If I only had time to read about 3 presidents' histories, I'd most likely choose FDR, Lincoln and Washington.

Thats VERY interesting and I agree over time we'd at least have a good list. Its not a competition really right?

 

OT: FDR, Teddy, Licoln over here