Jump to content

Looks like we just broke 3 million caches worldwide!


KBLAST

Recommended Posts

They sure made a big deal about 2 million...wonder why they never mentioned this milestone until it had already been published.

 

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2017/04/celebrate-3-million-geocaches-with-new-souvenir/

 

I wondered the same thing. I stumbled on someone else who had discovered we passed 3M, and came here to the forums to join in on the celebration. I was surprised there was no big countdown or anything.

 

Maybe it's better when people aren't putting out a bunch of garbage caches in an attempt to be the 3 millionth.

Link to comment

They sure made a big deal about 2 million...wonder why they never mentioned this milestone until it had already been published.

 

https://www.geocachi...h-new-souvenir/

 

I wondered the same thing. I stumbled on someone else who had discovered we passed 3M, and came here to the forums to join in on the celebration. I was surprised there was no big countdown or anything.

 

Maybe it's better when people aren't putting out a bunch of garbage caches in an attempt to be the 3 millionth.

 

I was watching one of the discussions on Facebook about 3M. The problem that we observed was that getting the number above 3M was tricky, because it'd cross the threshold, then fall back under (presumably because some caches were being archived), then jump above, then back again, and so on.

 

I'm guessing that HQ finally decided that the number of active caches seems to have stabilized above 3M, so it's safe to make the proclamation.

 

Link to comment

I saw somewhere outside the forums that there have been more than 5.3 million caches published.

 

Interestingly, if the worldwide search is run with 'Enabled' as a filter, then the count is below is 3 million because there are about 52k 'Disabled' active caches out there. But that's being nitpicky. :ph34r:

Link to comment

Has the 3 millionth cache been identified by Groundspeak?

 

The 2 millionth was identified (GC46N4E) and has become a key cache to visit, and I can't see why a 3 millionth cache can't be identified using the same criteria.

Edited by gmj3191
Link to comment

Has the 3 millionth cache been identified by Groundspeak?

 

The 2 millionth was identified (GC46N4E) and has become a key cache to visit, and I can't see why a 3 millionth cache can't be identified using the same criteria.

HQ decided not to identify a specific cache for this. I believe for a couple reasons. 1) It's hard to tell which was actually the 3 millionth. The numbers that day were constantly fluctuating around 3 million. I was checking the number for many hours and it would go above 3 million by a few and then drop back below 3 million. So which is really the 3 millionth? Who knows.. 2) While it is a great celebration to be the CO of such a cache, I'm sure the CO of previous milestone caches have gotten inundated with emails and messages, almost constantly. Perhaps they wanted to keep that from happening so whoever the CO was wasn't getting flooded with thousands of emails.

Link to comment

Chances are it was a LPC and nothing to "celebrate" anyway. Besides, it's NOT about the numbers although it often seems like it is. :ph34r:

 

Am I the only one who thinks there might be around two million caches too many, give or take a number of repetitive trails?

Link to comment

Chances are it was a LPC and nothing to "celebrate" anyway.

If this were the case, and considering that there were multiple 3 millionth caches as previously mentioned, Groundspeak could have just chosen another 3 millionth cache with "better quality".

 

...unless all of them were LPCs, GRCs, and other "lame" hiding styles... :ph34r:

Link to comment

For the record, I didn't create these stats. They are online on a site from an authorized developer, so fed with official gc.com data.

 

Active is imo somebody have left some trace on gc.com with a log.

World needs to be seen as a country, like cachers from a country and cachers in a country (but not necessary from that country).

Link to comment

In many places in the charts, the stats "Difference" of 2016 to 2017 ratios 12 months of activity in 2016 to 6 months for 2107. This heavily tilts appearances.

 

(Lies, damned lies, and statistics ... )

 

Cache activity does seem to be leveling off all over North America, even falling in some places, with rapid growth more in Europe and east.

Link to comment

World needs to be seen as a country, like cachers from a country and cachers in a country (but not necessary from that country).

How is there a difference between cachers "from WORLD" and cachers "in WORLD"? Are Martians caching now? :ph34r:

 

I don't see why it's so hard to understand that the stats are country based, but one can also select all countries/world. The figures are the in/from figures are in that case identical.

Link to comment

World needs to be seen as a country, like cachers from a country and cachers in a country (but not necessary from that country).

How is there a difference between cachers "from WORLD" and cachers "in WORLD"? Are Martians caching now? :ph34r:

I don't see why it's so hard to understand that the stats are country based, but one can also select all countries/world. The figures are the in/from figures are in that case identical.

The numbers show more cachers in the world than from the world. I don't see how hard it is to understand that 136844 <> 136882 and 351365 <> 351367 and 910610 <> 910692. Apparently, as difficult to understand as tact and politeness.

Link to comment

Maybe these stats put things more in perspective:

 

2017_07_08_09_38_48_Project_Geocaching_Overview.png

 

What is an "Active" cacher? What is the difference between "from world" and "in world"?

 

There is indeed something odd with "In World". "From" = "In and From" which you would expect. But "In World" is different. Not by much; I expect the overall data is roughly right.

 

So in terms of number of caches found, it is slight decline (2%) compared to 2016 (year to date). Number of new hides is down more significantly (26%) per last year.

 

One observation, the year to date stats for this year will be impacted by delays in logging, so this will impact the stats, though I don't know by how much. I.e. if you look at year to July 10th 2016, I would assume that that number won't change much - very few logs are a year late. But for year to July 10 2017, many finds won't be logged yet, especially from the last few days.

 

Still, I think it shows overall finding is basically flat, and hiding is down.

Link to comment

The numbers show more cachers in the world than from the world. I don't see how hard it is to understand that 136844 <> 136882 and 351365 <> 351367 and 910610 <> 910692. Apparently, as difficult to understand as tact and politeness.

 

Is drawing things in the ridiculous with Martians - just because there is a difference of 82 cachers on a total of > 910000 - such a good sign of tact and politeness?

 

Again, the figures are freely available on the site of an authorized developer, so fed with official gc.com data. Pls send your complaints to them.

I'm more interested in the overall picture.

Link to comment

Consider as well, if power trails had a surge one year, then hides and finds will be much higher, then as the 'powercachers' (for lack of better term) find all the high count caches in one year, finds may be dramatically reduced overall the next. So watch for temporary cache hiding trends in those periodic statistics as well.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...