Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 1

AIG: Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 1

Whether you are (were) a long-time subscriber to this site or are a new visitor here, you will no doubt notice that the post just prior to this one was dated over two years ago (2 years 147 days to be exact). As you have no doubt guessed, this site was a tragic victim of "blog fade" - the fictional blogging condition where blog authors gradually stop posting to their blogs and often abandon their blogs entirely over a period of time.

Sadly, if you look at my cache stats on my geocaching profile, you'll notice a very similar trend there too. When I first began geocaching in 2005, I found 168 caches that year. Since then, my cache finds have steadily decreased to almost none in 2010 (only 1 traditional and 3 virtuals at Disney World).

The good news is this - I'm back!  Of course I can't say how long I'll be back, but in just the first few weeks of 2011, I've already found 15 caches.  If you need help with the math from the chart above, that is the same number of cache finds for 2009 and 2010 combined!  While that total may not be very many for most geocachers, it is tremendous amount in a short period of time compared to the last 4 years for me.

So in the spirit of my return to geocaching, I decided to resurrect my Adventures in Geocaching blog too!

My Stats

AIG: My Stats

This week, Mike and Barb at http://www.jestcaching.com/ wrote about a really exciting new program for all of the stats junkies out there! This is from their post titled "Review of CacheStats."

I stumbled across a program called CacheStats written by abcdmCachers. As many of you know I am a bit of statistics freak. This program is really cool. If you are a premium member you can do a pocket query on your finds. Once you import the unzipped GPX file it displays a bunch of interesting stats.

I, of course, immediately downloaded and tried out this program myself. As you can see below, it works great! I did discover that it won't take a GSAK .gpx export of your finds. It relies solely on the MyFinds pocket query to get its data. I was able to quickly mark my FTF's and even declare a couple of "favorite" caches. The example below is a slightly condensed view of the results that is displayed in an iframe because of limitations with Blogger.com's handling of HTML tables.

Stats and Rankings

AIG: Stats and Rankings

Stats! Huh-yeah.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Uh-huh!

---

Many geocachers that I've met in person or online are absolutely obsessed with stats. You may even be one of them. If so, this post is for you!

Part of any great sport or game is the element of competition. Geocaching is no different! Well, almost no different. Geocaching is a little different because there are so many unregulated variables that make a true comparison virtually impossible. There are at least 5 different cache listing services - each with their own rules or guidelines. There are also so many different views of what makes a "good" hide or a "true" find.

• Does a group hunt count for individual finds?
• Does a find count if you've had to call or ask for help?
• Are harder hides worth more than easier ones?
• Should a foreign cache logged at a local event be allowed?
• Can a find still be logged on disabled caches?

Personally, I think this short paragraph from a May 2005 article by Chuck Williams in LowCountry Weekly called "An Insider's Look at the Geocaching Controversy" sums this up the best.

In geocaching, everyone who seeks a geocache is a winner, whether they find the actual geocache container or not. The real thrills are the search and the locations, not the random key chains, Mickey D toys and other trinkets that fill a geocache container. The real nugget that the geocacher seeks is the logbook to sign and prove that s/he has really been there and found that. The scorecard is a personal one.

For me, the real thrill of geocaching is the hunt without all of the stats involved. But with that in mind, there are still several sites on the Internet dedicated solely to tracking stats and ranking geocachers based on their total number of hides, finds, and hide-to-find ratio. Even I'll confess to browsing these from time to time to see where I fit in the grand scheme of geocaching. These are two of the main national Geocacher Ranking sites.

• KeenPeople.com Stats - This site allows geocachers to register themselves and record their own statistics from any listing service which are then used for the overall or state-wide rankings. Geocachers are allowed to enter how many of each type of cache they have found and hidden. Cachers can also record many other details like how many other Geocachers they've met, how many travel bugs they have found or released, how many times they have CITO'd a cache site, how many times they were FTF, or how many states they've cached.
• Grand High Pobah - This site automatically grabs geocaching statistics from a select number of "high profile" Geocaching.com geocaches from each country and state. It only tracks the number of hides and finds from each cacher, but since it does it automatically, the stats are much more accurate and up-to-date than the other ranking sites. Unfortunately, this site only displays cachers with over 200 finds and cachers must have found one of the "high profile" geocaches in their state in order to appear in the rankings.