New virtual caches...

Question

It could be fun for awarded players... But the 'algorithm' method is a little bit strange...

Next step : check my notifications to see if new virtuals spawn in my area !

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2017/08/virtual-rewards/

Answer 1

For anyone interested, this search should produce a list of all new Virtual caches. None in the UK, yet...

Answer 2

It will be very interesting to see where the virtuals start to appear - famous landmarks or amazing places or just somewhere which would give visitors great enjoyment!. For instance, of the 18 so far published (mostly in the USA and Canada, but a few in Europe)  one is at the Eiffel Tower (predictable) but others are showing features which might not normally be visited, and this is good, in our opinion.

It says in the blog about those given a virtual: "This group is made up largely of the top 1% of quality cache hiders from countries with at least 100 hiders. We created an algorithm to identify these people based on overall cache quality and cache health. Active community volunteers are also receiving a Virtual Reward as a thank you for giving their time and talent to support the geocaching community."

It will be interesting also to see which cache hiders will set the virtuals. And it is good to see our community volunteers (reviewers) being rewarded. Now to wait and see where our local reviewers put their virtuals!

Comments

First one in the UK:
https://coord.info/GC7B9VA
by jovialrhino near Sunderland
Well done! We hope to be up in the area next year sometime.

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There is one on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Excellent choice.

Answer 3

As i thought yesterday, the main issue with the algorithm seems already clear : the rewards are dispatched on areas with great geocaching places yet (US, Northern Europe...). One one hand, it's a good thing to reward peoples who maintains great caches in high activity areas but this campaign should help people who try to create caches in low rating area where FP are hard to win due to low geocaching traffic...

Answer 4

Strange example about the famous algorithm... it's explains that the reward is given to a "group made up largely of the top 1% of quality cache hiders from countries with at least 100 hiders"

Ok... the man who place the cache in Uganda last night is from Canada and own 37 caches with around 80 Favorite Points. : It's hard for me to understand how this geocacher can appear in the top 1% of players from Canada... his stats are not amazing at all : 4000 found during 12 years of play. 

Same questions for the virtual owner of the spanish cache : 15 caches owned, 152 FP in 6 years... top 1% of quality cache hiders. 

Comments

He might be a community reviewer? That's the other criteria they say they used.

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there seems to be a reason, why they don't want to talk about the algorithm

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The 2nd geocacher who has placed a virtual in France has only 3 caches, one of which is desactivated, and he has only 5 to 8 favorite points per cache. So I don't really understand this algorithm..

Answer 5

Hi.

The virtuals that we have visited so far were all special. It will be interesting how a selection will take place, what the selection criteria will be.

The4Hasards

Answer 6

The algorithm appears to be pretty straight forward. Average favourites earned on owned caches. I know someone who has hidden just 4 caches and was awarded with a virtual reward. Looks like it was purely the number of favourites they received.

I am not sure what the cut-off point is, though.

Comments

That sounds like a stupid algoritm. Other thing like the challenge guideline has always been that founding another cache is not negative. But for cache hiders that is obvious not the philosophy.

I don't agree with the conclusion that if you have like the one you know 4 good find you besom a worse cache hider if you for example hide a trad that might be in a spot with a nice view in nature with a short hike to is. A good watertight container like that is a cache that I like to log but will not necessary receive a FP and it is likely to have a few percent FP.

The average could then go from 100% to 80% but it is hard to argue that the are then a worse cache hider.

There is a reason that a score like that is not among pgc stats and it have been asked for and discuses in this QA system because the algorithm will likely discourage new hides.

Answer 7

Not sure... some peoples with more FP and better caches does not win a reward.  
And, hopefully, incredibles geocachers wins too (like Kirdec in France).

Hard to understand indeed... It seems so easy to make a better algorithm based on few parameters (karma, FP ratio, age of owned caches...) but GC failed to make something nice.
Anyway, it's a good idea to place new virtuals... now, i'm waiting for web-cam caches :)

Answer 8

I find it very interesting that virtual news appear, and strongly the new webcam ...
the algorithm of the beautiful caches is a choice not obvious because they are players with many favorite points on few caches laid, while the layers of many caches are less rewarded, but it needed a criterion and that can encourage it in the quality ! thank you

traduit du francais par google

je trouve trés interessant que de nouvelles virtuelles apparaissent, et vivement les nouvelles webcam ...
l'algorythme des belles caches est un choix pas évident car ce sont des joueurs avec beaucoup de points favoris sur peu de caches posées , alors que les poseurs de beaucoup de caches sont moins récompensés, mais il fallait un critére et celui la peut encourager dans la qualité ! merci

Answer 9

So good that they are back! :)

Comments

but only 4000 :(

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Yea. Why downvote my comment? :(

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The topic is from August an we have Nowember.
In my opinion, the answer is superfluous, becourse there are enough Answeres

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So what? Can't I have an opinion because of that? ;)

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I sayed "in my opinion". And in my opinion is this a downvote.
Everyone is different!

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Not nice! Have a nice day! :)

Answer 10

I just fell over this one in Berlin/Germany

http://coord.info/GC7B6YM

Before I did not notice, that there was a project for new Virtuals

Answer 11

I wish that we had been given a virtual but we did not. Hopefully there will be many new wonderful caches to find. We like virtuals. It's our favourite icon