CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

[caughtatwork]

Geocaching Australia this year will be presenting cache of the year awards.

The award will be in the form of a brand new, specially minted, never to be sold or given away for any reason other than a cache of the year pathtag as well as some "bling" on the cache page.

Only Geocaching Australia caches are eligible.
Only GCA caches hidden in the calendar year 2010 are eligible.
Only physical GCA caches are eligible. i.e. Traditional, moveable, multi and mystery / unknown caches.
Cache of the Year will be decided at the end of December 2010.

The proposed automatic scoring system is as follows:

1 point for each find on the cache.
10 points for each recommendation on the cache that is still there at the end of 2010.
Every rating made on a cache will be added together as additional points.

So a cache that has been found 20 times, with 2 recommendations, 5 people rating the cache 3, 3 people rating the cache 4 and 2 people rating the cache 5 will garner 77 points.

20 finds = 20
2 recommendations = 20
5 ratings of 3 = 15
3 ratings of 4 = 12
2 ratings of 5 = 10
Total 77 points

One CotY award will be made for a traditional, multi, mystery and moveable for each state in Australia, each island in New Zealand and one international group. This means 4 types * 11 regions = 44 CotY awards.

There are 44 awards to ensure that different caching regions do not have an adverse bias on other regions. i.e. A high finding state like Tasmania would have a much better chance of beating a cache in WA if they were going to compete against each other. Also, by awarding a CotY award for each physical cache type, it also means that mystery caches are not competing against a traditional cache which may get more finds.

This mean the earlier in the year you hide a cache, the higher the likelihood of having more finds than caches hidden towards the end of the year. The better you make your cache and the experience, the higher the chances are that someone will find it, recommend it and give it a higher rating. Encourage your finders to provide a rating on your cache when they log it. Encourage the use of the recommendation system for a great cache. When you find a GCA cache, use the rating system and recommendation system to try and get the best cache you have found into the awards.

We are aware that there is the opportunity to "cheat the system". Obvious offending caches will be disqualified.

The points system is proposed, so please come in and give your feedback on what you think might enhance the points system and make Geocaching Australia the place to hide and fi caches.

Your development team.
caughtatwork and CraigRat.

[blossom*]

Brilliant idea Now how can I win a prize I wonder? Something everyone will think is just amazing

[Keeper of Time]

Glad I have already placed one and another hopefully to be lauched soon. All I need now is for people to find them All sound like a great idea C@W, bring it on and may the best caches win.

[Jardry]

Hi c@w,

I think the concept of a CotY is fantastic!

However, the points system could reward caches that are placed in highly populated areas due to the ease accessing the cache.

Could the points system be weighted such that the further away from each of the major population centres, as a suggestion each state capital city, Darwin and Canberra. Maybe points scored multiplied by distance from major population centre divided by 100. Effectively a weighted factor of 1 per 100 kilometres.

As an example a cache scoring 20 points at a distance of 500 kilometres from the nearest population centre would have a weighted score of 100 (20 times (500 divided by 100)), equivalent to a cache found scoring 100 points within 100 kilometres of a population centre.

I'm sure you would be able to code some magic to provide a reasonable weight to a country/rural cache compared to a suburban cache.

[caughtatwork]

Rural vs. Urban is interesting and one that I need to ponder, but I like your concept.

[Damo.]

However, the points system could reward caches that are placed in highly populated areas due to the ease accessing the cache.

I don't know if placement in highly populated areas is such an advantage!

eg Two caches in The Rocks/Circular Quay area of Sydney;

http://geocaching.com.au/cache/gcve2f
Hidden: 15/04/06
Finds 2009: 187
Total finds: 471

280m away is
http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0586
Hidden: 5/10/06
Finds 2009: 8
Total finds: 32

I understand where you are coming from in that a cache which might have 90 finds and no ratings or recommendations (90pts) would win over a cache with 8 finds and 8 recommendations (88pts). I guess we can only encourage people to use the ratings system and an uninspiring 90 find cache might get 30 rating 2's which would pull it down to a score of 30.

Edit: Just noticed that minusing rating one and two is not mentioned in the OP.
Was that still part of the formula Caughtatwork?

[caughtatwork]

Edit: Just noticed that minusing rating one and two is not mentioned in the OP.
Was that still part of the formula Caughtatwork?

Not at the moment. The scoring is up for debate.

[Damo.]

Edit: Just noticed that minusing rating one and two is not mentioned in the OP.
Was that still part of the formula Caughtatwork?

Not at the moment. The scoring is up for debate.

Ok. Well then my $0.02 is that 1 and 2 are negative score. 3 is neutral, and 4 and 5 add points.

[caughtatwork]

Good suggestion.

For the moment, points assigned as per the OP, scroll to the bottom of the dashboard to see the contenders.

http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/vic/

At the moment only one cache has been hidden and found in Victoria, so it's in the lead

Please understand that the points will be based on what we all finally agree on (or what I can actually code), so they will be in a bit of flux for the time being.

I would rather have flux than a sucky points system.

[Richary]

Problem is that people are more likely to rate a cache they like, rather than one they don't. I won't necessarily go and put a 1 or 2 star rating/recommendation on a cache. So the lower scores won't appear.

As for distance from major population centres, I guess one would have to consider how often a similar GC cache gets found compared to it's metropolitan cousin. For example the find rate in Wagga/Dubbo would be much higher than in say Tamworth which probably has close to a similar population.

Things will also be skewed by the large number of cachers heading to Wagga over Easter, so if that was classified as remote by a distance system it would be a hands down winner.

[caughtatwork]

Indeed. Distance is only an issue for those who don't live around GCA cacher rich areas.

I'm toying with the idea of:
(Finds + (recommendations * factor) - ratings of 1, 2 + ratings of 4, 5) / by # finds.

That averages out the results by taking into account a cache that has 10 finds vs. one that has 2 finds.

[delboy1203]

Indeed. Distance is only an issue for those who don't live around GCA cacher rich areas.

I'm toying with the idea of:
(Finds + (recommendations * factor) - ratings of 1, 2 + ratings of 4, 5) / by # finds.

That averages out the results by taking into account a cache that has 10 finds vs. one that has 2 finds.

Looks like a great idea, but I'm with Richary. I won't necessarily rate a cache 1 or 2 if I don't like it, so should those ratings really be negative. Why not just make them zero?

[caughtatwork]

If someone is "brave" enough to rate a cache 1 or 2, that should be taken into account as a "negative" experience. If you're not going to rate a cache then CotY will assume "neutral". We can't score something if you don't say how much fun it was for you.

What we'll need to do though is swap 1 for 2 and 2 for 1.
i.e. A rating of 1 would only subtract 1, but is in fact the worst rating, so for every rating of 1, we would subtract 2 and for every rating of 2 we would subtract 1.

[tronador]

Would it be possible to grade them a little like Geosportz, by including the difficulty and terrain factor. That way those who would like to put out a higher terrain rated cache or a puzzle are not disadvantage by less finders cause its not a drive by.
eg (difficulty * terrain)* no. of finders So for arguments sake a 5*5 with 1 finder gets 25 points, and a 1*1 with 25 finders gets the same amount of points.

[caughtatwork]

We had considered that, but discounted it.

CotY is based on what finders enjoy. So a 5/5 with a rating of 5 is just as enjoyable (to some) as a 1/1 with a rating of 5. Including the t/d would significantly skew the results towards high t/d caches.

We're likely to divide by number of finders.
A 5/5 with 2 finds and rating of 4 from each would result in 2 + 8 / 2 = 5
A 1/1 with 5 finds and a rating of 4 from each would result in 5 + 20 / 5 = 5

In these terms the caches are on equal footing and if you think about it, each cacher rated them exactly the same, so they are indeed comparable in terms of CotY.