CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

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stringy
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by stringy » 13 January 10 2:39 pm

Sounds great, I think I have the best idea for it!

If I hid it now I've got all year for people to find it!

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caughtatwork
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by caughtatwork » 13 January 10 7:06 pm

Scores are now ...

(#finds - sum of ratings 1,2 (reversed, so 1 is worth 2 and 2 is worth 1) + sum of ratings 4,5 + #recommendations * 20 ) / #finds * 4

The maximum score you could get would be 260.
1 point for every find
Every rating a 5
Every recommendation 20
Total 26
Multiplied by 10 to add some granularity for small decimal differences.

If 10 people recommended it and rated it a 5 then it would be:
((10 + (10*5) + (10*20) / 10) * 10 =
((10 + 50 + 200 ) / 10 ) * 10 =
(260 / 10) * 10 =
26 * 10 = 260

If 10 people find a cache, 5 rate it 5, 4 rate it 4 and 1 rates it 1 and 2 recommend the cache.
((10 + ((5*5 + 4*4)) - (1*2) + (2*20) / 10) * 10 =
((10 + 41 - 2 + 40 ) / 10 ) * 10 =
(89 / 10) * 10 =
8.9 * 10 = 89

If 5 people find a cache, 2 rate it 5, 2 rate it 4 and 1 rates it 1 and 1 recommend the cache.
((5 + ((2*5 + 2*4)) - (1*2) + (1*20) / 5) * 10 =
((5 + 18 - 2 + 20 ) / 5 ) * 10 =
(41 / 5) * 10 =
8.2 * 10 = 82

The last two examples are close in score, but if you look closely:
The first one has 1 more recommendation (which we consider a big deal)
The first one has half of the finders rating a 5 whereas the second one has only 2/5ths rating it a 5.
I concur that based on those numbers, this gives it to the first one.

The biggest component will be recommendations. If you can get your cache recommended, it's worth heaps, but at the same time, people view recommendations as a big plus for a cache.

Please let the discussions continue.

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roundcircle
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by roundcircle » 13 January 10 9:39 pm

If you apply the formula to 2009, what's CotY?

Doing that might help see if there are weird anomalies. :shock: And might help me see what would be worth hunting for. :)

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pwags
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by pwags » 13 January 10 10:47 pm

roundcircle wrote:If you apply the formula to 2009, what's CotY?

Doing that might help see if there are weird anomalies. :shock: And might help me see what would be worth hunting for. :)
Great to see the CoTY formula applied to 2009, and now appearing on the main state pages. =D>

Just one issue that I see - moveable caches. They appear in the state in which they are currently located, rather than their "home" state. How easy is it to have them judged based on the state in which they were launched? Or would people prefer to see them based on their current location?

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caughtatwork
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by caughtatwork » 13 January 10 11:05 pm

roundcircle wrote:If you apply the formula to 2009, what's CotY?

Doing that might help see if there are weird anomalies. :shock: And might help me see what would be worth hunting for. :)
Brilliant idea. I knew you were good for something :-)
http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/vic/

In looking into the detail, I reckon it would be right.

For Traditionals:
Eltham Lodge has 5 finds, 2 recommendations, 2 rating of 5 and 2 rating of 4.
[CATS] That's a Big 'Un has 3 finds, 2 ratings of 5 and 1 rating of 4.

For Moving:
Moving Cache Race - Blossom*s Bounty has 10 finds, 4 ratings of 4.
Liar, liar pants on fire has 14 finds, 4 ratings of 5.

You can ignore the recommendation on Liar, liar pants on fire as it was recommended in 2010, so the recommendation does not count in 2009.

Even though Liar, liar pants on fire has 4 ratings of 5, only 4 of the 14 people who found it rated it (i.e. 30%). Moving Cache Race - Blossom*s Bounty has 4 ratings of 4 but that's out of 10 people who found it (40%).

We're classing a 3 as neutral (and no rating as neutral).
4 out of 14 rated the cache above 3 (so we assume the remaining 10 would have rated it 3).
4 out of 10 rated the cache above 3 (so we assume the remaining 6 would have rated it 3).

The same number of people rated both caches, but in percentage terms, more people thought that Moving Cache Race - Blossom*s Bounty was worth more than a 3 than did the finders on
Liar, liar pants on fire.

Of course, as soon as a moving cache moves interstate it will cock up previous years CotY using the present method. I will need to look at "freezing" the final CotY somehow.

But in summary, for Victoria it would be as I would expect.

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caughtatwork
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by caughtatwork » 13 January 10 11:07 pm

pwags wrote:
roundcircle wrote:If you apply the formula to 2009, what's CotY?

Doing that might help see if there are weird anomalies. :shock: And might help me see what would be worth hunting for. :)
Great to see the CoTY formula applied to 2009, and now appearing on the main state pages. =D>

Just one issue that I see - moveable caches. They appear in the state in which they are currently located, rather than their "home" state. How easy is it to have them judged based on the state in which they were launched? Or would people prefer to see them based on their current location?
Or should we leave them out :-)
We don't have the ability to track their starting state as the database was not set up for CotY and so I am deriving the values from where the cache sits now. Essentially at the "end of the year" this cache, which is in this state is the moving CotY even though it may have started somewhere else.

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Richary
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by Richary » 14 January 10 10:36 pm

Really a rating on a moveable is irrelevant I think, as it has nothing to do with the original cacher - only the container can really be rated. I could find one in a brilliant position, but where I move it to is total crap (perferably vice versa!) :D So any rating only reflects that 1 find it has had from that person as the next find is totally different. It also has nothing to do with what the cache placer had planned.

So I guess my preference is to leave moveables out of it, unless it is on a straight number of finds basis. But how to organise that between states I leave to the coders who have to make sense of it all \:D/

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caughtatwork
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by caughtatwork » 14 January 10 11:16 pm

Yes and no.

A cool cache say like http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0672, Alien Abduction II would get me rating it high every time.

I like the challenge of a moving cache, so I tend to rate them up higher as being a load of fun.

I also like the fun of moving it while someone else is looking for it. I would rate this higher than a box under a bush even if that's not what the owner intended.

We are getting 50 pathtags made for the CotY and it was nice than we could get 10 states (including NZ) * 4 cache types (physicals only) and get close to the number of tags to give away.

If we do less cache types we only use half the tags and throw the rest away I would like to give away as much as we can.

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tronador
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by tronador » 15 January 10 11:26 pm

Just noticed the results for 2009 and for 2010 on the Dashboard. Yes I know a little slow #-o T 8) his is really cool.

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blossom*
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by blossom* » 19 January 10 8:46 am

Should we include Moving Caches? I can see richary's point of view that once a different person hides it, rating it is not really quite the same.

But then I think one of the unique things about GCA these days is that we're ALLOWED to have moving caches so that's got to be worth rating.

Also, the whole idea of some of them are very clever. Take Mobility Stealth, no matter where it's hidden, it's got to get a top rating every time, just for the idea. I also love the Sydney Olympic Parklands Bike cache (of course 8) ) The whole idea of always having a new cache to find in a great parkland that I like to visit all the time works really well too. And Mr Black is good concept becasue cemeteries are often very interesting and people tend to find little ones tucked away that you'd never know about..

So for the Moving caches, it's not so much about the hide in many cases but the concept of the cache. Maybe a cache that's simply able to be moved with no particular theme wouldn't rate all that high as it would just move from one park to another.

Yep, leave them in.

stringy
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by stringy » 26 April 10 8:31 pm

I have just hidden mine.
http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga2014
It will be great. :D

Just wondering, can I show pictures of the cache listing so I could get more points as there is not as much geocaches up here than big centres like Newcastle or Sydney and that?

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caughtatwork
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by caughtatwork » 26 April 10 8:36 pm

Not sure what you mean by pictures of the cache listing.
You can include pictures in your cache listing if you want, yes.

stringy
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by stringy » 26 April 10 8:39 pm

As in if I show pictures that geocaches over australia could recommend it by not finding the cache, so the pictures could tempt them into recommending my cache.

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caughtatwork
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by caughtatwork » 26 April 10 8:45 pm

Cachers can't recommend a cache until they have logged a find or DNF against the cache.

However, it's your cache listing, so please feel free to add to your listing by the way of pictures or anything else you think will make your cache more enticing for a geocacher to come, find, have a good time and remember.

stringy
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Re: CotY (Cache of the Year - 2010)

Post by stringy » 26 April 10 8:52 pm

ok

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