Geocaching Australia

Papa Bear_Left wrote:I never, ever visit the forums. So I'll never, ever see the question!

But...but..that...would mean.......does...not...compute.....I....

####NO CARRIER####

I used to check daily, but have noticed the much reduced activity. I now check in much less frequently. Don't (and won't) us Facebook groups.

I used to be here daily up until about 6 months ago but only about once per two weeks or so now. If I see there are no new topics of interest I don't stay long. That's why I was pleasantly surprised to find an active thread like this one!

I have FB but don't use it for geocaching. I like to remain fairly anonymous and when I look at FB groups I have no idea who 80% of the people are as I don't know their 'real' names. To me their caching name is their real name.

What I dislike most about FB is that it assumes all of your friends are friends with each other. Most people I am friends with (outside geocaching) have never met each other.

G'day! I'm still here. Have nearly exclusively been and still am, a creeper. I rarely post but read most threads in the boards I find interesting (General, GCA, Queensland, NSW mostly). I'd guess I visit every other day, if not daily. I receive the GCA Daily update and although a lot less than I used to, do use the website's various functions (maps, statistics etc.).

I've just looked and ashamedly I am a member of 6 geocaching groups on facebook (not counting running the QLD Mega page). I am a pretty big facebook user (but I am in my early twenties). I know for a fact of at least 8 other facebook groups I choose not to be in that are based just in South-East Queensland. I completely agree with Matt here about there being groups made because of personality clashes and many, many secret groups. While I think facebook is a massively helpful tool in the geocaching community I agree with what has been said such as the instantaneousness of posts and the general culture of 'look what I found' and 'I'm going geocaching here tomorrow' type of gibberish. I also detest the culture that seems to be incapable of separating geocaching websites (GCA and Groundspeak's efforts) from facebook itself. But let us now dwell on negatives - I like facebook, I think it is an easy and great way to connect!

CraigRat wrote: How to entice people here? You can't really. More and more cachers are becoming less socially connected, that's the way the game is going...it's an app on their phone, and that's about the extent of it.

Craig, I believe you have hit the nail 100% hard on it's metallic noggin. I recall the statistics you added to (funnily enough) the Geocaching South East Queensland facebook page some many weeks back reflecting the colossal turnover rate of geocachers active in Australia. Those few numbers spoke volumes about the number of folks who somehow hear about geocaching (and let's not forget the intergalactic effort Groundspeak have been putting into publicity since about 2010), fiddle around with the app and are never seen again.

Dik: wrote: The game has changed.
Lost its covert extreme sport status = lost its appeal.

I know I'm maybe one of the newest members to this game in this thread and I started in 2008. Even then, to me geocaching felt rather 'underground' for want of a better phrase. Only the committed owned a GPSr and participated in the game. Now, as we see, any erk and jerk can have a crack with no commitment. If I slap on my grumpy hat, I will say I'm not a fan of where the game has wound up. In fact Matt mentioned at a recent event here in Brisbane the question he asked Brian in NZ about if geocaching had reached some sort of critical mass. Be it known that is a topic I have pondered much.

And this, I believe, hits right at why we see activity on facebook moreso than this forum. It is something that (early) everyone has anyway. Another app on their phone that with a poke of a finger is right there. Post any crap, anywhere to everyone. As to how to entice some of those folk back to the forums.. well I first read the start of the thread a night or two after it was posted and I'm still thinking about any answer.

I suspect it raises three more questions:
1. Who is on facebook that we ought to be trying to get to participate in the GCA community,
2. Why would they want to make the change, and
3. Do we actually want more people here on GCA - would crowds dilute the atmosphere that has been created here?

A worthy discussion I will follow with interest. Apologies if I sound like I've bashed GCA, facebook, new geocachers or Groundspeak. I really do love them/you all. Yes, even you Matt <3

I use Facebook and I like it . It's immediate, in my line of site and I don't have to remember to visit. I am a newbie cacher and I only use the app(s).

BUT, I do love the continuity of a discussion on the forum and not loosing it once it's not the latest thing. I come here for the big, important topics where FB is for the more casual day-to-day chat. I'm lucky to visit the forums monthly.

I've started my own FB group for my geographical area but find that all the FB groups have distributed/diluted the cachers and often the same things are mentioned on several groups. But in my experience with an international movement who tried to pull all their members into the bosom recently, their model of membership was based on a time when Facebook didn't exist. The traditional member has moved away from the old mailing list in favour of the immediacy of FB. That's not to say that mailing lists and forums don't have their place, but for folks who have never lived without a smart phone glued to their hand, why would a forum appeal?

I check in once a month probably, but I find FB much better in terms of getting answers to questions, or finding out what's going on in the caching world.
I think most of the people here are content to have an interface to other cachers through their PC, while people on facebook are always organising get together and social caching activities.
They're both just resources to be used to further your hobby in the way you want them too, so I wouldn't get too concerned about it.

Dik: wrote: No one finding some of my harder caches (think 2 to 3 hour hike multis) for years doesn't help.
The game has changed.
Lost its covert extreme sport status = lost its appeal.

I don't think you could be further from the truth, well maybe things are different in SA.
Here in Victoria there are specialist groups that concentrate on T5, D5, tree climbing caches, unloved caches, anything extreme.

They all have FB groups to connect them socially, to plan events, to share their experiences.
Caching has revved up an awful lot over the last couple of years.

why bother

there is no moderation on facebook, and everyone i am involved with plays nice

this is my first post here in what seems like a century

anyone remember the times when my posts here had to be moderated before posting

i can

gmj3191 wrote: Caching has revved up an awful lot over the last couple of years.

How far is too far? Far enough that the council confiscates caches in trees for safety reasons?

noikmeister wrote:

gmj3191 wrote: Caching has revved up an awful lot over the last couple of years.

How far is too far? Far enough that the council confiscates caches in trees for safety reasons?

Back to that critical mass discussion that I had with Bryan a few years ago. When I started 9 years ago it was all a bit cloak and dagger. Now everyone seems to know about it and therefore land owners / managers are much more conscious about it.

Captain Terror wrote:Craig, I believe you have hit the nail 100% hard on it's metallic noggin. I recall the statistics you added to (funnily enough) the Geocaching South East Queensland facebook page some many weeks back reflecting the colossal turnover rate of geocachers active in Australia. Those few numbers spoke volumes about the number of folks who somehow hear about geocaching (and let's not forget the intergalactic effort Groundspeak have been putting into publicity since about 2010), fiddle around with the app and are never seen again.

I should dreg up that post and stick it here. EDIT: Can't find it.

Dam, those number were super interesting

LouiseAnn wrote:Dam, those number were super interesting

Found it!

CraigRat wrote:Out of 110497 people who have logged caches in Australia since 2000, 3/4 of them (82,000) have only ever found 17 caches or less!

3/4 of all people who've cached in Australia stopped logging caches at or before 224 days! 1/2 of them (55,000 or so) stopped caching within 2 weeks!

Growth of new cachers is pretty spectacular with 32000+ new players in 2014, however the longevity of most is still quite low: 3/4 of those people found < 9 caches and logged for only one month (approx)

It would seem that geocaching, although increasing in numbers does have any real significant 'stickyness'.

The moral of this story:
Embrace the new players, but don't bother to remember their names, they won't be around for long (statistically)













Interesting stuff, none-the-less.

For me, anyway......

Met some new cachers today. Classic case of the father with the boy about 10 years old who was very keen. They'd found about 20 caches and had placed one and were keen to place more. They used the phone to place the cache so I gave them some tips about using Google Earth to check the coords and also some guidance on cache size - they had a film canister listed as a 'small' - it had already been muggled so were replacing it with a mint tin. I said that was still a micro (the top end of micros) and talked about the joy of ammo cans...

Hopefully I came across as encouraging rather than trying to be exclusive. You can't tell people not to place certain cache types and not to use the phone. I use the phone for most caching these days and only use the GPSr for bush caches or tricky multis anyway.

We're still here, still check. No interest in FB.