Geocaching Australia

What did the stats say a few years ago.......(caught@work mentioned/showed it somewhere...)

80% of cachers give it away before they found 100 caches.

These days with the number of new cachers, it might be closer to 60%, but still not great.

Sol de Lune wrote:What did the stats say a few years ago.......(caught@work mentioned/showed it somewhere...)

80% of cachers give it away before they found 100 caches.

82000 out of 110487 (75%) of all cachers have found 17 OR fewer......

Sol de Lune wrote:These days with the number of new cachers, it might be closer to 60%, but still not great.

See my stats a few posts back. I might crunch the numbers around the 100 mark, I suspect it's up in the 90% mark nowadays, not 60%!

People keep asserting that caching is booming, but the stats don't show that. There's a LOT of new players, but they are leaving as quick as they start, and leaving quicker now more than ever.
I guess people have more things to distract themselves with.

I wonder if that has to do with the quality of caches these days? When I started, every cache was amazing! If a newbie starts and finds 3-4 mint tins, maybe they are discouraged?

Sol de Lune wrote:What did the stats say a few years ago.......(caught@work mentioned/showed it somewhere...)

80% of cachers give it away before they found 100 caches.

These days with the number of new cachers, it might be closer to 60%, but still not great.

Ok, just did the numbers:

From the 110487 people who found at least 1 cache before 2015 in Australia/NZ, only 11353 have found >100 which as I suspected is 10% of all cachers, so you could perhaps infer that 90% have left before hitting 100 or are just have yet to hit that mark.

There are plenty of holes one can pick in the stats (overseas cacher etc etc) but we are talking a small percentage error.

If you are in the 1000+ club you are one of the 1%!

CraigRat wrote:

Sol de Lune wrote:What did the stats say a few years ago.......(caught@work mentioned/showed it somewhere...)

80% of cachers give it away before they found 100 caches.

These days with the number of new cachers, it might be closer to 60%, but still not great.

Ok, just did the numbers:

From the 110487 people who found at least 1 cache before 2015 in Australia/NZ, only 11353 have found >100 which as I suspected is 10% of all cachers, so you could perhaps infer that 90% have left before hitting 100 or are just have yet to hit that mark.

There are plenty of holes one can pick in the stats (overseas cacher etc etc) but we are talking a small percentage error.

If you are in the 1000+ club you are one of the 1%!

So we are heading out the back door....disappointing.....and what Tankengine said about mint tin hides......and how exciting that is for new finders.............well that is part of it I'm sure. And to go back to something else Caught@work said (a few years ago) when asked where he thought caching would be in 10 years.....I think his response was very close to ........"Dead and buried, as when everyone knows about it/is participating...the last thing you want is to be walking towards a cache/GZ.....and someone close by yells out...no no not that rock mate, the other one....." Sort of takes the fun out of it.

I'm hoping the Dragon Zone winter game may change a few ideas......I'm certainly enjoying that more than the other site and the changes they keep making at the moment............but time will tell.....

So back to the topic, the forums nowadays pick up probably <5% of the newer cachers, and even then it's a smaller percentage of the actual active cachers.

Really, if you want the conversation to pick up here, link to discussions happening from within Facebook and it may drive a few more people to have a look. More people in here= More discussions (hopefully).

More importantly, if you do a GCA cache of any sort that you enjoyed, why not post about it in your FB groups... I belong to most state and regional groups and virtually never see any mention of GCA other than the odd snarky comments. Not often do I see anyone step in to show some support, but perhaps I'm looking at it with a bit of a different view to most. But in short, linking to us, our shop, our competitions, or even our stats pages helps raise awareness.

Are you playing the DragonZone game? Why not link to that from your regions FB feed? More players=More Funsies. Even better it could stimulate vigorous discussion about how GCA is a cancer on the game and why would anybody play here....but hey, ANY talk is good for publicity

We are nearly all that's left of a unified all-Australia discussion group as far as geocaching goes, it'd be a shame to see it stagnate to the point of being as useless as the GC Australia forum.

We don't force

Nearly every day unless out of range. Seldom actually logon though - just have a look at the topics. Also look at the Waymarking forum but hardly ever look at the Groundspeak geocaching forum. Don't use Facebook but am registered. A mistake.

how sad...i cant imagine a life without caching In fact I feel it saved my life from a social anxiety perspective (Forced me to stop being scared of driving on the other side of the road when i moved to oz from America!!!) that gave me so much freedom and the need (err obsession) to get out and find caches (err new friends too i guess?)

Is it my imagination or is there a lot more activity / posts in the last week or so

PLEASE NOTE I am not complaining. I love it. Just interesting some are concerned that this forum was getting less support. Dare I suggest that maybe the audience here may only post something constructive and/or informative rather than just "prattle"?

Oops did I just do the opposite to my suggestion

Give it time, there are so many private groups that eventually people will move back to find out what is happening.
Like cache pages with banners may the odd link to GCA forum for the latest forum news could work.
I do visit every now and then but injury over the last 5 years has kept me occupied.

Looks it's the same everywhere. I still visit forums (our local Belgian one and one in the Netherlands) but the Belgian one only has occasional posts. People are visiting and reading but few are posting. Many are on FB (I'm not) and groups there can't be counted anymore (I've heard). Too bad, as a forum is the best place to have a one stop source of information.

I joined here in January 2010 to find info for our WA/NT trip. Now returned for some hints about VIC/TAS "special" caches but after 29 views, no replies.

As for the high number of new cachers who soon give up... It's to easy to start now. Get an app, go out, find cache, place cache, ... I'm bored... Didn't cost much
It used to be, get GPS, go out, DNF, go out again.. find cache... find more caches... It took me 2.5 years to get to my 100th found, now that's a one day job (if you want). You would have spend more money starting out and would give up that easy.

on4bam wrote: I joined here in January 2010 to find info for our WA/NT trip. Now returned for some hints about VIC/TAS "special" caches but after 29 views, no replies.

Us Tasmanians are not very talkative, even on facebook

CraigRat wrote:Us Tasmanians are not very talkative, even on facebook

Bit of a devil then, are you

So.... Nothing like a bit of controversy to have people visit the forums. It's been better than watch TV on here recently

Yes I'm still here and check the GCA forum/s most days. Mostly a lurker these days, but I'm still interested.