Stats showing caches as archived

[jeza]

Since caching in Europe, I noticed my finds on archived has gone up enormously. Sure enough they show up in my list of finds on GCA, though they are not actually archived on GC.com, at least the ones I randomly checked. From memory they showed up as archived from the moment they were imported. Any idea what's going on here?

See:
http://geocaching.com.au/cacher/jezarocks/finds

Thanks.

[CraigRat]

The way our system works is that if we don't recieve updates for a cache in a cartain period of time, our system presumes it has been archived.
Because we do not regularly update overseas caches, your caches done there will more than likley all show as archived. Your finds on these caches will all still be counted in your stats.

We only regulary update caches from Australia, NZ and Guam.

[Big Matt and Shell]

Guam.

I'm sorry, I just thought you said Guam!!!

[caughtatwork]

He did. We service Guam as a benefit to the Guam geocaching community. http://geocaching.com.au/caches/available/gu/

If you go to http://geocaching.com.au/my/settings/ and change your skin to Guam you can see their front page http://geocaching.com.au/ and then their dashboard http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/gu/

[blossom*]

Wow - this is good. Can we service a few other countries? Hawaii sounds good - we could take over the caching world by stealth

[caughtatwork]

Tahiti sounds nice. I would personally go and check every cache there, for, er, um, research purposes.

[Coffee and Cache]

He did. We service Guam as a benefit to the Guam geocaching community. http://geocaching.com.au/caches/available/gu/

Fascinating place that. I spent a few weeks there many years ago working for an Australian building company. Lots of US expats and a few Aussies too there then, + loads of Japanese tourists coming for cheap golf and thousands of US military, although they seem to keep to the bases. Same time zone as Eastern Australia which was/is convenient.

How did Geocaching Australia come to support Guam?

[caughtatwork]

They saw some of the fabulous stats and graphs and things we have for Australia and New Zealand and asked how they could get the same ones.

We suggested that they provide some food for the faeries and we agreed to feed them some stats back.

http://guamgeocachers.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

[Big Matt and Shell]

He did. We service Guam as a benefit to the Guam geocaching community. http://geocaching.com.au/caches/available/gu/

No matter what they say about you, you are nice guys!

[jeza]

The way our system works is that if we don't recieve updates for a cache in a cartain period of time, our system presumes it has been archived.

Thanks for the info. So I guess these caches are ones that have already been imported by other GCA users. So when all my other Euro finds get marked as archived, the archived cache finds statistic will be even more meaningless. Perhaps a better approach for overseas caches would be to assume they're still active unless somehow it's noted otherwise.

[CraigRat]

Perhaps a better approach for overseas caches would be to assume they're still active unless somehow it's noted otherwise.

Then we get people saying 'Why isn't this cache coming up as archived?".. we can't win either way

If geocaching.com would publish 'Archived' logs for at least a week after a cache gets archived then we wouldnt have these damn problems, but as it stands we have to try and make the best assumptions based on what info we have.

(Seeings as though a majority of cachers I know use some sort of offline system to manage caches (GSAK/PDA/PHONE/WHATEVER), I would think this isn't an unresonable thing to ask groundspeak to do!)

[SamCarter]

... the archived cache finds statistic will be even more meaningless ...

What does the "archived cache finds" statistic actually mean anyway?! Like all statistics it needs to be interpreted in context.

A high value might mean you only went caching a very few times a long time ago and the caches have since become defunct.

A low value might mean you only cache in the bush where caches are less likely to be muggled.

Or there could be any number of other explanations (you mostly go to events; you only do fiendishly difficult caches that are rarely if ever found by anyone; you only started caching a month or so ago; your name is archivedog108 and you go around making fake logs on archived caches; you are an incurable kleptomoniac who still wants smilies, so you log the caches you steal )

There are SO many factors influencing this statistic that you cannot take it at face value without examining the cacher's context.

And, yes, caching overseas is one of those factors.

The good thing, though, is that caching overseas makes your "countries cached in" map look cool! AND you get closer to the moon AND you get some environmentally unfriendly peaks at the far right end of your "attempts by difference" graph. All these are available from the"Graphs" tab in the set of secondary tabs on your cacher page (obtained from the My tab) ... and, of course, also need to be interpreted in context (one of my "countries cached in" was an armchair virtual ).