Let's Register more caches on GCA

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Journeyman
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Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Journeyman » 01 June 11 8:33 am

I was on the American site recently and some Aussie geocachers were wanting an extra reviewer
to speed up the activation of their hides. I posted a reply, suggesting using Geocaching Australia
to register their cache as it is instant as well as getting an instant tracking number for a swaggie.
It never appeared in print so I guess the moderator didn't approve the post.
Personally I would like to see more geocachers in Australia, use the Australian site to
record their caches. I find this site easier to use and navigate.
Just a thunk.
Cheers Journeyman53

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Happy Chappies
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Happy Chappies » 01 June 11 10:26 am

Always a good suggestion to register more caches on GCA to support the site and build more momentum....

However - just to clarify - the call for a third reviewer on that forum (if you're referring to the thread I think you are) is not about publishing but about the need for a reviewer to focus on maintenance. Archiving, disabling, prompting maintenance, etc. Cleaning up, rather than putting new ones out. It seems to only take a few days to publish new caches on GC which is pretty good I reckon. (my last cache got published in less than 6 hours!)

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Hoojar
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Hoojar » 01 June 11 10:40 am

Happy Chappies wrote:It seems to only take a few days to publish new caches on GC which is pretty good I reckon.
I bemoan NSW's loss of TheUmp as a reviewer. He published caches quickly and efficiently. He even has/had a blog where he would post online if he was going to be away from the computer for a period of time! These days we are solely looked after by Riblit. His habit at the moment seems to be only to log on twice a week. And he seems to be getting more and more draconian about 'his' interpretation of the 'rules'. I know that I am not the only local cacher that seems to have nothing but trouble getting caches published and I know of one other local cacher who has thought about ceasing to hide caches because of Riblit.

Five years ago there were far fewer caches, far few cachers, far few maintenance logs, and yet we had three reviewers!

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pjmpjm
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More GCA Caches Wanted

Post by pjmpjm » 01 June 11 11:22 am

Journeyman wrote:Personally I would like to see more geocachers in Australia, use the Australian site to record their caches. I find this site easier to use and navigate.
Just a thunk. Cheers Journeyman53
I initially misunderstood this thread, because of the title, thinking it was encouragement to publish more caches under the 'GCA Banner,' so to speak.

And I agree with this approach. It's lots of fun to have another, different series of caches to find and I think it adds to the overall enjoyment of geocaching.

rogerw3 has recently published a great many trigs (and also many, many GCA traditional caches) and I hope others will follow suite.

And I also have to agree that the GCA web site sets a high standard, that could well be copied overseas . . .

Laighside Legends
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Laighside Legends » 01 June 11 11:58 am

Hoojar wrote:...and yet we had three reviewers!
Who was the third one? And what happen to them?

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Hoojar
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Hoojar » 01 June 11 12:07 pm

Laighside Legends wrote:
Hoojar wrote:...and yet we had three reviewers!
Who was the third one? And what happen to them?
Embi - http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid ... 440cfe4fba

Read his retirement statement here - http://forum.geocaching.com.au/viewtopi ... iewer+embi

Journeyman
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Journeyman » 01 June 11 6:02 pm

I didn't want to sound like I was complaining about the U.S. site because I have no idea of the work load
of the reviewers over there. It was just that I listed a cache for publication and after quite a few days it was still
in limbo, so I removed it from review. I came to The OZ site and it was published instantly as was a swaggie
that I have yet to release. Most people in OZ rely on the U.S. site for publication of there caches in Australia.
I was just hoping that perhaps more people in OZ, might take advantage of this excellent board and start
listing here. A reply I submitted on the the U.S. site has not made it past a reviewer yet.
If all Aussies listed their caches on GCA, it would relieve the publishing pressure on the U.S. site.
As I said before, just a thunk.
Cheers, Journeyman53.

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gmj3191
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by gmj3191 » 01 June 11 6:40 pm

For various reasons, sadly the majority of cachers are not interested in finding GCA caches. I think it’s mainly because they want unified stats, but whatever the reason, they leave GCA caches alone. It’s not because they’re not aware of them.
They use the GCA site for community purposes and the forum provides a great mechanism for discussing caching issues and ideas, but few of them use the caching facilities.
Recently I placed a GCA listed cache in a central area in the southern suburbs of Melbourne, and in 12 weeks it had 2 finds.
I archived it and relisted it on GC.com , and in 4 weeks it has had 19 finds and a couple of favourite points.

Personally I don’t have a problem with this as I see GCA being entirely complimentary with GC.com. with GCA providing important community contact and socialising, and hosting special projects like the Gnome Race, trigs etc. GC.com is there purely for listing caches.

The unfortunate part about this is that all the work and facilities for cache listing that C@W, CraigRat and others have done is not really utilised to a greater extent.

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blossom*
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by blossom* » 01 June 11 6:53 pm

gmj3191 wrote: The unfortunate part about this is that all the work and facilities for cache listing that C@W, CraigRat and others have done is not really utilised to a greater extent.
Maybe it's not utilised by the widest community, but it's sure utilised by the most important part of the community :lol:

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CraigRat
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by CraigRat » 01 June 11 7:04 pm

blossom* wrote:Maybe it's not utilised by the widest community, but it's sure utilised by the most important part of the community :lol:
Amen

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rogerw3
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by rogerw3 » 01 June 11 7:51 pm

:D
While it is true that most cachers tend to leave the GCA caches alone, it is also true that many are having fun finding them, be it Traditional, Movables, Trig Station or Locationless. I would be the first to admit that the finding rate on GCA caches is low compared to GC, that will not stop me from placing more GCA caches.

Personally I am having a blast doing the GCA thing and these days I only go and find the occasional GC, but that is me and we are all different. It would be very boring if we all did the same things. So do your own thing, go for the caches you enjoy and more importantly have fun doing it.
\:D/

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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by belken » 01 June 11 7:54 pm

Journeyman,

You probably should have let the US site publish the cache.

I am currently living in Townsville. I have 4 GCA caches listed around Townsville. When listing them I was Looking for an Active GCA finder who lives in or visits Townsville and likes a bit of a bushwalk and I can tell you there are none(so far). God knows how you are going to go in Bowen. I am sure you and I would have had more takers on the US site.

2 of the caches are coming up to 12 months without any find. The other 2 were found by my brother when he came to visit from Perth nearly 10 months ago.

There is a geocoin in 1 of them as a gift to the first finder. I will persist and leave the caches on GCA as its got to start somewhere. Good luck.

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Zalgariath
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Zalgariath » 01 June 11 8:06 pm

I found GCA caches in Cairns last year! :D And got 3 FTF's in Gladstone \:D/ Didnt stop long enough in Townsville :(

Compared to some of my harder GC puzzles/multis I own/adopted, I find in Sydney my GCA caches get found about as often as those. I place a GCA cache for those I want to find them... my friends on GCA. I'll place a GC cache if it is a clever idea I want to share with the general community.

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caughtatwork
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by caughtatwork » 01 June 11 8:21 pm

There is no doubt that in some areas your GCA cache will go a long time between finds.
An experiment I have going on some of my caches.

GC: http://geocaching.com.au/cache/gcvx9w/graph 102 finds
GCA: http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0432/graph 39 finds
They are set 500m apart.

GC: http://geocaching.com.au/cache/gc13wdy/graph 52 finds
GCA: http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0799/graph 16 finds
They are 50 meters apart.

GCA: http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0613/graph 54 finds over 55 months (or so) about 1 per month.

Apart from moveable caches (especially the GeGnome Project caches), GCA caches tend to get found less in my experience than my GC caches, but I am also not in a GCA cacher rich area.

In Tasmania http://geocaching.com.au/stats/graphs/g ... tage_finds 10% of all cache finds are on GCA caches.

It depends on your area. Of course an area with no GCA caches does not encourage others to hide or find them. Get a critical mass and the attitude of local cachers who have run out of close GC cachers will (on occassion) change and they will seek GCA caches.

We're not in a numbers competition. We do it for the niche opportunity we can offer for some cache types and of course, the community spirit that a local site can offer. This is especially pertinent to our ability to respond to requests and ideas quickly. The more people play here the more ideas the community come up with, the more this can benefit everyone.

Of course, free and open is a big part of the benefit of enjoying caching on Geocaching Australia.

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Bronnie_1990
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Re: Let's Register more caches on GCA

Post by Bronnie_1990 » 01 June 11 9:52 pm

Hmm, yup. GCA's dont get as many finders.
(I dont mind, less emails makes me happy)

Started making a powertrail, publishing them on GC, then found out that...it's just not going to work (yay for cache saturation?), and i think this explains it. First one.., and Second one! (which is quite litterally 162m away..)

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