Owner Find Accolades

[mojave_rattler]

I have always been a fan of the Owner Find Accolades on the DGP site. I would love to see this once stay with the new site.

[Team Opjim]

Ditto. I think the owner should be able to receive points for the hide. Otherwise, I suspect that owners will log finds on their own caches to work around it. Also, it encourages the placement of difficult caches.
I'm not interested in debating the issue of CO placing caches that are deliberately hard to earn points. Yes this will happen. I did a few myself, but bottom line is that is what encouraged high DGP point caches, which then allowed finders to find such caches.

[AZ WANDERING BEAR]

I have been giving this idea some thought since a conversation recently with Corfman Clan at an event. He pointed out that what ever we do has to use the data available on the Groundspeak site. Also has to be something that can be programmable, ie no subjective inputs. Otherwise this gets all cumbersome and not really easily supportable. Makes sense to me.

So I combined his thoughts with some of the conversation regarding points for those who hide caches. We need people to hide caches, otherwise there aren't any to find. Some folks are mostly finders. There are some out there that are mostly hiders. And others do some or a lot of both. There's been contention about hiders of somewhat unfindable (vs truly lonely caches).

When I combined both of the thoughts above and a few cocktails and a sleepless night I arrived at an idea. Leader boards for overall, state and regions be broken into 2 groups -- hiders and finders. The data is there. Totally objective. Provides even more opportunities to see your name on a leader board.

Also, I really liked the idea of seeing who has found the most of a particular hider's caches. Looks like that data could be pulled up for anyone who has hidden lonely caches (how ever that term eventually winds up being defined). I really enjoy pursuing the caches of certain hiders because I know the quality of their work. Hiders might like knowing who is really racking up their hides. And again, another opportunity to see your name on a leader board.

Just middle of the night thoughts about lonely caches and hiders and seekers and numbers and programming.

AZWB

[Corfman Clan]

I have always been a fan of the Owner Find Accolades on the DGP site. I would love to see this once stay with the new site.

I'm a big fan of that too and have every intention of including it here. In DB parlance, it is a many to many relationship (many hiders to finders and many finders to hiders) and that can be an expensive to DB query to run so we'll have to see how it goes.

Just to be clear to everyone, on the DGP, the Owner Find Accolades was the list that showed who a hider's top finders are. Then on your page, it would show whose caches you were a top finder of.

[JAC0B]

Ditto. I think the owner should be able to receive points for the hide. Otherwise, I suspect that owners will log finds on their own caches to work around it. Also, it encourages the placement of difficult caches.

I wouldn't log a find on my own, I'd just walk away from LCP. Geocaching.com is nearly perfect to me, the only things DGP had over it (in my opinion) were leaderboards and credit for hides. Being a big hider it was nice to get a little credit for it. Without credit for hides I would see no reason to visit a geocaching site other than geocaching.com I know it's not "all about me." But that's my two cents.

[Corfman Clan]

Ditto. I think the owner should be able to receive points for the hide. Otherwise, I suspect that owners will log finds on their own caches to work around it. Also, it encourages the placement of difficult caches.

I wouldn't log a find on my own, I'd just walk away from LCP. Geocaching.com is nearly perfect to me, the only things DGP had over it (in my opinion) were leaderboards and credit for hides. Being a big hider it was nice to get a little credit for it. Without credit for hides I would see no reason to visit a geocaching site other than geocaching.com I know it's not "all about me." But that's my two cents.

Just to be clear, from the welcome post:

The LonelyCache Project will be dedicated to showcasing lonely geocaches, the geocaching trailblazers that hide them, and those geocachers that seek them out.

[Taz]

Owners definately need to get their credit for hides. I am mostly a finder but it is only fair to get credit whether you hide of you find. I thing those that do both are at the top of the leader boards and that is the way it should be.

[Team Tuxawuxa]

I also like having the cache placer get points. If nothing else, it encourages the hiding of better quality geocaches. However, no points should be awarded to these caches until they have been found. When DGP switched to giving points for unfound caches there was a sudden and continued increase in the number of unsolvable puzzles, nonsense challenges, bad coordinates, unattaineable terrain caches, etc., simply to generate points for the cache hiders. (Disclaimer: I currently have 7 unfound caches, including the longest unfound one in New Mexico, about 1.5 years.) Points are great but none of us should be allowed to "stack the deck".

[Team Opjim]

I have been giving this idea some thought since a conversation recently with Corfman Clan at an event. He pointed out that what ever we do has to use the data available on the Groundspeak site. Also has to be something that can be programmable, ie no subjective inputs. Otherwise this gets all cumbersome and not really easily supportable. Makes sense to me.

So I combined his thoughts with some of the conversation regarding points for those who hide caches. We need people to hide caches, otherwise there aren't any to find. Some folks are mostly finders. There are some out there that are mostly hiders. And others do some or a lot of both. There's been contention about hiders of somewhat unfindable (vs truly lonely caches).

When I combined both of the thoughts above and a few cocktails and a sleepless night I arrived at an idea. Leader boards for overall, state and regions be broken into 2 groups -- hiders and finders. The data is there. Totally objective. Provides even more opportunities to see your name on a leader board.

Also, I really liked the idea of seeing who has found the most of a particular hider's caches. Looks like that data could be pulled up for anyone who has hidden lonely caches (how ever that term eventually winds up being defined). I really enjoy pursuing the caches of certain hiders because I know the quality of their work. Hiders might like knowing who is really racking up their hides. And again, another opportunity to see your name on a leader board.

Just middle of the night thoughts about lonely caches and hiders and seekers and numbers and programming.

AZWB

Another Ditto. If necessary, excluding unfound caches is a way to try and prevent the unfindable cache from clogging up the leaderboards.

[AZC]

i agree that the overall leaderboards should be spit into 2 groups, hiders and finders.

i thought it was odd that i was ranked the same as people with a lot more finds than me, because i had a lot of points from hides. finding a 5/5 cache is different than hiding a 5/5 cache, and both deserve separate recognition.

[Corfman Clan]

I have always been a fan of the Owner Find Accolades on the DGP site. I would love to see this once stay with the new site.

I'm a big fan of that too and have every intention of including it here. In DB parlance, it is a many to many relationship (many hiders to finders and many finders to hiders) and that can be an expensive to DB query to run so we'll have to see how it goes.

Just to be clear to everyone, on the DGP, the Owner Find Accolades was the list that showed who a hider's top finders are. Then on your page, it would show whose caches you were a top finder of.

We finally got around to looking at this. We added a new table to the database to track it and have created the queries to populate the table. They run in a perfectly reasonable amount of time too, so that is good.

As an example, here's my top finders:

Code: Select all

Owner        Rank  Finder               Points            Finds
Corfman Clan    1  Arizona Ranger Team  825.911024666833     16
Corfman Clan    2  TwoTurtles           462.119101429712     11
Corfman Clan    3  southpawaz           352.299343272894     10
Corfman Clan    4  AZ Wandering Bear    300.063431806227      8
Corfman Clan    5  Subman123            285.219717479712     10

and here are some of the hiders I'm the top finder of:

Code: Select all

Owner             Rank   Finder        Points           Finds
Cactusart kids       1	Corfman Clan  8593.70496799311   573
Cache-Chaos          1	Corfman Clan  1407.46104763803    24
kira's rangers       1	Corfman Clan  1312.04837707349   100
Arizona Ranger Team  1	Corfman Clan  1218.04834326673    32
AzCaCachers          1	Corfman Clan  1039.95562756112    78

Now we just need to add it to the geocacher page

[rocketsciguy]

We finally got around to looking at this. We added a new table to the database to track it and have created the queries to populate the table. They run in a perfectly reasonable amount of time too, so that is good.
...
Now we just need to add it to the geocacher page

Awesome! I liked that feature quite a bit, though I have yet to make anybody's list yet (that I am aware of).

Because I always have a follow-up question... what criteria or logic do you plan on using to keep these stats meaningful? For example, with a cacher with just one hide, everybody who has found that cache is the Top Finder of that person's hides. If it's an urban hide, say 4 yrs old and in a very secure spot, it may have 200 finders and be worth 2 ₧, and 200 people would be the Top Finder of that person's cache(s) and having that list seems unnecessary. But if it's ammo can placed by a BSA troop (using a throwaway username) during a high adventure camp and is worth 100 ₧, it might not seem too unreasonable to list the 4 finders as the Top Finders. I dunno? Just wondering what ideas you had, if you know what DGPAdmin did, or what ideas everyone else has.

[Corfman Clan]

Because I always have a follow-up question... what criteria or logic do you plan on using to keep these stats meaningful? For example, with a cacher with just one hide, everybody who has found that cache is the Top Finder of that person's hides. If it's an urban hide, say 4 yrs old and in a very secure spot, it may have 200 finders and be worth 2 ₧, and 200 people would be the Top Finder of that person's cache(s) and having that list seems unnecessary. But if it's ammo can placed by a BSA troop (using a throwaway username) during a high adventure camp and is worth 100 ₧, it might not seem too unreasonable to list the 4 finders as the Top Finders. I dunno? Just wondering what ideas you had, if you know what DGPAdmin did, or what ideas everyone else has.

I was sure that there was a thread in the DGP forums that covered the algorithm the DGP used. If there is, I wasn't able to find it. What I do know, is that the DGP only computed Owner Acollades for the top 100 hiders and DGP members. We're computing owner accolades for everyone.

Basically, a hider's finders are ranked by a sorting mechanism.

• First we sort by points. Finder's with more points are ranked higher.
• If the point total is the same for two or more finders, then they are sorted by who found the hider's caches first. Earlier finders are ranked before later finders. Finders that made the last find on the same date are ranked the same.

Here's a good example using TwoTurtles top finders:

Code: Select all

Hider     Rank  Finder               Points          Finds  Last Find Date
TwoTurtles   1  Arizona Ranger Team  66.9562191759463    3  2008-07-04
TwoTurtles   2  cavecreaker_50       66.9562191759463    3  2008-08-17
TwoTurtles   3  southpawaz           66.9562191759463    3  2008-11-10
TwoTurtles   4  Corfman Clan         66.9562191759463    3  2008-11-15
TwoTurtles   5  wogunhiker           66.9562191759463    3  2009-02-22
TwoTurtles   6  ande2705             66.9562191759463    3  2009-08-01
TwoTurtles   6  dragnwagn8           66.9562191759463    3  2009-08-01
TwoTurtles   8  azK9Krew             66.9562191759463    3  2010-08-06
TwoTurtles   9  chrisjan             37.176826768254     2  2008-01-09
TwoTurtles  10  AZ Wandering Bear    37.176826768254     2  2008-04-16

As can be seen, the top 8 finders have found all three of TwoTurtles hides and have the same number of points. Arizona Ranger Team was the first to find all three so he is ranked first. dragnwagn8 and ande2705 found the last of TwoTurtles three hides on the same date and so they both are ranked sixth.

I suppose we could also sort by number of finds if there is still a tie after points and last find date. It doesn't seem that that would enhance things much since the odds of points being the same with a different find count are mostly rather slim.

[Corfman Clan]

I was sure that there was a thread in the DGP forums that covered the algorithm the DGP used. If there is, I wasn't able to find it.

Okay, I found it. Here's the appropriate part of the thread:

For the top hiders finds. Would it be easy to rank tied finders the same? For example if three finders have found all of a hider's caches, only one is ranked #1, another #2, and another #3. Perhaps all should be ranked #1 and the next, #4.

I checked the code and here is how finders are ranked for this stat:

First by total CPs. Where there is a tie, it is broken by find count. Where both CPs and find count are the same, tie is broken by which cacher got to that CP/Count level first (by checking latest log date). If all of that is tied, then cachers are really tied, meaning there could be 3 #1's and then a #4.

So if finders 1, 2 and 3 all have the same CPs and find count, they are ordered by who got to that level first. If you are talking about a case where the top three have found all of a hiders caches, then in order to move up from 3rd to 1st, you'd have to go and be the first finder in the group to find the next cache placed by the hider who's cache finders are being ranked.

So we're doing almost exactly the same as how the DGP ranked top finders. We're just not ranking by find count, though it would be very simple to add that in.

[rocketsciguy]

Excellent -- this sounds well thought through. Good job!

[Corfman Clan]

Currently, the owner find accolades lists geocachers' top rankings regardless of whether the hider has a lot of high point hides or only one or two low point hides. This may not be very satisfying for a geocacher that is the top finder of several low point hiders, but has decent find rankings among other more prolific hiders.

One thought on how to remedy this that was discussed in the Testing forum, was to order the accolades by found points instead of rank and then found points. I didn't really care for that solution for various reasons I don't want to go into here. What I think is a better solution, is to only include those accolades where the finder points are above some threshold.

Below are examples of how this would work, using azcampbell as the finder. The first example is how things currently work. The second is using a mimimun point value of 50 and the third is for a minimum value of 100.

What I'm requesting here, is thoughts on what the threshold should be. 50 points, 100 points, something else?

Current, no point threshold

Code: Select all

Finder     Rank  Owner           Cnt  Points
azcampbell    1  mlcoomer          2    19.6983030646104
azcampbell    1  jhwolf            2    11.8530057347962
azcampbell    1  Azjeeper12        1     8.54209445
azcampbell    1  Juno's Master     1     6.32355213870968
azcampbell    2  46 Zulu 50        5   157.638723743158

Minimum 50 point threshold

Code: Select all

Finder     Rank  Owner           Cnt  Points
azcampbell    2  46 Zulu 50        5   157.638723743158
azcampbell    2  Mr.Schminkman    16    63.0736729955404
azcampbell    3  jcanyoneer       56  1331.5840875455
azcampbell    3  azwaverider      25   448.807712485152
azcampbell    4  CariocaeFilhos    2   149.9429614

Minimum 100 point threshold (also upped max rank from 5 to 10)

Code: Select all

Finder     Rank  Owner           Cnt  Points
azcampbell    2  46 Zulu 50        5   157.638723743158
azcampbell    3  jcanyoneer       56  1331.5840875455
azcampbell    3  azwaverider      25   448.807712485152
azcampbell    4  CariocaeFilhos    2   149.9429614
azcampbell    7  pair o' dachs    48   342.517789644319

[Corfman Clan]

I want to add that I am currently adding link to a cacher's Owner Find Accolades list to bring up a page that includes all of that cacher's Owner Find Accolades, not just the top five as is currently done.

[AZC]

cool, thats what i'm talking about. they both have good results. i personally like the 100 pt. but, 50 might be better for cachers with fewer finds.

[Corfman Clan]

Ok, these changes have now been implemented. I used a 100 point threshold (release notes).

[TheBlizzles]

Great. Anything is better than it was. Not sure I even recognized any of the names that were showing on mine.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short