Good morning everyone. It can be hard enough to get that elusive FTF, but to do it in multiple countries? K-Romers from Nova Scotia has FTFs in 11 different countries. Locally, it's Trove Chasers, Bike 4 Me, Morea 1821, and Kurt B with FTFs in 3 different countries. I have FTFs in 2 countries. In the States, it's g-o-cashers with 12 different countries that they have an FTF in. WhiskeySowers in North Dakota can claim FTFs in 3 different countries.
As some of you may know, I'm the unofficial stats guy for the North Dakota Geocaching Association. Even though I don't live in North Dakota, I do feel very welcome by that community and my monthly stats report is well received. I was the stats guy for the local association around these parts, but that role was being undermined, so I gave it up. I don't need the drama. At one point in time, I was doing the stats for both association. In a way, I'm relieved that I don't do the local one here anymore. The monthly report had grown to the point of mutating beyond my control. It now requires a team of people to do a job that I did solo for a couple of years. Now I'm just left with the North Dakota stats which I'm very happy to do. By comparison, there are 234 North Dakota geocachers with 200 or more finds. Around here, that number is 757. Three times more names to check. If I was asked to do the local stats again, the answer would be no.
Since this role is strictly voluntary, I sit down to compose a monthly report at the first opportunity I have. Since my life has been crazy busy with packing, moving, and trying to settle in, I haven't had the chance to look at the stats until now. It's already September 8th. You, the reader will be tagging along with me as I do the North Dakota stats.
For those that don't know what my report looks like, it starts off with a list of geocachers that hit a milestone find during the previous month for overall finds. Since I use Cacherstats, they start at 200 finds. It's every 100th find from there until your 2,000th find. It's every 500th find from 2,000 up to 10,000 finds. After that, it's every 1,000 finds that's a milestone. This is followed by mystery cache milestones. Up next is the top 3 (or top 5 depending on what I want to do) overall finders for the previous month, how many people found at least one geocache, top 3 hiders (or top 5 depending on what I want to do) of geocaches, how many people hid at least one geocache during that month and a breakdown of the cache types. I also include a fun fact at the end, just like the one you see at the beginning of my blog.
It's Sunday evening. I just returned from walking the dog and decide that I better sit down and do the stats. It is possible to complete the entire report and publish it to the North Dakota Geocaching Association FB page in one sitting. It could take anywhere from two to three hours to do. I won't be doing that tonight. The first thing I do is the milestones. This takes the longest as I go through each and every name and input the data. Since it's already a week into September, the numbers can be skewed just a little. The numbers I see will also include any finds that person did during the first week of September. For the most part, it's no big deal as it doesn't change anything. The report is also not perfect. It's possible to miss someone because they haven't finished logging all their finds by the time I start compiling my report. One advantage of being late, it allows everyone to get their logging done.
I have two pages open and reduced size so I can have them side by side. The left hand side is Cacherstats. This is where I get the milestone numbers from. I input the numbers if there is any changes from the previous month. If no changes, then I simply put a series of --- to indicate no change. It helps to see who is active and who isn't. If I come across a milestone, I highlight it in yellow so it's easy to spot later when I go back to get all the names.
As some of you may know, I'm the unofficial stats guy for the North Dakota Geocaching Association. Even though I don't live in North Dakota, I do feel very welcome by that community and my monthly stats report is well received. I was the stats guy for the local association around these parts, but that role was being undermined, so I gave it up. I don't need the drama. At one point in time, I was doing the stats for both association. In a way, I'm relieved that I don't do the local one here anymore. The monthly report had grown to the point of mutating beyond my control. It now requires a team of people to do a job that I did solo for a couple of years. Now I'm just left with the North Dakota stats which I'm very happy to do. By comparison, there are 234 North Dakota geocachers with 200 or more finds. Around here, that number is 757. Three times more names to check. If I was asked to do the local stats again, the answer would be no.
Since this role is strictly voluntary, I sit down to compose a monthly report at the first opportunity I have. Since my life has been crazy busy with packing, moving, and trying to settle in, I haven't had the chance to look at the stats until now. It's already September 8th. You, the reader will be tagging along with me as I do the North Dakota stats.
For those that don't know what my report looks like, it starts off with a list of geocachers that hit a milestone find during the previous month for overall finds. Since I use Cacherstats, they start at 200 finds. It's every 100th find from there until your 2,000th find. It's every 500th find from 2,000 up to 10,000 finds. After that, it's every 1,000 finds that's a milestone. This is followed by mystery cache milestones. Up next is the top 3 (or top 5 depending on what I want to do) overall finders for the previous month, how many people found at least one geocache, top 3 hiders (or top 5 depending on what I want to do) of geocaches, how many people hid at least one geocache during that month and a breakdown of the cache types. I also include a fun fact at the end, just like the one you see at the beginning of my blog.
It's Sunday evening. I just returned from walking the dog and decide that I better sit down and do the stats. It is possible to complete the entire report and publish it to the North Dakota Geocaching Association FB page in one sitting. It could take anywhere from two to three hours to do. I won't be doing that tonight. The first thing I do is the milestones. This takes the longest as I go through each and every name and input the data. Since it's already a week into September, the numbers can be skewed just a little. The numbers I see will also include any finds that person did during the first week of September. For the most part, it's no big deal as it doesn't change anything. The report is also not perfect. It's possible to miss someone because they haven't finished logging all their finds by the time I start compiling my report. One advantage of being late, it allows everyone to get their logging done.
I have two pages open and reduced size so I can have them side by side. The left hand side is Cacherstats. This is where I get the milestone numbers from. I input the numbers if there is any changes from the previous month. If no changes, then I simply put a series of --- to indicate no change. It helps to see who is active and who isn't. If I come across a milestone, I highlight it in yellow so it's easy to spot later when I go back to get all the names.
Because I'm a week into September, it's possible that someone hit their milestone during those first few days. To verify when the milestone was achieved, I go to their profile on geocaching.com, check the stats page and point the cursor to the graph. It will tell me what the total number of finds was at the end of that month. Not everyone has their stats available to see. Some have them blocked. Not sure why. There's nothing personal on there. I work around that somehow.
Once the total finds numbers have been gone over, I switch the screen on the left to project-gc to check the mystery find totals. Yes, that golfing add is a pain in the butt as it blocks out the numbers to the top few people.
Now I have the milestones for total finds and mystery finds complete. I'm going to bed as I have work in the morning.
It is now Monday evening. After a day at work, appointments after, making supper and cleaning up, I am able to sit down and hopefully finish what I started yesterday. What I have left to do shouldn't take much time at all, however, I'll be watching Cache The Line's live stream on FB and in half hour after that starts, it's #USGeocachingHour on Twitter. This could take a little longer. LOL
First thing I do is write down who achieved a milestone and what the milestone was. This is my "notes" that I'll use later when I make my post on the NDGCA FB page. With that done, I can close the documents page and have just a single page open. That will be project-gc. In the stats section, I click on Top Finders, enter the proper filters and I can see who has found the most in August. I can also see how many people logged a cache during the same period. This also applies to Top Hiders.
Now I go to Geocaching.com and run a pocket query for caches published in North Dakota for the month of August. This is where I get the total number that was hidden and the cache types. I add all this to my "notes". I also check to see if any of these new caches have yet to be found. In this case. there is one that has gone 10 days without a found log. FTF is still up for grabs. That's unheard of around these parts. If you don't jump within 10 minutes of notification, then you'll be second to find at best. All that's left is the fun fact. What to do this month? Since the Mystery at the Museum just wrapped up, who has collected the most souvenirs? Back to Project-gc to find that out and add it to my notes. Now I'm ready to create my post on the NDGCA FB page.
From my notes, I put together my post and click on publish. My job is done for another month. For this evening, I was using my laptop to complete my stats report, my old phone to watch Cache The Line's AMA (ask me anything) live feed, and my new phone to answer questions on #USGeocachingHour (plus take pics as I was doing this). Who says I can't multitask? LOL. Time to get ready for another day at work tomorrow. You can check out Cache The Line's AMA here > Cache The Line. He was giving away two prizes. Did I win one?
I hope you enjoyed this little sneak peak, behind the scenes look at what I also do as a stats person. Until next week, be happy, be safe, hug your loved ones (geo-pets included), enjoy life (hopefully drama free), and most of all, have fun. Peace out.
(time to curl up, read a little, and go to sleep)
Comments
Post a Comment