Voting form compiled

[Audra Allen]

FIRST DRAFT can be found at:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wsrhtyg_3kKOfpg5M4_vyaVYtPa_xS_4JyiODS2liIc/viewform

Sorry about the tardiness of this form.  I had everything all entered, but we've had guests at our house since 1PM today until now.

We never decided (officially) the rules for voting:

    a) do we limit geocachers to be able to vote only for caches they have found?  I said no, Sef said no, Skippy still says yes

    b) do we limit to one vote per geocaching team name?  I say yes (easier to tabulate), Sef said yes, Skippy says yes

    c) what other rules? 

When the rules are finalized, I will paste them into the top box of the form.

Now, when I tried to put the explanation of the Geocache Hider Of The Year nominations I had a lot of difficulty with the formatting.  I'm going to try to inject some HTML in, but I may have to figure out how to make it appear better.  It does not let me make paragraphs within that block of text.  The alternative is to put a paragraph before the voting category (and hopefully I can format that better).

I'll keep working on it, but I need feedback from Gayle, Mark, and Darren regarding the rules questions above.  This is a democratic process, Darren so speak freely, you won't be treated badly for your opinion.

One more thing. is the Geocache Hider of the year just that, "Hider"?  or do we want to add some additional criteria to make them the geocacher of the year?  I would love to see some social points --- points for these folks attending SA geocaching events.  (to encourage new cachers to attend and get to know each other).  The shortest route is to just make them the Hider of the year since Sef already has the nominee criteria tabulated.

Have a look -- -and please, somebody check that I didn't screw something up on the form, thanks!

Cheers,

Audra

[Skippy.geocacher]

In Wherigo option2 should be "A Cache is a cache is a cache" BUT does anyone really want to nominate this (haha ) 

Skippy.

Sent from my iFone

[sef]

I don't think we should include event attendance as a criterium. Not everybody can attend events either through other commitments or distance to travel. I think it should be based on hides only.

I also don't think finds should be part of the awards.

 

Is there a decision yet on the date (April 28th?) or can we have it on an 'odd' Sunday? There are quite a few events already in the pipeline and time is running out...

 

Sef

[chillibutts]

My votes for the rules decisions 

 a) do we limit geocachers to be able to vote only for caches they have found?  YES - how can they vote for something they havent found? On reputation.. word of mouth. Doesnt sound right to me

 b) do we limit to one vote per geocaching team name? YES

It currently looks like "hider" of the year - so maybe it should be badged as that.  I agree that "geocacher" of the year should have some social element, and other criteria too - ie they are write decent logs, they respect other players etc etc - and they are active. What really makes a contribution to the community is not how many hides, hoe many finds OR how many events you attend, Its how you go about it - and in someways the stats cant tell us that - I know, I know, I am not helping at all. So maybe this year we vote for "hider of the year" and well as voting for what stats should be used next year for Geocacher of the year. ie a question like:

In 2014 a "geocacher of the year" award will be included. The Geocacher of the year will be awarded the person voted to have made the biggest positive contribution to SA Caching. Its like the MVP - someone the community would sorely miss if they did not play the game. To help us prepare a shortlist next year, please indicated which of the statistics below should be used to do the shortlisting for voting (Pick ALL that apply):

* Events hosted

* Events attended
* Caches found

* Favorited points earned

....

Ok... now I am bout to check your data entry Audra!! Be afraid... :)

[chillibutts]

Me again.

Data entry looks good - just the formatting to sort.  

However, I note that you only entered the "short" list from Sef's excel. I got the impression you were intending to include EVERY nominated cache to "share the love" - if that is the case, there are a lot of caches missing.

[sef]

My comments re the rules:

Whilst I in principle agree that in order to vote for a cache you need to have found it, I think it'll be impossible to police. In reality I don't think many people (if any) will vote for a cache they have not found anyway, so to me the point is moot. I do think we should NOT make any mention of this rule.

 

Wrt the voting sheet, I believe that the nominations are there to create a shortlist of candidates. Only the top nominations go to the next round (a bit like voting for the Olympic games venue or a new pope). If we include all caches with only a single nomination, the list will be unnecessarily long. I think people will question the need of having nominations as well if we include everything.

 

Wrt hider of the year, I think Darren makes some good points that we also could have an MVP award, although this could even be a more slippery slope and we have to be very careful in preventing it from becoming a popularity contest. At least with 'most outstanding hider' you can apply stats. With MVP this becomes a lot fuzzier. Still I think it is worthwhile to consider for next year. I think we should start with just 'hider of the year' now and learn from the feedback on the process we are using for next year

 

Rgds,Sef

[Audra Allen]

Ok, I've fixed the (and I promise it wasn't intentional) Option 2 where Freddo's lame Wherigo cache was supposed to be.  I added the rules we had last year with the edits based on how our opinions went -- majority said no to the requirement that a geocacher must find a cache before voting on it and majority said yes to allow only one vote per geocaching team name.   I successfully reformatted the Geocache Hider of 2012 text so that it is more readable and delivers the statistics more clearly and respectfully.  If everyone can take a quick look and tell me if there are any edits that remain. If not, I will publish this tomorrow!

Darren, we went with Sef's edited list -- only you and I expressed interest in keeping ALL nominees included.  If flak is received about it, we'll make note of it and make sure it is done differently next year.  (Most SA geocachers are just happy we're putting the awards on -there will only be a few vocal critiques.)

Please provide feedback BEFORE noon tomorrow.

Thanks!

[sef]

When I collated these stats, I did not include a handful of caches that Squeaky placed in 2012 but also archived in 2012. His numbers are therefore slightly different. See below for the correct stats (Changes have been made for Squeaky and Dazzatron only)

 

And the nominees are : Team Wibble specialises in night caches and use extensive camo on their caches. They received 5 nominations and have 4 top caches for 2012. : Dazzatron is a YP cacher who hides a variety of cache types and sizes all over the YP. Dazzatron received the most nominations (12) and hid the most caches (46), got the second most favourite points for the year(154) and has the second highest number of top caches (7). : chillibutts hides a variety of cache types always cleverly themed often in busy locations. Received 7 nominations and has the highest percent favourite (40%) and the third highest success rate (40%). : Jacqui&Steve are a caching team from the South East that love hiding multi caches. They received 7 nominations and hid the third highest number of caches in 2012 (27). : *Cache_or_Check* creates puzzle caches of varying difficulty. Caches are always themed and often have clever containers. Received 5 nominations, has the highest number of top caches(10), the highest success rate (71%) and the second highest percent favourite (38%). : SneakySqueaky specalises in generally home engineered caches that provide a perfect camo in the environment in which they’re placed. He received 5 nominations, has the highest number of favourite votes (223), ranks third in success rate (35%), has 7 top caches and is third in percent favourite (28%). : Akela0 is a new team from Whyalla. Received 4 nominations and has the fourth highest percent favourites (26%).

On Sunday, 7 April 2013 21:32:57 UTC+9:30, Audra Allen wrote: