what do you think about algorithm for 'hide that need maintenance' by geocaching.com

Question

The 'secret' algorithms for spotting the caches that need a maintenance at geocaching.com are according to me completely wrong. As hider, what do you think about it? How do you spot the cache that need the most a visit?

And I could say that statistically as I have more than 500 placed cache of which about 30 are selected by me for future maintenance. (with help of project-gc query 'need maintenance')

So simple for me is 3 or more 'not found', by different geocacher (yes some put two time the same message), on a different dates (yes, the same date is a complete team that doesn't search well) and by geocachers having experience (say more than 300 found and/or more than 20 placed caches).  

Another is to see which cache not so often visited that have a delay of twice the mean delay between visit.

A 'wet paper' message is not for me having many caches a priority, at contrary a broken box is certainly a message for which I put the cache on my list and then, regularly (or not according to wheather) i define circuits of maintenance with project-GC (or GSAK that I still use sometimes)

Now that i see results from geocaching.com to spot hide that need maintenance,I understand better why there was a great & stormy discussion when the virtual were distributed!

As hider, what do you think about it? How do you spot the cache that need the most a visit?

Answer 1

I have yet to trigger it, so I don't have any issues with it, so far.

There was much debate on the geocaching.com forums when it came out, primarily because it initially triggered more often than necessary on caches that are infrequently found. The algorithm has been adjusted a few times since, and judging from the lower frequency of complaints,it must be working better.

I don't have time to maintain more than a couple dozen physical caches, though, so I presume it has a greater impact the more hides one has.

As for how I prioritize cache maintenance, with fewer hides, it's of course pretty easy. Any indication of a problem, I try to stop by within a day or two. (And if someone leaves a cool geocoin behind, it's usually good incentive for a proactive check.)

Answer 2

I've yet to see that new maintenance widget they are talking about (even though I own a couple of caches with the NM attribute set).