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Seven, seventy or hundred seventy people involved in Slovenia?

How many people did it?
How many still do it?
How many will do it in Slovenia?

There was a short debate on Slovenian side of this blog about Slovenian geo-history. I was quite interested in that so I decided to look a bit into it.

It was May 2007 when I did the first review, so this note is reflecting a status I discovered at that time. It was a painstaking process as I reviewed each cache published in Slovenia. Number was still under 100 published cache in whole Slovenia so I was able to do it "by hand" by opening each cache site and reading the logs.

Anyhow I looked into:

• Who did "those things" in Slovenia?
• Where and how they did it?
  
• How frequently is this being done in Slovenia? :-)

But before I respond to those questions here is a short quiz for you. Without looking to further published data please answer following:

How many active geocachers was there in Slovenia (those looking @ www.geocaching.com) in the year 2007?

1. seven (7)
2. nineteen (19)
3. forty (40)
4. sixty six (66)
5. seventy nine (79)
6. one hundred seventy five (175)
7. a bit less than two million (<2.000.000)?

To find the right answer is a challenge. It would be quite hard to find answer in USA, for example, however in Slovenia one could do it with quite some accuracy - if one is a bit determined and diligent. However during such review one should also avoid any issues with geocaaching.com site terms of use (TOU).
I'm not a lawyer but I think I avoided any issues. Hopefully...

When I browsed through caches and logs I asked myself:

• Are there any interesting data on history of geocaching in Slovenia?
• How many geocachers were and are still active in Slovenia?
• Is the geocacher from Slovenia?
• Is s/he (are they) still active?
• Am I still within boundaries of geocaching.com TOU?
  I was looking at geocachers self-published, widely available and freely accessible data to comprehend a history of geocaching in Slovenia, so I think I was not going overboard.
  

I avoided a bit more direct "link" to data references - at least here (even though all data are publicly available at geocaching.com). I do understand that some of us are concerned abut level of shared data online while some of us would not/do not mind to share some basic data in exchange for useful info that helps us or enriches us.

Image via Wikipedia
Based on this here is something I think is a summarized point of view on the history of geocaching in Slovenia.

Numbers

1. Geocaching started in Slovenia on 29. June 2001
   
   
2. From that date till May 2007 approximately 102 geocachers were active in Slovenia!
   Number includes:
   
   • Geocachers that found only one cache and that cache was located in Slovenia;
   • "Non-Slovenian" geocachers, owning at least one cache in Slovenia;
   • Active and non-active geocachers from Slovenia.
     
     
   All other non-Slovenian geocachers that do not fill above criteria are not included in the numbers.
   
   
3. Out of 102 geocachers some 79 geocachers are most probably from Slovenia!
   Out of those 79 geocachers some 60 geocachers were still active on geocaching.com site during 2007 and approximately 37 Slovenian geocachers found a geo-treasure till May 2007!
   

Timeline

• In the year 2001 a Slovenian geo-history has been started by a team that hid a first geo-treasure in Slovenia!
  
• During 2002 approximately six (6) Slovenian geocache teams/person joined the game.
  One of those is a team that is the most consistent Slovenian geo-team with (at least) one find each year!
• In 2003 some ten (10) new geocaching teams/persons joined the game.
  Among them was a team with most finds in Slovenia (also today in Sep 2008).
  
• Afterward nine (9) new geocachers joined the game in 2004, fifteen (15) in 2005 and some twenty two (22) in 2006 .
  

What did we found?
79 Slovenian geocachers found approximately ~965 caches (also out of Slovenia). Looking by years (with some error) that would be:

• 2001 5
• 2002 10
• 2003 53
• 2004 68
• 2005 141
• 2006 358
• 2007 330 (up until May 8. 2007)

Numbers show an increase of geocaching activity in Slovenia, which is great! This looks very promising for this "sport", or "game", or should I write "free time activity" in Slovenia. I'll try to list some more relevant historical data in future blog notes.

Of course I'm interested, if you knew the right answer on my small quiz at the begining of this blog!
Did you also knew that Slovenia was among 50 countries with highest number of caches published on geocaching.com in 2007?