RetiredGuy

Agreed. There will always be a debate on whether a place should be considered a country or not. There are many different ways to classify what a country is and Geocaching HQ has determined the list of countries for geocaching. That list can be debated but that was not the original discussion of this thread. The question being asked here is after Geocaching HQ has determined the list of countries for geocaching, why is there what appears to be great inconsistencies in determining whether a geocaching country deserves to have a country souvenir associated with it. It makes sense that HQ doesn't create souvenirs for countries that don't have active geocaches in them. Beyond that, how should a line be drawn if any. If it is drawn based on active caches or total caches in that country, there are some glaring omissions and that was what I was pointing out. These omitted countries would include at least Ireland, Serbia, Afghanistan, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Svalbard, French Guiana, Sark, and Mayotte. I am hoping that HQ just took a break from issuing new souvenirs for countries and will start again soon. And if they draw a line between countries with souvenirs and those without, that line is not drawn arbitrarily.

Traditionals on July 3 and 4. No souvenir yet.

Personally I feel it would be best to attach a souvenir to any country that has active caches where the list of countries is the list already debated and then defined by HQ. This would keep the discussion away from any political arguments (e.g. Ireland, Serbia, Taiwan, Afghanistan) and focus this back to being just about the game. Another commonality among some of the countries that have yet to make the souvenir cut by HQ are some of the French “countries”. These are technically French collectivities, overseas territories, departments, or regions. But at the same time there are quite a few French collectivities, overseas territories, departments, or regions that have made the cut. Just looking for consistency…

I used Project GC to rank the countries based on number of caches ever published in a country which gave me a list of all countries that are counted as countries by HQ. In that list, there are six countries that currently do not have a geocache: Somalia, Bouvet Island, Tuvalu, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and North Korea. Ireland still does not have a souvenir though it does have regional souvenirs. This is inconsistent with how HQ has country and regional souvenirs for United States, Germany, Canada, and Australia. The countries that rank the highest in caches ever published that do not have souvenirs are: Serbia (61), Afghanistan (65), Guadeloupe (66), Martinique (79), Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (113), French Guiana (119), Sark (181), and Mayotte (196). The countries that rank the lowest in caches ever published that have souvenirs are South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (239), British Indian Ocean Territory (236), Sierra Leone (235), and Liberia (234). Below are the countries without souvenirs. I personally am waiting on souvenirs for the highlighted ones.

Yes, fixed. Thanks!

Still not working for me. If I click on "Delete Test", I still get the Error 500. Tried in both Chrome and Firefox.

I think that there may be a temporary problem with the HQ server. It had been working fine through yesterday morning but is failing this morning with an Error 500.