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Travel Bug Timer

santacarver

By santacarver
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strikeforce1

+strikeforce1

Posted
Posted
I'd like to see a timer for how long a travel bug has been in a spot.  Helps us look for those TBs that need to be rotated.

Try clicking on the TB or GeoCoin listed on the cache page. It will bump you to the tb or coin page and then just look at the top entry. The date it was dropped, is on the left.

 

Interesting idea.  Maybe they could put a timer on 'found' travelbugs & coins, too.  After 30 days, the website automagically emails the holding the TB with a friendly reminder note to keep the bug/coin moving...

Is it not in My Account Details in the lower right box marked My Inventory already ?

BTW: Isn’t the TB or Coin in your cache bag, to go caching with you!

 

Cache On !

SF1

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Aushiker

Aushiker

Posted
Posted
Is it not in My Account Details in the lower right box marked My Inventory already ?

G'day

 

It is, but the poster was suggesting an email, i.e., use of push technology. For me the website note does not jump out to remind me. Also it assumes that I login and check this particular page, something I don't do often.

 

My vote is for the email.

 

Regards

Andrew

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WascoZooKeeper

+WascoZooKeeper

Posted
Posted (edited)
Love this idea, especially the (monthly?) reminder email for cachers who have held a bug too long.  maybe it would help bugs keep moving.  One of mine has been hanging on a newbie cacher's bulletin board for almost a year now...

Why not just send a gentle reminder yourself?

 

I check the status of my bugs from time to time. If it's been in someone's hands for more than two months, I send them a friendly note asking if there's a problem, and offering to pay the postage to send it back to me if they can't get it into a cache soon. On one of my bugs very recently, it turned out the cacher's father had passed away recently. They were very, very nice about my inquiry -- I responded with my sympathy and told them to take as much time as they needed, but they got it back into a cache less than a week later.

 

If one of mine seems to be stuck in a cache, I will post a note on the cache page asking for any future visitors to please check to make sure my TB is even still there, and to consider picking it up and helping it move if they can. I had one bug that was stuck in a remote cache in the mountains of Utah. The cache owner saw my note and sent me an e-mail to advise me that it was probably stuck there until next spring, because of the upcoming snows. Next thing I knew -- just a couple weeks later -- he took advantage of a break in the weather to make a 5-hour round-trip hike to his cache in 18" of snow to rescue my bug!! :ph34r:;):)

 

Yes, both of these are probably uncommon responses. But my point is, a friendly, personal note is likely to receive a much better response than an automatically generated nag.

 

Edit: In case you've never seen it, because you're just so dadgum conscientious about keeping bugs moving, your "My Account" page flags any bug you have (other than your own) which has been in your inventory for more than 14 days. B)

Edited by WascoZooKeeper
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ZackJones

+ZackJones

Posted
Posted
If such a timer comes in, it would sure be nice to have it on the PQ.

 

So search for caches with travelers placed there within the last day/days

or

have been there longer than X weeks

I would love to have this capability as well. It would allow us to easily identify TBs that have been sitting idle for extended periods of time.

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New England n00b

+New England n00b

Posted
Posted (edited)
Love this idea, especially the (monthly?) reminder email for cachers who have held a bug too long.  maybe it would help bugs keep moving.  One of mine has been hanging on a newbie cacher's bulletin board for almost a year now...

Why not just send a gentle reminder yourself?

 

<illogical rant snipped! :blink: >

 

Yeah, true enough. However perhaps it might be taken 'less personal' if an automated message came first, is what I was thinking. Something like:

 

Subject:  Travelbug check-up

 

Message:

 

This is an automated message from Geocaching.com

 

Hello <cachername>;

 

  According to our database, it appears that on <date+hotlink> you retrieved the travelbug <travelbug name+hotlink>.  Our records have not shown that the travelbug has not been moved on yet.

 

  If the travelbug has moved on, perhaps you have simply forgotten to log it. If it is still in your posession, making arrangements to move it on will undoubtedly make the travelbug owner very happy.

 

  Thanks for your attention with this very personal item.

 

  Happy Caching!

 

The Groundspeak Staffbot

 

Or something along those lines. Keystone usually has a way with words.

 

As to the original post, I think it is great! Maybe on the cache search page list (where they display icons of stuff in the cache) the long-wait travelbugs could have a red exclamation mark on them. Dunno about coins - do they even last a day? :blink:

 

Wasco, totally kidding, you know that, right? Right. :blink:

Edited by New England n00b
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baloo&bd

+baloo&bd

Posted
Posted
And more likely to be ignored . . . or added to a spam filter.

I don't think so. The majority of times I have been put in a postion of asking someone to move a bug along, the response has usually been "Sorry. Haven't had much time to GC lately and forgot i had this."

 

The reminder was sort of a polite "Kick in the head".

 

I also like the idea of some sort of indicator on the cache page of how long the TB has been in there. For instance;

 

In a green bar = <30

 

Yellow bar = 31 to 45

 

Red bar = 45 or greater

 

I don't know who you would send an email to since 1. The TB owner probably already knows and can't do anything and 2. The cache owner is not responsible to make sure the bug keeps moving.

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WascoZooKeeper

+WascoZooKeeper

Posted
Posted
And more likely to be ignored . . . or added to a spam filter.

I don't think so. The majority of times I have been put in a postion of asking someone to move a bug along, the response has usually been "Sorry. Haven't had much time to GC lately and forgot i had this."

 

The reminder was sort of a polite "Kick in the head".

But that's exactly what I was referring to.

 

If I received an e-mail that had a subject of "[GEO] baloo&bd contacting WascoZooKeeper from geocaching.com", I'm much more likely to look at it right away, and respond to it, than if I got some automatically generated nag from a bug-bot.

 

As far as bugs stuck in caches, a note works perfectly. The owner automatically gets a copy of it, so at least he knows there's a TB whose owner is looking for some help. Whether the cache owner makes a special trip, grabs the bug on a regular maintenance visit, or whatever, he's been alerted that someone would appreciate his (her) help. Doesn't mean they have to do anything, of course. And cache hunters, in the course of reviewing the logs, will likewise see that someone would appreciate their help in moving the bug.

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