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What's your Release/Disappearance Rate?


Hula Bum

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G'day

 

My Travel Bug's status is shown at http://aushiker.com/geocaching.htm#tavel_bug but to summarise:

 

13 Released

3 Missing - One stolen, now re-released as a copy, one stolen from a cache, status unkown and one lost in a bushfire IIRC

1 enroute to South Africa and should have arrived by now .... status unclear.

 

0.23% lost rate.

 

Regards

Andrew

Edited by Aushiker
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Let's see..

I have one that disappeared shortly after it's release. (A nice Johnny Lightning die-cast.) Probably in some 40 year old "kid's" toy box now.

I have one that's stalled for over a year. The folks that have it told me they would get it moving again.

I have two that are moving but slowly. One is designed to fit in micros and still doesn't do much.

My large bug (A 5 ft. tall airplane propeller) is doing well and has been to several events this year. I guess creative, large bugs are the way to go if you don't want them to go missing.

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Cool, a reason to check up on my TBs :laughing:

 

gc.com TBs, 13 released

6 missing from caches or events, plus one that a persons been holding for more 6 months

7 still around, or haven't been missing for 6+ months

(6/13=46%)

 

gc.com trackable coins, 12 released

5 missing, plus one that I sent to someone to take overseas, they've had it for years... the annoying part is they haven't actually logged any movement on it in about a year. I don't know if I should call this one MIA what?

That leaves 6, four of which were sent to England to be release but aren't actually out yet (Ie haven't disappeared yet). Leaving two that are either actually traveling, or just having been gone 6+ yet.

(5/12=42%)

 

So is like 40-50% missing rate common, or am I just unlucky with my small samples?? :anitongue:

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Five travel bugs released.

One obviously lost. (I sent a couple of gentle reminders. The holder 'put it in a cache', but it was never seen since. I think she lost it, and 'put' it in a cache to get me off her back.)

One not moved since July. But cacher still active.

Okay, the plastic pink flamingo (that my sister is sending me in return for the Furby I sent her) seems to present some problems. People don't know what to do with a TB that large. It's still stuck in Maine. Maybe, it will travel from event to event, and finally make it to me?

The other two are still moving. One has 4600 miles, and made it to Michigan. (Didn't know tht Michigan is 4600 miles from New Jersey?!?) :anitongue:

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Who owns the most travel bug Tags

 

673 released and 46 in unknown.

 

Factor in the ease of re-release and angst for finding a copy TB vs a copy coin. I'm willing to enter in a -.001 drop for not getting a new coin icon vs helping a TB towards it's goal. Wait, you do get the coin icon, enter in -.00000000001 for not getting to hold a coin in your hand vs helping a TB.

 

What's the math on that?

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42 bugs total, 4 missing. I was quite bothered when two of my early bugs went out of circulation. One was kept by a finder, and the other was put by its first finder in a 5-star-terrain cache that is inaccessible for 7 months of the year. :cry: I waited nine months without anyone visiting the cache, and then sent out a rescue request. (Which, thankfully, was successful. :P )

 

My solution was to send out a BUNCH more bugs, so now I'm little bothered if one goes AWOL.

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I have not done a check for awhile. It is interesting a couple have been marked as missing and no communication from the person who did it, would not common courtesy say to at least post a note to the bug page?

 

24 Travel Bugs released.

10 missing (6 outright, 4 still in hands of cachers for over six months, 2 for over a year. :cry: )

 

28 Coins released.

8 missing. (7 outright, 1 still in hands of a cacher for over six months.)

 

But most of my coins that I have released have been in the last nine months, with only a few before that. My first bug was released over two years ago.

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:D One released travel bug.......one went missing :D

 

I think that makes for a 100% loss rate.

 

I have another travel bug that I am going to release in about a week, and we shall see if that loss rate cuts in half.

I also have released one and lost one. ;):D:o

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Too bad there isn't any easy way (findstats??) to figure this out as a function of time. Of course re-released ones will screw things up a little, but How many are missing after 6 months vs 1 year vs 2 year, etc

 

Well sitting in a cache for six months doesn't mean it's gone, so what criteria do you use? The ones put out to unknown? Not according to the TB graveyard fans.

 

Bottom line, you can replace a travel bug.

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Too bad there isn't any easy way (findstats??) to figure this out as a function of time. Of course re-released ones will screw things up a little, but How many are missing after 6 months vs 1 year vs 2 year, etc

 

Well sitting in a cache for six months doesn't mean it's gone, so what criteria do you use? The ones put out to unknown? Not according to the TB graveyard fans.

 

Bottom line, you can replace a travel bug.

I'd say look at either time since last movement / time spent at current location. Though really I don't really think it would matter, if were something available as find stats it would probably be disected and reported in about ten different ways. Much easier than looking threw multiple pages and manually putting each into a category.

 

edit:

Yes a TB can be replaced, I am not saying otherwise. If people want to replace their travelers they should be able to.

I just wonder about some these percentages some people have, I think they could be effected by the constent influx of new TB. If half of someone TBs were released a week ago, they haven't had much chance to get lost yet, but are still counting as 'not lost' and changing the total percentage. Where as if it were broken down by the amount of time traveling vs. percent lose, or some other ways it may be different percents.

Re-released would affect the numbers too, but thats ok, this isn't NASA isn't all that important just something interesting to look at. Of course this is all moot because there is no PQ for your TB data, and there is no FindStats type thing for the PQ that don't exist.

Edited by welch
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Too bad there isn't any easy way (findstats??) to figure this out as a function of time. Of course re-released ones will screw things up a little, but How many are missing after 6 months vs 1 year vs 2 year, etc

 

Well sitting in a cache for six months doesn't mean it's gone, so what criteria do you use? The ones put out to unknown? Not according to the TB graveyard fans.

 

Bottom line, you can replace a travel bug.

I'd say look at either time since last movement / time spent at current location. Though really I don't really think it would matter, if were something available as find stats it would probably be disected and reported in about ten different ways. Much easier than looking threw multiple pages and manually putting each into a category.

 

edit:

Yes a TB can be replaced, I am not saying otherwise. If people want to replace their travelers they should be able to.

I just wonder about some these percentages some people have, I think they could be effected by the constent influx of new TB. If half of someone TBs were released a week ago, they haven't had much chance to get lost yet, but are still counting as 'not lost' and changing the total percentage. Where as if it were broken down by the amount of time traveling vs. percent lose, or some other ways it may be different percents.

Re-released would affect the numbers too, but thats ok, this isn't NASA isn't all that important just something interesting to look at. Of course this is all moot because there is no PQ for your TB data, and there is no FindStats type thing for the PQ that don't exist.

 

I hear ya, I'm just saying that (concerning the OP) that both Tbs and coins may have the same disappearance rate but the end results are pretty different when comparing the two. People are less likely to replace a lost coin and people don't really like finding a copied coin (usually because it's not even a coin). Lose a TB and you just rummage around the toy box and slap on another tag and away it goes.

 

So I'm not sure what goods stats against a Tb would do since really they aren't lost forever.

 

When people post that that they won't release any more geocoins because they go missing so quickly, I say good for them! That is exactly what they should be thinking. Everybody needs the mindset that eventually your traveler WILL go missing and if you aren’t willing to lose it, don’t release it. If you want to play the traveler game you should attempt to release something that will last as long as possible, and sorry, that ain’t a coin. I wish they could last out there, but it would be pretty unrealistic to think they will just because you want them to. (The collective you, not you specifically Welch. I know you know all this.)

 

If you don’t want your coin lost or stolen there is only one solution, don’t put it out there. If you want to release one, do everything you can to identify it for what it is. But if you get tired of having them go missing then stop releasing them and switch to something that isn’t so painful to lose and easier to replace. Swap your pokemon cards; excuse me, your coin icons via another method. Believe it or not, there are other methods than Events to pass around a geocoin and you don't have to leave it in a cache open to anonymous retrieval.

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