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International Geocaching Day Souvenir


dakich

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Didn't notice if it was immediate, but I logged the find for my evening International Geocaching Day Event about 10:00 PM Eastern Time, and it's there already. I also grabbed two new U.S. States in June, and I noticed those were immediate. So the programming works on these things for sure. Now will there ever be any new ones? Other than Mega events and specific days I mean?

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Didn't notice if it was immediate, but I logged the find for my evening International Geocaching Day Event about 10:00 PM Eastern Time, and it's there already. I also grabbed two new U.S. States in June, and I noticed those were immediate. So the programming works on these things for sure. Now will there ever be any new ones? Other than Mega events and specific days I mean?

 

I posted a suggestion in the Feature Requests forum a couple of weeks ago called "Bring back Country based Souvenirs". So far the responses have 100% in support of the suggestion but TPTB have not responded. Perhaps if enough people respond to the thread with support for the suggestion GS won't be able to ignore it. Also, if country based souvenirs were reintroduced I could get 14 additional souvenirs and will have the opportunity to add 3 countries 2-3 weeks from now.

 

I had assumed that the International Geocaching Day souvenir was for any year but I just looked at the one I got for finding a cache last year and see that it has 2011 on it. I could have tried to find a cache on International Geocaching Day this year but I assumed that I would have already qualified last year.

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Didn't notice if it was immediate, but I logged the find for my evening International Geocaching Day Event about 10:00 PM Eastern Time, and it's there already.

Yep, it was instant. After I logged my first find of the day, on the log summary screen where you can add it to your Favourites, it displayed the new souvenir with a "Congratulations..." blurb.

 

I posted a suggestion in the Feature Requests forum a couple of weeks ago called "Bring back Country based Souvenirs". So far the responses have 100% in support of the suggestion but TPTB have not responded.

Unfortunately, TPTB recently decided to cut back on responding to posts. Very unfortunate and, IMO, a bad move.

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I guess Groundspeak forgot about eastern european countries cause we still didn`t get anything :D

What time of day did you log your find? If you convert that to Seattle time, was it August 18th in Seattle when you logged your find? They may not have enabled the souvenir until midnight in Seattle.

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You logged this as Found on 08/18/2012.

I think this is important not the hour that i logged it ...

Like I said earlier, if it wasn't yet August 18th in Seattle at the time you logged it, the system may not have been handing out souvenirs yet. I'm just guessing though. Your best bet would be to email contact@geocaching.com and ask them why cachers in your region didn't receive it.

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You logged this as Found on 08/18/2012.

I think this is important not the hour that i logged it ...

Like I said earlier, if it wasn't yet August 18th in Seattle at the time you logged it, the system may not have been handing out souvenirs yet. I'm just guessing though. Your best bet would be to email contact@geocaching.com and ask them why cachers in your region didn't receive it.

 

I`ve already send them mail, but still no answer

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You logged this as Found on 08/18/2012.

I think this is important not the hour that i logged it ...

Like I said earlier, if it wasn't yet August 18th in Seattle at the time you logged it, the system may not have been handing out souvenirs yet. I'm just guessing though. Your best bet would be to email contact@geocaching.com and ask them why cachers in your region didn't receive it.

 

I`ve already send them mail, but still no answer

It's still the weekend. You'll probably get a response tomorrow.

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You logged this as Found on 08/18/2012.

I think this is important not the hour that i logged it ...

Like I said earlier, if it wasn't yet August 18th in Seattle at the time you logged it, the system may not have been handing out souvenirs yet. I'm just guessing though. Your best bet would be to email contact@geocaching.com and ask them why cachers in your region didn't receive it.

 

I`ve already send them mail, but still no answer

It's still the weekend. You'll probably get a response tomorrow.

i hope so :))

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Yawn. I see I now have four souvenirs based on nothing more than dates on the calendar. It stretches the concept of "souvenir" a bit.

 

That's funny, considering Groundspeak's tagline is The Language of Location. Note last word.

 

Now about those countries...

 

Hey, Foursquare badges and GetGlue stickers are wildly popular. Ideas the souvenirs are obviously borrowed from. :anicute:

 

Didn't notice if it was immediate, but I logged the find for my evening International Geocaching Day Event about 10:00 PM Eastern Time, and it's there already. I also grabbed two new U.S. States in June, and I noticed those were immediate. So the programming works on these things for sure. Now will there ever be any new ones? Other than Mega events and specific days I mean?

 

I posted a suggestion in the Feature Requests forum a couple of weeks ago called "Bring back Country based Souvenirs". So far the responses have 100% in support of the suggestion but TPTB have not responded. Perhaps if enough people respond to the thread with support for the suggestion GS won't be able to ignore it. Also, if country based souvenirs were reintroduced I could get 14 additional souvenirs and will have the opportunity to add 3 countries 2-3 weeks from now.

 

I had assumed that the International Geocaching Day souvenir was for any year but I just looked at the one I got for finding a cache last year and see that it has 2011 on it. I could have tried to find a cache on International Geocaching Day this year but I assumed that I would have already qualified last year.

 

So what you're saying is, I should get my arse over there, and support the idea? Yes, I will do that. Some people like these things, and I don't think it's too much to ask for new Country based ones.

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Yawn. I see I now have four souvenirs based on nothing more than dates on the calendar. It stretches the concept of "souvenir" a bit.

 

That's funny, considering Groundspeak's tagline is The Language of Location. Note last word.

 

Now about those countries...

 

Hey, Foursquare badges and GetGlue stickers are wildly popular. Ideas the souvenirs are obviously borrowed from. :anicute:

 

 

Perhaps the inspiration behind geocaching souvenirs was based on Foursquare badges and GetGlue stickers but I think you've hit upon an important distinction (and why they're called souvenirs, and not badges). When souvenirs were first launched there was an associated blog post which likened them to those badges one could get and sew on a backpack after going going someplace and doing something. For example, while visiting Yosemite valley you could go into a gift shop and buy a cloth patch or bumper sticker as a remembrance of visiting yosemite. Similarly, a geocacher that finds a cache in one of the U.S. States, Canadian provinces, etc. will get a virtual souvenir as a token for visiting a location and finding a cache.

 

As you note, simply playing the game on a specific day moves away from how souvenirs were initially presented, although I think the idea of getting a souvenir for attending a mega-event still meets my idea of what a souvenir is all about.

 

 

Didn't notice if it was immediate, but I logged the find for my evening International Geocaching Day Event about 10:00 PM Eastern Time, and it's there already. I also grabbed two new U.S. States in June, and I noticed those were immediate. So the programming works on these things for sure. Now will there ever be any new ones? Other than Mega events and specific days I mean?

 

I posted a suggestion in the Feature Requests forum a couple of weeks ago called "Bring back Country based Souvenirs". So far the responses have 100% in support of the suggestion but TPTB have not responded. Perhaps if enough people respond to the thread with support for the suggestion GS won't be able to ignore it. Also, if country based souvenirs were reintroduced I could get 14 additional souvenirs and will have the opportunity to add 3 countries 2-3 weeks from now.

 

I had assumed that the International Geocaching Day souvenir was for any year but I just looked at the one I got for finding a cache last year and see that it has 2011 on it. I could have tried to find a cache on International Geocaching Day this year but I assumed that I would have already qualified last year.

 

So what you're saying is, I should get my arse over there, and support the idea? Yes, I will do that. Some people like these things, and I don't think it's too much to ask for new Country based ones.

 

Yep. Maybe GS has stopped responding the Feature suggestions to avoid leading to "unrealistic expectations" but if enough people support idea and nothing every happens as a result (even if they don't respond), the only expectation that will lead to is that the Feature Suggestion forum is essentially a waste of time.

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Yawn. I see I now have four souvenirs based on nothing more than dates on the calendar. It stretches the concept of "souvenir" a bit.

 

That's funny, considering Groundspeak's tagline is The Language of Location. Note last word.

 

Now about those countries...

 

Hey, Foursquare badges and GetGlue stickers are wildly popular. Ideas the souvenirs are obviously borrowed from. :anicute:

 

 

Perhaps the inspiration behind geocaching souvenirs was based on Foursquare badges and GetGlue stickers but I think you've hit upon an important distinction (and why they're called souvenirs, and not badges). When souvenirs were first launched there was an associated blog post which likened them to those badges one could get and sew on a backpack after going going someplace and doing something. For example, while visiting Yosemite valley you could go into a gift shop and buy a cloth patch or bumper sticker as a remembrance of visiting yosemite. Similarly, a geocacher that finds a cache in one of the U.S. States, Canadian provinces, etc. will get a virtual souvenir as a token for visiting a location and finding a cache.

 

As you note, simply playing the game on a specific day moves away from how souvenirs were initially presented, although I think the idea of getting a souvenir for attending a mega-event still meets my idea of what a souvenir is all about.

 

 

Didn't notice if it was immediate, but I logged the find for my evening International Geocaching Day Event about 10:00 PM Eastern Time, and it's there already. I also grabbed two new U.S. States in June, and I noticed those were immediate. So the programming works on these things for sure. Now will there ever be any new ones? Other than Mega events and specific days I mean?

 

I posted a suggestion in the Feature Requests forum a couple of weeks ago called "Bring back Country based Souvenirs". So far the responses have 100% in support of the suggestion but TPTB have not responded. Perhaps if enough people respond to the thread with support for the suggestion GS won't be able to ignore it. Also, if country based souvenirs were reintroduced I could get 14 additional souvenirs and will have the opportunity to add 3 countries 2-3 weeks from now.

 

I had assumed that the International Geocaching Day souvenir was for any year but I just looked at the one I got for finding a cache last year and see that it has 2011 on it. I could have tried to find a cache on International Geocaching Day this year but I assumed that I would have already qualified last year.

 

So what you're saying is, I should get my arse over there, and support the idea? Yes, I will do that. Some people like these things, and I don't think it's too much to ask for new Country based ones.

 

Yep. Maybe GS has stopped responding the Feature suggestions to avoid leading to "unrealistic expectations" but if enough people support idea and nothing every happens as a result (even if they don't respond), the only expectation that will lead to is that the Feature Suggestion forum is essentially a waste of time.

 

That message was in a bug reporting forum. I guess he was saying that they are not responding to bug reports because that may give unrealistic expectations that they will actually be fixed.

Edited by Don_J
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Maybe GS has stopped responding the Feature suggestions to avoid leading to "unrealistic expectations" but if enough people support idea and nothing every happens as a result (even if they don't respond), the only expectation that will lead to is that the Feature Suggestion forum is essentially a waste of time.

 

That message was in a bug reporting forum. I guess he was saying that they are not responding to bug reports because that may give unrealistic expectations that they will actually be fixed.

There has also been a very conspicuous silence in the Feature Suggestion forum recently. I think the statement about "unrealistic expectations" applies even more so to that forum. People would see that their idea had been put into the big-book-of-ideas-that-we-may-or-may-not-ever-implement, and expect it to come to fruition within a few months. The Bug Report forums are another matter entirely. It should be expected that bugs that are reported will be fixed. It isn't a matter of someone wishing for some new functionality, it's a matter of already existing functionality being broken, which people have every reason to expect should be fixed. I've always considered the communication from TPTB on these forums to be excellent, and it has elevated this site above a lot of others where communication with the membership is sorely lacking. Unfortunately, I can't say that anymore.

 

Sorry for taking this farther off-topic, but this needed to be said.

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I checked people from other european countries that logged on Saturday as well (as did I) and they don't have a souvenir either. The only users with souvenirs that I could find were from the US. Perhaps there's a problem with the country setting?

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I checked people from other european countries that logged on Saturday as well (as did I) and they don't have a souvenir either. The only users with souvenirs that I could find were from the US. Perhaps there's a problem with the country setting?

 

Those of us from Canada also have the souvenir. :)

 

I've seen profiles from the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Poland that have the 2012 souvenir.

 

But profiles from Argentina who found caches on 18 August 2012 don't have the souvenir.

 

Contacting Groundspeak will hopefully bring a resolution.

 

Patience, though. It wasn't a typical weekend for Groundspeak:

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=146

 

 

B.

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Yeah , but when you are making such a big announcement for that day and you will get a suvenir. I saw a lot of events and people trying to get a free min to find a cache on that day, and then when i logged the cache and saw that there isn`t such on the site + that some other countries got it , you start to fееl a little disappointed

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I checked people from other european countries that logged on Saturday as well (as did I) and they don't have a souvenir either. The only users with souvenirs that I could find were from the US. Perhaps there's a problem with the country setting?

 

No, I do no think so - most European countries are not effected. I have seen the souvenir e.g. in Germany, Austria and France. Without the frequent mention of international GC day in logs in my country, I would not have known about the day at all. There is hardly anything more boring for me than such days.

 

My guess is that those countries are missing which have few caches and are not split up into provinces/regions.

 

Cezanne

Edited by cezanne
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I checked people from other european countries that logged on Saturday as well (as did I) and they don't have a souvenir either. The only users with souvenirs that I could find were from the US. Perhaps there's a problem with the country setting?

 

No, I do no think so - most European countries are not effected. I have seen the souvenir e.g. in Germany, Austria and France. Without the frequent mention of international GC day in logs in my country, I would not have known about the day at all. There is hardly anything more boring for me than such days.

 

My guess is that those countries are missing which have few caches and are not split up into provinces/regions.

 

Cezanne

 

Since some in the affected regions did get their icon, I'm going to take a wild guess that it's those that logged their caches when it was 8/18 in their area, but still 8/17 in Seattle that are affected.

 

What people need to do is be patient and wait for Groundspeak to figure it out. This has happened with every single one of the special day souvenirs, and when the dust settled, everyone got their precious icon.

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My guess is the time zone/date issue. It might have been August 18 there, but not here.

I didn't also get the souvenir. Neither did I get an answer on my email. Hope the souvenir will show up in some time.

 

I doubt that they will answer as they will simply fix the problem. Even in cases where they answer, it can take several days. Don't forget that the office staff has only been there about four hours, since the weekend.

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My guess is that those countries are missing which have few caches and are not split up into provinces/regions.

 

 

Since some in the affected regions did get their icon, I'm going to take a wild guess that it's those that logged their caches when it was 8/18 in their area, but still 8/17 in Seattle that are affected.

 

Do you know a cacher from a country with no province/region partition who got the souvenir for a find at home?

 

I do not think that it is a date issue. Countries like Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Luxembourg have the same time zone than Germany, Austria, France .... I still think that my conjecture is true and if it is, it is again an issue of a inconsistent manner to deal with the countries with and without subdivision, respectively.

 

Cezanne

Edited by cezanne
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My guess is that those countries are missing which have few caches and are not split up into provinces/regions.

Since some in the affected regions did get their icon, I'm going to take a wild guess that it's those that logged their caches when it was 8/18 in their area, but still 8/17 in Seattle that are affected.

 

The timezone can't be the difference. I logged on Saturday afternoon and am GMT+2.

 

I live in a country that's not split up into regions, though it's got proportionally to the surface a lot of caches (~1 cache per every square mile). That could be the problem, but I dunno how that would play into the equation.

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I guess a lot of ppl send a mail about that. I don`t have asnwer to my mail too

 

It might even happen that after a while you receive a useless reply telling you that they forwarded the message to the development team. In most cases the people replying to the e-mails do not seem to have an understanding about even basic IT issues.

 

I'm pretty sure that something wnet wrong with scanning the logs - either they forgot about the countries with no subdivision or something went wrong. I conjecture that they once again became victim of their dirty data structures that have grown over time. In any case it should not be a big issue to take care of the problem and provide the souvenir to all those who did not get it with one additional pass.

 

Cezanne

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I just got this :

 

Hello there,

 

Thank you for contacting Groundspeak regarding souvenirs. We realize that some cachers did not receive their desired souvenirs on International Geocaching Day, August 18th. We are working to retroactively apply those souvenirs to the correct profiles over the next week. We appreciate your patience while we do this. If you do not have the correct souvenirs on your profile by Monday, August 27th then please reply to this email and we will happy to make the proper additions.

We appreciate you patience at this time!

 

Happy caching!

 

Bethany

Community Relations Specialist

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