Geocaching Australia

A few statistics about swaggies.

http://geocaching.com.au/swaggies/?sort=created

642 in total
4 created in 2015
6 created in 2014
2 created in 2013
7 created in 2012

1,479 logs in total
22 in 2015
42 in 2014
54 in 2013
102 in 2012

They were meant to be the Geocaching Australia version of a travel bug and while the name is very cool, they have not been a success. From a usability perspective the swaggie code is all over the place and if it's dropped into a non-Geocaching Australia geocache it's extremely confusing to log. They're very confusing to log, even in a Geocaching Australia geocache anyway.

The proposal was put to the senate about 3 weeks ago and there were only two responses, one from the other developer and one from a senator. As we stand by the vote of the senate, there were 3 ayes to remove, 0 nays and everyone else abstained.

From the people who were involved in the discussion, we appreciate that this is most likely to annoy some folks, but we have made a decision to promote the removal of swaggies from Geocaching Australia. They are not core. They bring little to the game of geocaching. They're not geocaches. They're not treated well. They're annoying to log.

As we rewrite code for the Geocaching Australia website, we will be removing the swaggies code. You should expect that swaggies will continue to work for some weeks, but after that they may disappear with any given update.

If you have a very strong opinion on retaining swaggies, please provide your voice to this discussion. There is no guarantee that the senate decision will be reversed, but we're always open to listening to the community.

It was an excellent idea, and I'm sorry it didn't take off. I did my bit. This is disappointing news, but I quite understand.

Sad to see them go, but I know that of the ones I sent out none have been logged for a long time, I think people get confused and put them in the too hard basket.

Oh poo - Mr Morris made me a mini trig point which I made into a swaggie and we "visit" into any trigs that we log. I know there was an Alice the Camel one too who visited the Burke and Will caches.
I copied the TB code as the password so it can be logged on either site using the same number.
Beyond those I can see they are problematic though.

I'm ok with it.

I've only ever seen one swaggie, and Mrs The Morris mentioned it in a post further up this page.
Focus on core business. I have no problem with swaggies being dumped and understand the reasoning behind the proposal.

Nice idea, but yes I dont think many people knew of their existence so safe bet to remove them

For people who own swaggies, is there anything to do about them? Recall them? e-mail finders? Ignore them?

You can ask the next finder to do with them as you want. Sooner of later (probably within weeks) they will all disappear as though they never existed, so if you want them returned, get the message out there now.

No, not me. I just didn't want to make rubbish, or add to the woes of the poor people like you, C@W, who have to field calls about all sorts of things.

My first thought when I read this topic heading was that The Swaggies had somehow upset the applecart and were being banished.

I guess any swaggies that survive and turn up can be turned into GC.com trackables if they want to be kept in circulation..
Sending any trackable out these days seems to mainly end up in a one way ticket to oblivion.

gmj3191 wrote:My first thought when I read this topic heading was that The Swaggies had somehow upset the applecart and were being banished.

I guess any swaggies that survive and turn up can be turned into GC.com trackables if they want to be kept in circulation..
Sending any trackable out these days seems to mainly end up in a one way ticket to oblivion.

I doubt Iain could ever do something to get banished.

Which made it all the more intriguing......

My swaggies are all long gone. Unfortunately they never really took off.

Sam

I've got one swaggie found, that was allowed to be as a collectable or released, I think it was in a cache from the frog race. It's still in my top drawer. Never seen another out there.