aussie bugs - request for comments [closed]

Mix · Post by **Mix** » 08 October 04 10:19 am

riblit wrote:This seems to have headed off the track. i! originally mooted creating ones own bug, giving it a name and letting it loose - nothing about having a set of 'dog tags' attached to it - more like the hitchhikers one sometimes sees<br>

With a method of tracking random objects Bronze could track his 'Benji challenge vests'

"Beni" but that's right, this has more to do with hitchhikers than TBs. I am sure i! could find a way to limit the number each person sets, but honestly how many here would bother to do more than a few. At the moment anyone can make one of these and set up their own page to track it. i! is just offering to stream line and centralise the tracking. No body should confuse these with TBÃ‚â€™s if they are labelled appropriately.

ideology · Post by **ideology** » 08 October 04 10:22 am

thanks for your replies

All Cached Up wrote: What about "Swaggies" from the Australian traveller of old? Each one would be a "Swaggie"?

swaggies is a great name!

All Cached Up wrote:Paying something for them means that not every swap becomes a traveller - don't make it too easy to release them! If you have to order something, you are not releasing them willy-nilly

alex wrote:If they were free then I think they would be so prolific they would lose any semblance of specialness.

we thought that if the bug wasn't special, people wouldn't move it around. if you can think of something else that would make it special, let us know. for example, perhaps it's an aussie charity swag where the item is one of those things that charities put out (eg red nose, bear, etc)

Team Piggy wrote:We could have it shaped like aust and stamped out of a bit of alloy...

we weren't thinking of any mass-produced tag. we were thinking that the cacher would make it themselves. you could produce coded truffle swaggie or something, register it on this site and pop it in a cache.

Wayne and Kathryn wrote:It all sounds good but what is the plan if the bug is taken overseas?

good point. we could set it up so an overseas person could log it as being in an overseas cache, much like the system handles overseas caches when you import logs with the log wizard.

caughtatwork wrote:I like the idea, but this keeps moving us away from GC.com. I'm not sure we're all on the same page about that. Also, what about people that don't even know gc.com.au exists... Is this a way to drive more traffic and use to gc.com.au?

we want this to be a useful site and offer australians another option to the secondary site. people that don't know this site exists will find out when they find the bug because presumably there would be some instructions on how to log it. it's their choice whether or not to log the bug. if they say "this owner has not paid $8 to the secondary site, so i'm not going to log it" then that's fine! it's just that we remember how many of these bugs we sold in the geoshop (one person bought 70, from memory...) and we thought that's a lot of money that is flowing out of australia! yes, we are a little worried about traffic, but we think there will be far fewer travel bug logs than forum views, so it should be manageable.

alex wrote:If we were to have our own Aust travellers then could we attach a log to the physical item so one could see where it it had been without logging to any site. That way I can find a traveller, read its story, and send it on its way all in the same day.

that reminds us of the old hitchikers that used to be around. we used to find them but not recently. they were quite fun to read.

Ebenezer wrote:If I had the choice of an "official" (full priced) bug, and an Aussie one that was a few dollars cheaper, I'd still buy the Groundspeak one.

we aren't proposing to sell bugs. we are offering a free listing service. by the way, there's nothing "official" about the secondary site - which is why we called geocaching australia the official site too! for a potted history, see the http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/ that riblit found a few days ago.

riblit wrote:i! originally mooted creating ones own bug, giving it a name and letting it loose - nothing about having a set of 'dog tags' attached to it - more like the hitchhikers one sometimes sees. With a method of tracking random objects Bronze could track his 'Benji challenge vests'

yes, that's what we're proposing, thanks riblit

ideology · Post by **ideology** » 08 October 04 10:25 am

Mix wrote:this has more to do with hitchhikers than TBs. I am sure i! could find a way to limit the number each person sets, but honestly how many here would bother to do more than a few. At the moment anyone can make one of these and set up their own page to track it. i! is just offering to stream line and centralise the tracking. No body should confuse these with TB's if they are labelled appropriately.

hi mix, we must have been typing at the same time. yes, you're right: this is more of a hitchhiker thing. we could limit the number but we'd prefer not to - it would be like limiting the number of caches that people could list, which just feels wrong!

teamkittens · Post by **teamkittens** » 08 October 04 10:47 am

I suggest the name "triantiwontigongolopes" for the aussie cache bugs.

Refer to this <a href="http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/d ... l">poem</a> by CJ Dennis (Whose grave we recently visited while doing <a href="http://geocaching.com.au/cache/gckp9p">Don't Box Me In</a>) if you don't grok it.

---Alex

Cached · Post by **Cached** » 09 October 04 8:58 pm

I think one of the good things about gc.com tb's is that you know it is a TB the moment you encounter it - it has an easily identifiable tag attached to it.

In the absence of a physical tag, which I still think would be a good idea, a standard "do it yourself" tag that is downloadable would be OK, but wouldn't look particularly attractive.