New Souvenir for Sweden !

[+OZ2CPU]

Spooky there is no info about this new Souvenir from Sweden on this page :

 

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=272

 

Anyone know why ?

 

oh, I am so see the MEGA SWEDEN Fumble after Dark is also not in the list..

this means maybe they just dont care to update this page anymore ?

Edited February 26, 2013 by OZ2CPU

[AZcachemeister]

Just accept it and be happy.

[+FunnyNose]

Spooky there is no info about this new Souvenir from Sweden on this page :

 

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=272

 

Anyone know why ?

 

oh, I am so see the MEGA SWEDEN Fumble after Dark is also not in the list..

this means maybe they just dont care to update this page anymore ?

 

Odd I didn't get it.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Seems to call itself "A Souvenir by: Geocaching HQ - Celebrating the 2 Millionth Active Geocache".

[+Harry Dolphin]

LOts of new veneers out there! Slovakia, Schweiz, Poland...

Explains why Geocaching is running slow tonight!

[+The A-Team]

LOts of new veneers out there! Slovakia, Schweiz, Poland...

Slovakia and Poland had already been released. After seeing the OP's post about Sweden, I've been going through each country on the site to see which others have been released. I'm up to Liechtenstein, but I just started getting "500 - Server Error"s for cache listings a few minutes ago, so I'm on hold now. So far, I've found the following new souvenirs:

-All Australian provinces and territories with the exception of the Australian Capital Territory

-In Ireland, Connacht and Dublin have them, but Leinster, Munster, and Ulster don't

-Austria

Also Sweden, and you've now mentioned Switzerland. I'll report back here once I'm able to finish going through them all.

 

Edit to add: If you want to check out the ones I've found, I've added them to my list here.

Edited February 27, 2013 by The A-Team

[+The A-Team]

Okay, I've just finished going through them all. Here are the new ones I've found:

-Australia - All provinces and territories except the Australian Capital Territory

-Ireland - Connacht and Dublin, but not Leinster, Munster, or Ulster

-United Kingdom - England and Scotland, but not Wales

-Austria

-Norway

-South Africa

-South Korea

-Spain

-Sweden

-Switzerland

 

I've also noticed that these are only being awarded for new logs. None have been awarded retroactively yet.

 

Full list here.

[+OZ2CPU]

>-United Kingdom - England and Scotland, but not Wales

 

NOT active YET ?!?!?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Okay, I've just finished going through them all. Here are the new ones I've found:

-Australia - All provinces and territories except the Australian Capital Territory

-Ireland - Connacht and Dublin, but not Leinster, Munster, or Ulster

-United Kingdom - England and Scotland, but not Wales

-Austria

-Norway

-South Africa

-South Korea

-Spain

-Sweden

-Switzerland

 

I've also noticed that these are only being awarded for new logs. None have been awarded retroactively yet.

 

Full list here.

 

It looks like they may be going through list of countries for which they've created artwork but have not yet released souvenirs but I don't recall South Korea being on that list. When I click on the links for "New" souvenirs on your list I'm getting a "There is no souvenir in the database that matches your request." error and even the link that OZ2CPU provided for Sweden redirects me to the Souvenir help center page. It looks like they're doing *something* with souvenirs but it's hard to tell what. I really hope that if they do release souvenirs for the countries on that Flickr page with the artwork they'll become retroactive. I think that there are about a half dozen countries where I've found a cache on that list.

[+OZ2CPU]

I think the A-tems list simply links to a wrong picture ??

or page ?? that is why the new Sweden souvenir link dont work ??

The souvenir IS released for sure and it pops up just fine.

if you like to see how it looks, you cen see it under my profile..

 

The new United Kingdom souvenir dont work yet, nothing apear,

I tried to make a little "test fount it" and deleted it, since it did not work.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I think the A-tems list simply links to a wrong picture ??

or page ?? that is why the new Sweden souvenir link dont work ??

The souvenir IS released for sure and it pops up just fine.

if you like to see how it looks, you cen see it under my profile..

 

The new United Kingdom souvenir dont work yet, nothing apear,

I tried to make a little "test fount it" and deleted it, since it did not work.

 

I am pretty sure that A-tems links are (or at least were good). I looked at your profile and while the Sweden souvenir does appear on your souvenirs page, that's only the thumbnail and clicking on the image or text underneath it results in a "this souvenir is not in our database" message. I did some poking around and was also able to see thumbnail souvenirs in profile for people that found caches in Austria and South Africa (but not for most of the other "new" countries).

 

While poking around I also noticed that when using the "by country" search on the Hide and Seek a Cache page, that *all* of the countries that are on the A-teams new souvenirs list are now going to the "Advanced Search" page where one can select the the "state/province" to narrow down the search.

 

It looks like Groundspeak has silently added that feature of breaking down Countries into State/Provinces for a lot of countries. Interestingly enough, Denmark still goes directly to a list of caches while South Korea is broken down into a list of "states".

 

Now I'm wondering that when they started implementing the break down of countries into state/regions they accidentally introduced a "bug" which started awarding souvenirs for some of those countries.

 

Meanwhile, Groundspeak remains completely silent about this new feature.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I did some poking around and was also able to see thumbnail souvenirs in profile for people that found caches in Austria and South Africa (but not for most of the other "new" countries).

 

Confirmed souvenirs awarded for Sweden and South Korea as well.

[+murrayegger]

Turns out they are to celebrate the 2 Millionth Cache http://blog.geocaching.com/2013/02/two-million-geocaches/?utm_source=geocachinghomepage&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=celebrating2millionimage

[+CanadianRockies]

Turns out they are to celebrate the 2 Millionth Cache http://blog.geocaching.com/2013/02/two-million-geocaches/?utm_source=geocachinghomepage&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=celebrating2millionimage

It also turns out that after this new batch of souvenirs are released, "no more state or regional souvenirs are planned."

Edited February 28, 2013 by CanadianRockies

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Turns out they are to celebrate the 2 Millionth Cache http://blog.geocaching.com/2013/02/two-million-geocaches/?utm_source=geocachinghomepage&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=celebrating2millionimage

It also turns out that after this new batch of souvenirs are released, "no more state or regional souvenirs are planned."

 

And, as I mentioned in the "Bring back country based souvenirs" thread, the links for both Spain and Sweden still appear to be broken.

 

Once they release the new batch of souvenirs I plan on starting a "Continue to release country based souvenirs" thread.

[+The A-Team]

Now that we know what's going on, I've updated my list. The unreleased souvenirs are back into their section, and only the 5 released this morning are under their respective "released" sections. I'll update the list nightly as the rest of the new souvenirs are released.

[Pup Patrol]

Turns out they are to celebrate the 2 Millionth Cache http://blog.geocaching.com/2013/02/two-million-geocaches/?utm_source=geocachinghomepage&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=celebrating2millionimage

It also turns out that after this new batch of souvenirs are released, "no more state or regional souvenirs are planned."

 

And, as I mentioned in the "Bring back country based souvenirs" thread, the links for both Spain and Sweden still appear to be broken.

 

Once they release the new batch of souvenirs I plan on starting a "Continue to release country based souvenirs" thread.

 

What they say in the blog is:

 

We’ll release five Geocaching Souvenirs each work day until all previously unreleased souvenirs are available to geocachers.

 

What countries/territories/regions would still need to have artwork created for a souvenir?

 

 

B.

[+Wintz50]

Would like a brazil souvenir as well as ape cache souvenir, after all it is the last remaining in the world.

[+The A-Team]

What they say in the blog is:

 

We’ll release five Geocaching Souvenirs each work day until all previously unreleased souvenirs are available to geocachers.

 

What countries/territories/regions would still need to have artwork created for a souvenir?

In the comments of the Latitude 47 blog post, I asked the question of which ones would be released, and got the following response:

Geocaching produced more than two dozen souvenirs that were never released. Now that our site is higher preforming, with much more memory, we're able to release them. We thought the 2 millionth geocache was a perfect time to do so. While not every country or region will be represented, we felt this was a great way to welcome in the 2 millionth geocache.

It sounds to me like it's pretty much just the ones in that Flickr gallery that will be released (as well as South Korea, which wasn't in that gallery). I've expressed my displeasure and confusion regarding their decision to cease the creation of new souvenirs after these are released, but I doubt anything will come of it. If it's just a matter of creating the artwork, I'm sure the community would be more than happy to pitch in.

[+MartyBartfast]

>-United Kingdom - England and Scotland, but not Wales

 

NOT active YET ?!?!?

 

This is a strange one, we've been discussing it on the UK Facebook groups. Some people have already got it on their souvenirs page (I've seen screenshots !) but others (including me) haven't

 

I reckon it hasn't been officially released yet but has slipped out somehow.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

>-United Kingdom - England and Scotland, but not Wales

 

NOT active YET ?!?!?

 

This is a strange one, we've been discussing it on the UK Facebook groups. Some people have already got it on their souvenirs page (I've seen screenshots !) but others (including me) haven't

 

I reckon it hasn't been officially released yet but has slipped out somehow.

 

The explanation that I got was that during a brief period on the 26th and 27th, as they were preparing for the release of the new souvenirs, a flag in the database was incorrectly set and caused some of the new souvenirs to be accidentally award to people that found a cache during that brief window. The problem was discovered and fixed. As a result, although the thumbnails show up on some peoples souvenirs page, it hasn't been officially released so you'll get an error message when trying to view the full artwork. Rather than try to delete the souvenirs that were inadvertently released from user profiles, they're just going to leave them (with the broken links) until the souvenir is officially released.

 

It should only take a few more days before it all gets sorted out.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

What they say in the blog is:

 

We'll release five Geocaching Souvenirs each work day until all previously unreleased souvenirs are available to geocachers.

 

What countries/territories/regions would still need to have artwork created for a souvenir?

In the comments of the Latitude 47 blog post, I asked the question of which ones would be released, and got the following response:

Geocaching produced more than two dozen souvenirs that were never released. Now that our site is higher preforming, with much more memory, we're able to release them. We thought the 2 millionth geocache was a perfect time to do so. While not every country or region will be represented, we felt this was a great way to welcome in the 2 millionth geocache.

It sounds to me like it's pretty much just the ones in that Flickr gallery that will be released (as well as South Korea, which wasn't in that gallery). I've expressed my displeasure and confusion regarding their decision to cease the creation of new souvenirs after these are released, but I doubt anything will come of it. If it's just a matter of creating the artwork, I'm sure the community would be more than happy to pitch in.

 

I absolutely agree. Although the release of this new batch of two dozen or so souvenirs is a nice way to celebrate the 2,000,000th cache (how about one for *finding* the 2,000,000th cache?) that's not what users have been asking for. One of the reasons that I started the "Bring back country based souvenirs" thread in the feature suggestions forum was that I thought it was a feature that would have a fair amount of support, and thought it would be a good way for users to tell Groundspeak what they want (after all, isn't that the purpose of the Feature Discussion and Suggestions forum?). That's why I intend on starting a "Continue releasing country based souvenirs" topic as soon as GS finishes with this batch. I would like GS to know that their users want them to finish the job and not have yet another feature that is still only half baked.