Update November 2023
Hi everyone. I realize it’s been a year and a half since we updated you all that swag was on pause. There have been a lot of moving pieces this year hence the delay in an official update. The TL/DR is that swag will remain on pause for the foreseeable future.
We had to pause swag last year in part due to staffing changes and in part due to changes in our vendors. We were hoping to have a vendor solution in place to make sending out swag an easy lift for the Community Management team and a foolproof process for community members to be able to submit their shipping info without PII being stored by a third-party vendor.
Unfortunately getting a vendor set up and a process to manage proved to be a cumbersome endeavor. In a time of limited resources, we are directing areas of funding to work that more directly supports our goals of focusing on maintaining and improving the experience on the Stack Exchange Network sites. Our team also doesn't have the bandwidth to currently manage a swag system. These three factors lead us to where we are at the moment. Our community swag program is going to remain paused for the foreseeable future.
I know that is disappointing and believe me, I wish we were in a position where we could be shipping swag yesterday. But we’re not. I don’t have a time frame for when/if swag will be back. If we are able to bring it back in the future we will update you.
Update May 2022
I know everyone (myself included) has been excited by the return of swag. I just wanted to give y'all a heads up that we're currently revamping our swag options and shipping process, so we have to put a temporary pause on sending swag out.
As soon as updates are in place, I'll let you all know and we'll work to retroactively ship swag to anyone who earned it during the interim. We're sorry for the temporary hiatus. Once everything is up and running again, we'll post an update here.
One of the things we enjoy doing at Stack Overflow is celebrating with you when you reach momentous events in our communities. Traditionally, we’ve celebrated by sending swag your way when you’ve reached a high reputation score or when you’ve been elected as a moderator to one of our great network communities. It’s been some time since we've been able to do this and I’m here to announce that we are actively restarting the sending of the swags!
There are 3 categories of folks that will be getting swag. Since shipping costs can be pretty significant, we’re going to do this in batches. We’re planning to retroactively award swag to everyone who would have received it since we stopped shipping, primarily to new high reputation users, new moderators, and contest winners. Then, once we are caught up, we will begin to once again send out swag to new first-time moderators and high rep users as they achieve these milestones.
I want to call out that some countries are very difficult for us to send items to and if yours is one of those, we will let you know. The list of countries can change so rather than putting them here, we’ll address it when we get your shipping information. Regardless, we’re going to make our best effort to send you your swag... we don’t want these items gathering dust on a shelf!
And now, the categories.
High Reputation Members
There are two levels to this tier, one for reaching 100K and another for 250K in reputation points. Those who earned these levels starting from March 2019 will be eligible to receive their package of swag.
Those who earned 100K will receive:
- Branded T-shirt (SE or SO)
- Branded socks (SE or SO) - two styles available, you’ll get one selected randomly
Those who earned 250K will receive:
- Branded T-shirt (SE or SO)
- Branded socks (SE or SO) - two styles available, you’ll get one selected randomly
- Webcam cover
- Water bottle or tumbler (SE or SO)
- SE pop socket
Moderators
For our distinguished and elected moderators, we also have some goodies we want to send you. We will start with those moderators who were elected starting from January 2019 to now and once we’ve completed sending those folks their swag, we will then continue with the entire moderator team and refresh each one of you with shiny and new goodies!
All moderators will receive:
- Moderator diamond hat
- T-shirt (SO or SE)
- Water bottle or tumbler
Past Contest Winners
Back in 2018 we held a "Stuff-a-way!" contest and asked folks to share accounts of goodwill where items were given to people to make someone's life better. We were able to send most of the participants their box of swag but there were some whom we still owe some goodies. We have a list of those folks and we're ready to send you the following items:
- SE socks - two styles available, you’ll get one selected randomly
- SE T-shirt
- Branded webcam cover
- SE pop socket
- Branded pen
A Few Items
We were unable to get good photos of every item we’re planning on shipping mainly because these were created offsite. But, I did want to include some so you can get an idea of what we’re talking about. We’re really excited to be able to do this again and we hope you’ll be just as excited when you get your swag! We’d also appreciate it if you posted an answer with photos of the swag you receive for others to see.
Stack Overflow tshirt 
Stack Exchange tshirt 
Stack Exchange pop socket 
Stack Overflow Socks 
Stack Exchange Socks 
FAQs
How will you know where to ship my goodies to?
Everyone who is eligible to receive swag will receive an email from us giving details on how they can submit their address information and t-shirt size (in a GDPR-compliant fashion). These emails will be sent out over batches over the next few months and they will come from the [email protected] address. Once we are all caught up on the backlog, we will start once again sending swag to moderators and high rep users as they reach these milestones. We will update here as each new batch is sent out (if you think that you should have been included in a batch that was already sent, then reach out to us and we will try to make it right).
Who will be doing the shipping?
We are using a third-party vendor called Proforma to actually handle the shipping. Your shipping address will be shared with them for the sole purpose of sending you your swag.
Is there a way for users to purchase swag?
Unfortunately, we are unable to offer swag for purchase at this time. If this changes, we will let you know.
Update May 2021
Our first wave of emails have gone out and they're coming from our [email protected] address. We're using this address because we don't have third-party emailing tools tied to the stackoverflow.com domain. So, if you get one, know that it's from us!
Update June 2021
The first of the shipments has been made and we wanted to give you a head's up on some changes we've had to make in what we're able to send out.
I’ve spent the past several weeks planning the packages for our swag shipments and I discovered that some items were bundled for shipments in groups of 5 and up. This meant that if we requested something to be sent to you, you’d get 5 or 10 of them (depending on the item and the design). This was beneficial for our marketing team since they normally send large orders of items to conferences and events. However, for us, there’s no use in sending you 12 mugs at a time. Not only is this unreasonable, it’s also very expensive!
I was able, however, to reorder most swag items and inventory them individually but having to reorder these items cut into our overall budget. In order to stick with our timeline and our desire to send you swag, we’ve opted to remove only the stickers from the packages to reduce production times and save enough to include even more people in this. I've made corrections to package lists above and removed the stickers for now. Everything else will stay!
Also, the second wave of emails will be sent out in a few weeks!
