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votes

Contest Has Ended

Thanks to everyone for participating. I will be contacting those who participated for shipping details and item verification within the week. Keep a lookout for the email!

Tired of seeing all the Stack Overflow swag everywhere? Want something different? Well, now's your chance! For a limited time only, you could have your very own shot at receiving one swag item - your choice - anything we currently have available!

What do I have to do?

Write us a story about why you need to have this particular item. How will it make your life better? What are you going to use it for? How jealous will it make all of your friends? Do your best to really convince that we cannot let the opportunity pass by to give you this thing.

What do I get?

  • One (1) of the item you requested, assuming it's still available (see additional information below).
  • One (1) super awesome, embroidered Stack Exchange Fan Patch - how cool is that!? We're totally not just giving these away because we have a huge stock of them that we can't get rid of and will never order again.

Also, a few things about certain types of items we have available:

  • If you request stickers as your swag item (stickers? seriously? we let you pick anything and you pick stickers!?!?), we will send you a five-pack of them.
  • We only have shirt sizes Small through XXL, and if you want a Stack Overflow shirt those also come in women's sizes (same scale). Since we use several different brands of t-shirts, we don't have a global sizing chart available.
  • If you pick our awesome fan patch as the thing you want, we will send you two of them - one as the item you requested and one as the bonus item.
  • If the item you requested runs out and we no longer produce it, we'll ask you to pick something else to send you in its place. If we do still produce it, we'll ask you if you'd like to switch or wait for it to be restocked.
  • No, you may not request a signed painting of unicorns. Sorry.

Are there any rules?

Of course there are rules! What would life be without rules?

  • You must have at least 200 reputation on a site in order to request that site's specific swag items, excluding any Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange swag which is fair game for everyone.
  • You may submit as many entries as you want, but you may only win once. If you win, you'll be given the option of which item you want among the ones you wrote stories for.
  • Answers must be at least two paragraphs. Real paragraphs, none of that two sentence nonsense. Don't make us disqualify you!
  • Each answer must have an unique title describing the story we're about to read (put it in a header to make it stand out).
  • Submission deadline is January 4, 2016 at 00:00 UTC. Hmm, that date looks familiar...

So, who will actually win?

We will be awarding at least 30 users with the swag of their dreams, ordered by top-scoring answers right here on this question. If we really love the stories you all came up with, we may award even more (maybe even everyone who made it to a score of 10). Those who win their beloved dream prize will be contacted via email by myself for their shipping details.

Wait, wait! I don't know what I want!

If you're unsure what you'd like to write your story about, stop by and chat with us in the Tavern on the Meta where users can give you an idea of what some different types of swag are, and we will be dropping some random images of swag we have in stock that you might not have known about.

Swag Availability Updates

Since a lot of people are requesting hoodies, I'd like to clarify that most of the hoodies and/or jackets you may have seen over the years are no longer produced. The only one we currently have available for distribution is this old Super User hoodie (and we have very few of them left). The blue Stack Exchange hoodie is not a user swag item (it's only available to employees) and is not available for distribution.

Also, you may not request a moderator's diamond hat, as they are only given to moderators.

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  • 21
    Whatever. Still haven't gotten the #SOReadyToHelp swag...
    – RubberDuck
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 0:45
  • 3
    @RubberDuck thanks. Now I won't get the 007 hat for my answer :P
    – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 0:48
  • 1
    Misery loves company @uɐɯsOuɐɥʇɐN. =;)-
    – RubberDuck
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 0:49
  • Me either@RubberDuck. I'm holding out hope the SE elves deliver before Christmas though.
    – Andy
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 2:18
  • 1
    Wait what? Are you sure this isn't going overboard? I haven't even got my super amazing swagilicious stuff!
    – Zizouz212
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 2:18
  • 1
    and what about those of us that don't have enough of an imagination to write a story?
    – ɥʇǝS
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 3:02
  • 1
    @ɥʇǝS last year (two years maybe?) there was a drawing contest, so they're making it fair. :-)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 13:22
  • 9
    Not to seem ungrateful, but given the consistent inability of the SE team to send out swag in a timely fashion, perhaps you could simply concentrate on actually getting the stuff sent out of the door?
    – Richard
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 13:50
  • @ShadowWizard Never Forget! meta.stackexchange.com/questions/231739/…
    – o̊ǝʇ̲ ɐW⃗
    Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 23:48
  • animuson, just to know... could I request a SharePoint SE shirt if I was going to participate? Because then I may have a story...
    – ꓢPArcheon
    Commented Dec 20, 2015 at 17:38
  • @SPArchaeologist If you have 200 rep on the site, then ya you can request a t-shirt.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 20, 2015 at 17:40
  • 2
    Ok, then I may be willing of thinking of a story about the one who never knew if he was supposed to get a package
    – ꓢPArcheon
    Commented Dec 20, 2015 at 17:42
  • 1
    I want ... to not have to see five hundred thousand "where's muh swag" questions on meta! Gimme that!
    – user1228
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 18:32
  • 1
    @MonicaCellio I have no idea who received those, but they haven't been available for quite some time (we have none left, even for employees).
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 20:15
  • 2
    @animuson This might've been a bit less complicated if you had posted a full list of available swag ;)
    – Joe
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 20:27

35 Answers 35

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The Poor Children Who Got No Gifts from Santa

Once upon a time, there was a little boy and girl who didn't get anything for Christmas. Santa was running out of time to visit all 800 million houses across the world, and in order to save a precious hundredth of a second, he skipped their house because there wasn't a chimney.

The little boy and girl started crying. "We were nice all year, but now we've got nothing for Christmas!"

But their neighbor, a devout Stack Exchange user, heard their crying. "I may not be the fastest gun on the site," he said, "but I can be the one that gives these little children a present. I know! I'll ask the Stack Exchange community for some wonderful swag! And then I'll dress up as Santa and deliver this swag to these wonderful children so that they have a gift. Perhaps inspired by this sudden generosity, the boy and girl will grow up to use the site, after they are 13 years or older of course!"

So please give me some Stack Exchange swag so that I can be a wonderful Santa to any good boys and girls who Santa neglects this year!

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I would like to have a bag. That would help after hunting my lunch in the city.

Bags are in general very helpful, so I would choose it. Even if I visit a congress it would be cool to have such a bag to collect other swag :-)

Just to add a more social aspect: I would of cause offer to transport the lunch of my coworkes, which I do often.

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The one about responding to the crazy contest idea

I set out to answer this in a nice Star Wars approach, but realized that was done a long long time ago in an answer not that very far away. In order to answer this though, to really get down into the nitty-gritty of it, I had to make sure to make a plan to solve the problem of the crazy contest.

However, what goes into successfully solving a crazy contest? It would have to be a crazy solution. People usually create solutions, and this solution needs to be crazy, so there needs to be a crazy person involved.

This is probably now bigger than just the contest though. There are contests all over, and surely some of them could be considered to be crazy. They must need some sort of support in order to connect all the crazy people to get the crazy solutions to these crazy contests.

Connections are made all the time, especially social ones. This is after all just between a person and a contest. So all we need is a social platform to properly identify crazy people in order to provide solutions to all the contests.

I think I know where to start, all we need is an Architecture Astronaut and An autographed copy of "Smart & Gets Things Done" by Joel Spolsky (if there are any left, if not just a Stack Overflow shirt would work).

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  • Ha interesting. We do have some copies of this, though I don't know if they're autographed. I'd have to check.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 23:53
  • @animuson - I had remembered that autographed ones of these were included in one of the prior contests which is what made me think they were around (the third bullet point from the 10M SO questions meta post ).
    – Travis J
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 23:56
  • Ah cool. Then yes, they should be the same thing that we have in stock.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 23:57
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Something Ask Different-branded to wear for me, a 15-year-old Apple fan

I'm 15-years-old, really into Apple stuff, helping out anyone I can with what I know, and interested in learning all I can from others in the Ask Different community.

I would really like something Ask Different-branded to wear especially on an IT internship that I already am planning on doing this summer.

I'd be perfectly happy with either an Ask Different T-shirt (I wear an adult large), sweatshirt (T-shirt or sweatshirt preferably in black, if that's possible, but of course I'm not going to be picky here), or an Ask Different baseball cap would also be awesome.

If none of those are available, an Ask Different coffee mug, keychain (I'll be driving next year), mousepad, or anything like that would be great, too.

I have adequate reputation in Ask Different (3,326 currently) in order to be eligible for this great contest.

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Just another fan of stackexchange community

I work in a small company of 50 employees. My colleagues don't know much about SE's work. They are just good with googling for solutions irrespective of sticking around to a site like stackoverflow. I am the only guy in my office who does asks questions, answers some other users questions and chat in chat rooms (I used to review as well but not these days). Everyday, I learn many things from SE community (mostly from stackoverflow). Whatever I learn, I share with everyone in my office. They wonder how I manage work as well as researching on new things, though it is clear that SE community is helping me everyday.

So, I want to remind my colleagues everyday by some means that I share stuff by knowing from stackoverflow. I am just unable to think of what could that be. In my office, there is open culture (no dedicated cubicles, we sit together). So, a T-shirt may work as it will be clearly visible to all. If so, please consider a medium size one. Thanks ;).

PS: Currently, my colleagues ask me questions and if I don't know the solution either, I ask on SO (through chat or by posting new question).

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