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What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Dec 10, 2006 3:27pm
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What happened to the horse head? The one you could put on your clues if the park was horse-friendly, or had riding trails?
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #55939 by The Gamecock
Dec 10, 2006 3:32pm
Thread (disabled) Board
Quote What happened to the horse head? The one you could put on your clues if the park was horse-friendly, or had riding trails?


It was removed in favor of the clock icon for limited time boxes.

TG
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #55942 by Trekkie Gal
Dec 10, 2006 3:40pm
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Oh, so why not keep it? Or is there an issue with space?
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #55943 by The Gamecock
Dec 10, 2006 3:46pm
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Ryan prefers not to have too many icons to choose from (I think that was the reason), and the horse was one of the least used.

TG
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #55945 by Trekkie Gal
Dec 10, 2006 4:00pm
Thread (disabled) Board
Quote Ryan prefers not to have too many icons to choose from...


Let's get Ryan some therapy! :-)

GC.com has an interesting tack. They have several dozen icons to choose from -- but you're only allowed to choose ten of them. The same idea might just work better here than it does there -- since there's little reason for it at all on GC.com, the way the icons are used you could apply two dozen of them with no problem. On letterbox listings, though, there's only a fixed amount of space for icons. If you had a bazillion to choose from but were limited to using only a fixed number, maybe more oddball applications could be accommodated.

As an example: the recent discussion about day, day-or-night, and night only icons. Most people probably wouldn't use the day-only or day-or-night icon, but the night-only icon might be a welcome addition for the boxes that it applies to.
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #55947 by Kirbert
Dec 10, 2006 4:14pm
Thread (disabled) Board
Quote On letterbox listings, though, there's only a fixed amount of space for icons. If you had a bazillion to choose from but were limited to using only a fixed number, maybe more oddball applications could be accommodated.


It's not just about how much room is available for the icons, but also trying to remember what each of them means. I could create an icon for night-only boxes, day-or-night boxes, day-only boxes, day-recommended icons, night-recommended icons, etc. How many people are going to remember which icon is for "night-recommended" instead of "night-only"? They will start to blur together if there are too many icons.

The idea of the icons is to make it easier for people to identify important characteristics of the box--which works well when there are only a small number of icons. Even if you aren't sure what one means the first time you see it, you can click it to get a more complete description and most likely will never have to read that description a second time because it's easy to remember. If there are a lot of icons--especially a lot that are similar--you might know, for instance, that the icon has to do with something about night boxing, but you might not remember which one was for "night-only" boxes and which one was for "night-recommended" boxes.

And what about boxes in Alaska that you can find in the light of the midnight sun? Another special icon for those? ;o)

In theory, it wouldn't be hard for me to implement a virtually unlimited number of attributes. In practice, there's just not much need for it. *shrug*

-- Ryan
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #55949 by Green Tortuga
Dec 11, 2006 12:33am
Thread (disabled) Board
Quote virtually unlimited number of attributes


Yeah, unlimited attributes for virtual boxes :-D - Just teasing I know virtual boxes really only need a hand carved icon.

I agree with Ryan that we don't need too many icons, they are hard to remember the reasons for them and to judge when to use them. I love the icons beside the title, and the compass one is easy to remember, either you need one or you don't. I struggle with the urban icon though, sometimes I am in a place with a street and houses but yet I feel I am in the countryside because I am in a little village, - what to do?

I know how to use the extreme icon, but sadly don't anticipate being able to use it. I do think it is an important icon to have, even if it isn't used often, so that everyone realises what they are letting themselves in for.

Having seen that list of icons for Geocaching, stick to your guns GT.

YT
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #55939 by The Gamecock
Dec 11, 2006 4:54am
Thread (disabled) Board
As someone who trys to plant "horse-friendly" boxes, I am disappointed about the departure of the horse icon! C'est la vie!
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #56019 by Splendacrest
Dec 11, 2006 5:38am
Thread (disabled) Board
It won't be as nice and handy as an icon, but you can include "horse-friendly" in your clue and announce each plant with a post entitled, "Another Horse-friendly Letterbox Planted." (I am not kidding.) You can even include your state. Eventually trail riders will get the idea, and you will have gained a nice reputation. Maybe Ryan would create a special board for trail riders . . .

Just a thought.

~MC
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #56014 by The Yorkshire Tortoise
Dec 11, 2006 10:26am
Thread (disabled) Board
"I know how to use the extreme icon, but sadly don't anticipate being able to use it. I do think it is an important icon to have, even if it isn't used often, so that everyone realises what they are letting themselves in for."

I've used it, but didn't really want to because I didn't want to scare people off. Yeah, you need a boat, but no you don't need any real boating skills, and the hunt starts from the boat rental place. It would be nice if there were "levels of extremity" somehow. I have a feeling some people may ignore the box altogether when they see the extreme icon. Oh well. Makes it very special, I guess.

monotonia
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #56026 by Mama Cache
Dec 11, 2006 10:48am
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Quote It won't be as nice and handy as an icon, but you can include "horse-friendly" in your clue and announce each plant with a post entitled, "Another Horse-friendly Letterbox Planted."


One of the arguments people brought up against the horse icon was that most horse owners already know which parks and areas in their community are horse friendly--they didn't need an icon to let them know horses could be used. In that sense, it was more an icon for the horse's sake than because anyone found it useful. *shrug*

But like MC posted--you can also include such information in the clues. I'm more than happy to make a board for trail riders if there's enough interest, though.

-- Ryan
Re: What happened to the horse?
Board: Atlas Quest Announcements
Reply to: #56080 by Green Tortuga
Dec 12, 2006 11:39am
Thread (disabled) Board
There is a web site dedicated to letterboxing on horseback, but as far as I can tell it's not being updated. There are TONS of clues listed here that are horse-friendly that aren't on the site, and when I tried to add some, nothing happened. Such a bummer, since it would be a great resource.
I *DO* know about SOME parks in my community are horse friendly, but I don't know about the ones OUTSIDE my area, and I also don't know about some that are local. That's why I was so excited to learn about that other web site, but was eventually disappointed, because it seemed like there was not much there. For example, in my area, I know that people ride in places OTHER than Montana de Oro, but I don't know where they are, or how to get there, or where to park with a trailer once I get there. It would be cool to have all that information somewhere. This is why I was originally so excited about letterboxing, actually! I found out about so many neat places to hike locally that I never knew about before! To have directions, to be essentially LED on a cool hike was just what I needed to feel comfortable exploring.
Anyway, perhaps this is outside the scope of atlasquest, because I'm not sure a trail rider board would totally fill the need (though it would be cool) and if I were more tech-savvy, I'd start something up myself. I'd love to create a place to gather up this sort of information, But I'm not capble of doing it myself.

monotonia