My darling Amanda who's allegedly more sensible than myself at times thinks I may have let my temper get the better of me, and thinking back, she's probably right. Why am I being so anal about not hiding attempts? It's not like I have a personal attachment to it. When it comes right down to it, I didn't want to because I felt like Funhog was trying to paint me into a corner with the threat (regardless of what she may have intended, I saw it was a threat the minute she compared it to LbNA) to take her boxes off Atlas Quest. Fine, I thought, take your boxes off Atlas Quest, don't bother me none. Well, okay, maybe it does bother me a little, but I'd get over it pretty quick.

Anyhow, truth of the matter is, I really don't care if attempts or finds can be seen by all, and since this is your website, you all really should make the choice. I'll be creating a system to allow you to vote how you would like to have Atlas Quest handle finds and attempts. Why haven't I taken actual votes before? I've never written any code to handle the counting of votes. Yes, I know there are websites that allow people to make votes and there's even code out there I could use on Atlas Quest to keep track of votes, but I never liked them much since they're too easy to abuse. (Most of them just record an IP address every 24 hours, so people can vote every day and even multiple times a day if they have access to more than one computer.) I just don't trust such votes. *shrug*

So in the next day or two, I'll work on a feature that will allow people cast votes on what they prefer. And if anyone *dares* complain about this "feature"..... ;o) One vote per account, and don't bother trying to create a couple of dozen new accounts to swing the votes your way. I won't fall for it. ;o)

The other thing that might bring a ray of hope to those millions of people that hate blue diamonds.... I've actually considered getting rid of it. They serve a very useful purpose in allowing people to narrow down which boxes they want to look for when time is limited and, love it or hate it, some people like the additional information. The planters choice (which I'm kind of sad has been neglected in all this hubbub) may be the death of blue diamonds. I thought if people use planter's choice and like it, it might make an acceptable alternative for people who might otherwise want to narrow down their search with blue diamonds. I didn't really want to say anything until I could get a better sense of how the planter's choice was working--didn't want to give a false sense of hope to those who don't like blue diamonds. But that's one of the ideas twirling in my head. There's still a need to help people narrow down an often bewildering number of letterboxes, but as long as I can find a happy alternative, I'm perfectly happy to get rid of blue diamonds. The one downside, of course, is that people will no longer get that "kudos" for a particularly special box, but given all the negativity the concept generates in a lot of people, I'm willing to sacrifice it anyhow. At least if there's a viable alternative that people can use for narrowing down their boxes.

So I'll post that as an option you can vote on as well. (And for those of you who really want to see blue diamonds go away, it would definitely be in your best interest to push for support of the planter's choice.)

I'm not really convinced anyone has anything new to add to these arguments, so if you really want to debate them, take them to the dead lemurs board. Once I get a polling system in place, you'll be able to decide the future of attempted finds showing and blue diamonds.

-- Ryan

Ryan, you are remarkably wise for your age......
Zoe