I still have the magnet on my fridge from L&B in Groton. It would be fun have one from this one.

I don’t need a sticker.

Most events don’t have swag. This is a special every five years event.

Path tags are always nice.

Thanks, I know. I organized a meet-up earlier this month, and we had a couple of event boxes but no swag.

At the risk of needlessly prolonging this discussion, I ask sincerely. Why have a disagree button at all? If no one can see the disagreements, other than the one disagreeing, then it falsely appears to everyone else that agreement is unanimous. So the disagree button is not just useless, it misleads readers about the responses because they assume no one disagrees. Eliminate the disagree button, and let people click agree or not click agree.

I'm in favor of smiting.

This is true. And an important point. There have been posts that I see and consider disagreeing with but then think, what’s wrong with me? Am I the only one who sees this? It’s weird. Although, I remember a post in the No Kings tread that had 20+ dislikes. Is there a point at which when the number climbs high enough, they show?


Ooo, me too! I’ll go first… ‘Smite!’ 😉

That’s adorable!

I'm gonna do all y'all a solid and start disagreeing all my own posts, maybe enlist some aliases, too, so I & all my invisible friends make you feel more welcome. It will be an interesting social experiment.

Hello hello!

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my explanation. This is NOT what happens.

Only the FIRST disagreement is hidden (or maybe it's 2, I am unsure). If there are more, they DO show. This was to keep accidental "disagrees" and malicious "disagrees" (yes, we DID and DO have members that will automatically "disagree" with something another specific member posts. Childish, but true. Also for the confusion and dismay that it can cause with posts that have multiple points.

For MOST of AQ, which is (thankfully) not quite as contentious as this board, this actually works well, and has been around for many years with no problem. Most boards and posts are overwhelmingly "agreeable".

Not swag, I like the ability to order a tee shirt or sweat shirt.
Swag can be costly to the committee. Just a simple pen/pencil with the event name is very useful at the event.

My favorite thing was a golf-sized pencil with the letterboxing event logo. Had that for a long time and was so sad when I lost it!
Would love a link to order a shirt or something ahead of time too.

I hope you’ll have a patch. I sewed my L&BXXV patch to my letterboxing bag.

A pen is a nice souvenir.

Don’t need stickers or whistles or magnets.

I almost missed this thread because I stopped following this board earlier in the week. (I don't really like this board myself--I only follow it sometimes because I run the site and want to know what's going on. If I were a regular member, I'd just ignore it completely like I do with most social media websites.)

Anyhow, Wassa explained it well. There were instances in the past when someone would maliciously "disagree" with every post that someone they didn't like posted, and that person would notice and get very annoyed by it. It was stupid and petty (on both sides, really), but since people would get so worked up about it or get so angry, I decided to hide the first two disagrees that other people make.

There are also times people would accidentally click the disagree button--probably more likely with smartphones--and the person who made the post would get very upset over it. (e.g. "Why would someone disagree with my post wishing everyone a happy New Year?!")

The problem with these "one or two" clicks on the disagree buttons showed up within months of the buttons showing up, and I decided just to stop showing the first two "disagree" clicks that other people make just so people would stop bugging me and getting angry over a spurious click. If there are people who really disagree with something, I feel like it's important to show it and so you'll still see it--but it needs "confirmation" from at at least two other people to help ensure it's a "legitimate" disagree.

This also happens with the "huh?" button which has also been abused in the same way, but since it's less "extreme" than a disagree, I have AQ suppress only the first click of that button.

The "rude" button also uses special rules. That's mostly to notify moderators of a problem post and not so much for other members to communicate information between each other, so it will never show anyone else's click of the "rude" button. You'll only see your own clicks so you can see that you clicked it or verify that the click was processed.

Actually, moderators can see the total number of times that button has been clicked. It helps to separate the accidental click from the legit ones--moderators won't get a notification until it's been used by at least two different members, but non-moderators will only see a 0 or 1 there.

I also think think that there should be a lot more hugging going around, so I have AQ automatically hit the "hug" button for me on the occasional random post. (I will also manually add them to posts that I think are particularly deserving of them as I come across them, but nobody ever gets more than 1 hug from me on a single post.)

It doesn't do that for every post--that would be as useless as a participation award, but nobody has ever complained about a random hug from me. But I kind of hope people see that sometimes, and it encourages others to use the "hug" button more often as well. =)

So yeah, out of the eight "voting" buttons for posts, four of them have some sort of manipulations going on for various reasons. And each of the manipulations is slightly different depending on the reason for it.

The only time I might point it out is if someone takes a poll for something and the manipulated numbers would otherwise change the results--which doesn't happen very often. Or if someone notices "discrepancies" and asks about it, like how this thread started.

-- Ryan

pen
highlighter
black reinker (even though wont be needed at L&B XXX)
lanyard (to display trail name and sig stamp during event)
small logbooks (suitable for planting)
snacks
rechargable led flashlight (for night boxing)
compass
lip balm
hand sanitizer
bug spray

tote bag, book bag, drawstring backpack - possibly useful bag types

I also love, love, LOVED the phone chargers and have used mine multiple times since. I also love the L&B Patches.

Other ideas I've liked are the lip balm, bug spray, and pen. I appreciate it when the swag items are items I can use at the event, not just keepsakes I'm carrying around with me the whole weekend.

Quick research shows quality is better than quantity .. so a new phone would be nice. I prefer Android over iPhone. If not a bookmark to hold my place in logbook would be nice also.

Greetings and welcome to the circus!!! Lol
I've heard of some folks using different sig stamps for each season, holiday or yearly. We are currently looking into carving a new stamp for 2026. ♡
Have fun, enjoy & let your art soar ♡
Cheers!
Dawni & Terra
Wind & Fire

Just to be clear, I was informed by people that it was a possibility Trump could take away gay marriage rights. I DID NOT state this as a true happening. I mean, he took away women's rights to their own body, the military mess and not funding health care for those who feel trapped in a body that isn't theirs or trying to change laws that have been in effect since before any of us were even born... is it wrong of me to think he would possibly change rights to marriage?? No. Call me clueless, misinformed, talk trash to your gay friends or whatever you want, I don't care, but don't talk to me (or anyone) like I'm an uneducated child that needs to shut up or call me out for not knowing whats going on in the world. That's my choice!!! Period!

I worried about my marriage, SO HANG ME. It took a very long time for same sex marriage to become legal and after being together with my favorite person for 25 years, some might say my worries are legit. I do everything I can to avoid politics and I can't stand Trump so I walk away and ignore anything with him in it. I should have ignored this post, but it became somewhat personal TO ME and I felt the need to say something.

On another-ish note... WOW!! How did one question/concern that I had turn into a battle?? A political battle at that! Ew! I asked a question on the LQBT group site and now it has seeped into a whole other dimension. Smh. I APPOLOGIZE WITH ALL OF MY BEING. I didn't mean to start all this. I only wanted to know if the rumor was true. *que eye roll*

To finalize, I don't judge you for being on the Trump Train so don't judge me for something I'm passionate and overprotective of, especially if it has something to do with MY LIFE and originally has nothing to do with you. MmmKay Pumpkin? I don't do social media and I don't watch politics so this forum/site/group is all I choose to have socially because I'm in love with Letterboxing/LTCs/ect. and that's all that should matter ♡

I am thankful that there are different boards for different topics, although, I'm a little leary about posting questions about anything. Even something as innocent as a question about my cats. Lol

Cheers!

For the very last time, I AM THE ONE THAT HAD THE QUESTION DUE TO A LOCAL RUMOR ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE. I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't want a response. I just didn't want this kind of hostility as a response. IM NOT ASHAMED OF ANY STATEMENTS I POST so don't pretend to know me or what I want cause I guarantee you are wrong.

P.S. Weren't you going to back out, or "ignore" this thread?? And you haven't... why? Cause you want to make people feel as little as possible? Mission accomplished, now TF on!!

Other things you can do with your extra stamps:
Use one or more as personal travelers for when you meet other boxers at events.

Set one or more free as hitchhikers.

Use one or more as envelope art when you’re doing postals.

Use some as LTCs, if you like making trading cards.

Plant some as traditional letterboxes.

For all of these, be sure to add each stamp as a letterbox here on AQ, then include the box # wherever you stamp/release/share it.

Well put your mind to rest. This seems very unlikely. I think on a personal level, Trump couldn't care one way or another about gay marriage. He'd be against it if it helped him politically, and he'd be for it if it helped him politically. And he'd probably prefer everyone against it thinking that he's against it and everyone for it think that he supports it.

So what he says would probably change depending on whoever he was talking to, but even Republicans as a whole are generally leaning more towards tolerance of gay marriages nowadays. They have other fish they'd rather fry.

-- Ryan

Just a gentle clarification here... your response was to a post by Dingus Dufus, though he was just quoting/summarizing/counterpointing a previous post. DD is a staunch advocate and defender of our LGBTQ+ friends and loved ones (and one of my personal favorite AQ personalities), and is NOT the one who is trying to make people feel "other". I just want to make sure the reply is aimed at the correct party.

Absolutely!! It was not aimed at DD AT ALL and I apologize for not paying attention to which I responded.
Thank you Wassa. Hugs ♡

Thank you Ryan and you are probably right ;)
Hugs

What are some good brands of carving blocks out there??
I have used...
- Pink Stuff (prolly my favorite, so far)
- A Grey, hard material (almost impaled my hand due to being so hard to carve)
- Blue stuff (horrible/crumbles)
- White stuff (horrible/ crumbles worse than the blue stuff)
- I have just ordered some different stuff that is pink on top and blue on bottom. I guess the carve goes on the pink side and the blue let's you know how deep you are?? Idk, but I'm excited to try it.

Opinions?? We need more carving block sheets cause all we have left are pieces too small for some carvings. I was hoping for a wider variety to look into. Lol

This won’t help you unless you know someone from Spain, but they make a blue material that is superior to pink, imho.

Just a little friendly fire, no need to apologize!
Keep fighting the good fight!