At long last, after much consultation, I have made a decision for the 'missing' status. I will rename it 'unavailable'. It will serve the same purpose as before--to mark any box that is not accessible for any reason but will be again in the future. But the word 'unavailable' seems more inclusive. *shrug*

I'll also be changing the color so it shows up as blue so it won't be quite so painful to look at as the red.

I do, however, need to make AQ unavailable for a few minutes to upload the changes (as you can see from the countdown above). I don't expect it to take more than a few minutes, though. Perhaps 15 minutes if I tweak some of the configuration settings while I have the server all to myself. ;o)

-- Ryan

Yeah..unavailable! woo hoo! And blue is a great color choice. Red is too.....alarming.

LW PhD
"Nice Counts"

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And blue is a great color choice. Red is too.....alarming.

I had a discussion with Amanda about whether I should change the "retired" status from brown to red now that it wasn't being used by "missing." I kind of like red myself--to me, that shouts out DO NOT LOOK FOR THIS BOX (which makes sense if the box was retired). Amanda didn't like the "shouting" that red did and overruled me with the brown. *shrug*

I still like red, though. =) Much prettier and colorful than boring old brown. I feel sorry for the browns. *nodding*

-- Ryan

Ahh the horrible-ness no AQ in one minute! the countdown is scary.
fish or man

Ah, yes, well that went well. =)

-- Ryan

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I still like red, though. =) Much prettier and colorful than boring old brown.

If it's any consolation, red and brown look the same to my colour-blind guys.
(so do brown and green. And light blue and pink!)

You can always use the red later on if you decide to mark the "adult-themed" boxes ;)

Mariette
(takes a binary approach to box status - it's either there in its place to look for, or it's not - I personally don't really need more info than that.)

wow! what's with guys and red?
Before our son was born, and we knew we were having a boyu, hubby wanted to paint his entire room fire engine red! ouch!
Having some psychology, plus teaching experience I was able to convince him it was not a good choice.
Ryan thanks for listening to Amanda, smart woman she is!

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Mariette
(takes a binary approach to box status - it's either there in its place to look for, or it's not - I personally don't really need more info than that.)

Perhaps, but the other two statuses (statii?) are also important. It's helpful to know if the status is unknown, meaning you might want to look to confirm whether or not it's there. And it's helpful to know that a box is permanently retired so you're welcome to plant a new box there if you wish.

That reminds me: I had a box go missing, it had been confirmed missing by a couple of boxers. I listed its status as "missing", but fully intended to replace it. Before I could get out there, someone else planted a new box right next to where mine had been. They had apparently been blissfully unaware that there had ever been a box anywhere in the area, because a "missing" box doesn't show up on a search.

For this reason alone, perhaps "unavailable" boxes should appear on the default search. If there were a way to have one default search for those looking to hunt and another default search for those looking to plant, that'd be great, but I don't see how it would work -- boxers generally search for boxes to hunt, and then when they get out there and realize that there's a good place to plant they go ahead and plant, presuming that if there another box nearby they would have seen it listed.