I read these articles (both the outdoor weblog one, and the Anderson Cooper press release one) and am I the only one outraged at the lack of consideration for the box?

I mean, in the Anderson Cooper press release box, they tell you EXACTLY how to get to the box! Evidentally, they did not consult letterboxers or even think about the safety of the box in question. This person CLEARLY has no clue!!!!! (This is the reason why our hobby is very word of mouth and not publicized on a consistant basis)

As for the outdoor weblog one, will ALL letterboxers become geocachers? The arrogance of this person to suggest as much is sickening to me. I am NOT a geocacher by trade. I don't GO OUT looking for geocaches. Sometimes I find one mostly by accident or with Bluebird, and log it on the geocache website, but I AM NOT A GEOCACHER! Yes, there are similarities (the whole hiding a container in the woods thing), but they are not remotely the same!

I'm so sorry for the person who planted the Anderson Cooper box that their box went missing. It's too bad that irresponsible journalism seems to be the reason for it.

Music Woman

I have a problem with a number of things.

Number one, it only mentions that they list clues on LBMA, but the clue points to Atlas Quest.

Number two, it seems odd to me that so many GEOCACHING websites reference the same box. Yes I know that they all reference the same article. But the original article isn't about geocaching at all. Then all of these cache websites pick up on this article and run with it. (There's actually another link to it too, but I couldn't readily find it.)

Number three, one of this placer's boxes (refer to my original post) was turned into a geocache.

Draw your own conclusions, but this seems a little wierd to me. I may be drawing inferences where none exist.

I'm a little miffed because I know the boxes they referenced in the article (I'm talking about the BoB series and such), I've met some of their placers (in fact they were pretty much my introduction to boxing and helped form a lot of my views on it) (*waves at you wonderful Philly area boxers*) and know that they would probably not want their WONDERFUL creations publicized in an article.

Mr Yuk

I don't think that it can be surmised that it was the publicity that caused the box to disappear, since there was quite a gap between the news release and the suspicious rise in hits. Here's what the webpage says:

Quote

Our clue was posted only at www.atlasquest.com however, last fall a travel writer publicized our box in an online news release, which attracted attention by Anderson Cooper fans. Some of them sent us outrageous and nutty e-mails and requests, but the box was never vandalized or stolen...until now.

As far as we know, there hasn't been any recent publicity about our letterbox but we did notice an exorbitant number of hits on our clue. Around 50 hits within the two weeks prior to the kidnapping.

The article was written months ago and the box survived the rest of the Fall season, the Winter season and half of the Spring season. Looks like the owner will replace the box and continue the fun. They may want to put an F1 (or more) restriction on it if they feel it was publicity that was the culprit, it may deter some nefarious types. But personally I would recarve and replant, and check off the 'hide from search engines' box. If it happened a 2nd time I'd either retire it or put an F restriction on it.

In the wise words of Rick Simpson (posted on the LBNA discussion group):

"... we all put a lot of time and energy into our boxes, and we should realize that once you plant a box, you loose control. It's no longer a personal keepsake. It's not on a shelf in your house. Your box takes on a life of it's own. It's constantly interacting with the elements, animals and other boxers. Things can and will go wrong, but things also go wonderfully right most of the time.

The whole LB community is based on a gift of sharing with strangers, which inherently has risk. There is no reward without the risk."

They're kidding, right?

-HG