Skip to Content
Register · Login
About Theme

A Letterboxing Community

Atlas Quest
Search Edit Search

Read Thread: "Find" page

"Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Aug 1, 2014 1:21am
Thread (disabled) Board
Why, oh why is the "find page" on boxes changed? I don't like it at all. Why does everything have to change? There was nothing wrong with the old look. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861236 by DeeCee
Aug 1, 2014 4:09am
Thread (disabled) Board
I actually like the spreadsheet look on the larger series.
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861243 by cooledcoyote
Aug 1, 2014 4:21am
Thread (disabled) Board
Now, on those larger series, can we have a sort option by trail name, omitting date found? This way on one line we can see how people have done on those large series and what boxes were not found?
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861236 by DeeCee
Aug 1, 2014 7:43am
Thread (disabled) Board
There was nothing wrong with the old look. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Not everyone would agree with that.

Why does everything have to change?

Because change is good for you. If nothing ever changed, you'd only be able to complain about change on the LbNA Yahoo Group. ;o)

-- Ryan
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861244 by cooledcoyote
Aug 1, 2014 7:50am
Thread (disabled) Board
Now, on those larger series, can we have a sort option by trail name, omitting date found?

I have to laugh at this particular request--I was seriously considering omitting the trail name and leaving the date found! Guess that idea wouldn't have gone over well. ;o) But with all of the hidden names for mystery boxes and bonus boxes or people trying to get someone who's found a box already to give them a hint or clue, I think including the trailname is something of a double-edged sword. In a lot of ways, no trailnames at all would solve a lot of problems.

But--putting serious face back on--I'm not sure how sorting by trail name would help anything. Trailnames are arbitrary and sorting them by that means the sort will be arbitrary. If you're trying to find a specific person in a long list of finders.... well, that goes back to my concern about using it to "spy" on others who have found a box. But even then, every browser today has a search option to search a webpage. Use that and it'll immediately take you to whoever you're interested in.

-- Ryan
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861274 by Green Tortuga
Aug 1, 2014 8:06am
Thread (disabled) Board
I was seriously considering omitting the trail name and leaving the date found!

Oh, please don't do that! If I see a box that was marked "missing", I look at the Trailname. If it is someone whom I don't know, I take that "missing" mark with a grain of salt, as opposed to someone whose box-finding skills I trust.
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861276 by JampersandJ
Aug 1, 2014 8:27am
Thread (disabled) Board
If I see a box that was marked "missing", I look at the Trailname. If it is someone whom I don't know, I take that "missing" mark with a grain of salt, as opposed to someone whose box-finding skills I trust.

But even people whose box-finding skills you trust can get it wrong too!

-- Ryan
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861278 by Green Tortuga
Aug 1, 2014 12:33pm
Thread (disabled) Board
But even people whose box-finding skills you trust can get it wrong too!

True, but the percentage of them being wrong is lower, so if they say it's missing, I'll believe them over someone I am not familiar with.

There is a box near us that had 3 "missings" in a row. But, the folks who did not find the box were out of the area, so they probably did not realize this particular planter is quite clever, and usually adds a twist or two to the clues. It was then found by someone from the area, who probably knows how this planter thinks, and did not believe the people who said it was missing. Now, if it had been marked missing by 3 veteran boxers that normally find boxes by this planter ~ yeah, box is probably gone.
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861319 by JampersandJ
Aug 1, 2014 12:54pm
Thread (disabled) Board
Now, if it had been marked missing by 3 veteran boxers that normally find boxes by this planter ~ yeah, box is probably gone.

I get what you're saying, but you're just dealing with probabilities. Even you used the word "probably" (I bolded it to make it more obvious).

So let's say that 3 newbie boxes who report an attempt.... let's say there's a 50% chance that they're wrong. And then there are 3 veteran boxes who report an attempts, and you give them a 10% chance of being wrong.

You've drawn a line in the ground--if there's a 50/50 chance that the box might be there, you're willing to still look for it. But if there's only a 10% chance of the box being there, you won't.

And you need to know who the finders are to make that determination. I get it.

But what's the worst that would happen if I didn't include the names of the finders? You wouldn't be able to tell if it was veterans or newbies looking for the box. But you've already stated that you're the kind of person who might look for a box that's reported missing because the previous searchers might be wrong--so go do it! Don't let the fact that veteran boxes failed discourage you. Go look for it and prove them wrong! =)

Heaven forbid, if nobody ever looked for a box just because I attempted to find it and failed, there could be a lot of viable boxes still out here waiting to found! ;o)

-- Ryan
Re: "Find" page
Board: Repeat Questions - Say That Again?
Reply to: #861323 by Green Tortuga
Aug 1, 2014 3:54pm
Thread (disabled) Board
But what's the worst that would happen if I didn't include the names of the finders?

For me personally, all boxes that had "missings" reported would go to the very bottom of my list of boxes to find, and would have equal status instead of being ranked, and I would probably never go looking for them unless they were the only ones left.

It's a matter of time management. If I am allotted a certain amount of "boxing time" while we are going somewhere, I'd rather have a higher probability of finding boxes than not, and most of the time I run out of time before I run out of my stack of printed clues. In fact, during one leg of our family vacation road trip (Eureka to Sacramento), we drove past two drive-bys that I had clues for because of time :(