The Crafty Mom, Baby Panda and I have been going and checking on every box within 60 miles of home (about 110 of them). This includes strikeouts and unknowns. Is there a way to get boxes marked as retired for letterboxers that are no longer boxing to clean up our areas search? I know few people look for strikeouts (if anyone does), but it would be nice to get them retired!

Did you find any that were still there?

So far no luck, but we're only about 3 days in to what's going to take a couple of months since they're very spread out. We've focused on the residential areas first then we'll branch out to the hikes and what not.
It's made me realize how we don't have very many active boxers in this area!

Good luck, hope you find a few surprises out there.

Is there a way to get boxes marked as retired for letterboxers that are no longer boxing to clean up our areas search?

I don't think you can change the status of someone else's box. What you CAN do, is simply leave a public comment on the box stating that you couldn't find it and believe it to be missing. Of course, if you find the destroyed remnants of the box and can positively identify it, you could dispose of it, and certainly note that as a comment. There's no real need to have the box changed to retired, because the strike-out will alert people that it's likely not there any more.

Is there a way to get boxes marked as retired for letterboxers that are no longer boxing to clean up our areas search?

Recording attempts on abandoned listings will eventually get it retired. Maybe not immediately, but if enough people record attempts, AQ will eventually change the status to retired.

-- Ryan

Great! That's what I was hoping for. Thanks, Ryan!

Also, if you log your attempt you can exclude them from future searches. Excluding "My Finds" and "My Attempts" from your searches will visually clean up your area (for you anyway).

It has made me realize we need more active letter boxers out there hiding, as it seems like a dying hobby as there seems to be getting fewer and fewer out there. Seems sad to me. Such a good hobby to do with families and kids.

No letterboxing going on in our area, either. Most of the boxes we've hidden have not been found for years. Makes me very sad :(

Unless the owner has set their comments to need approval. Then it's really a problem, if the owner does not approve the comment showing it has been removed, or lacks the stamp, etc.

Unless the owner has set their comments to need approval. Then it's really a problem

Not really. Abandoned listings will have all comments approved automatically. You have to be an active member to do approvals, so if someone isn't active, AQ knows they aren't approving comments and AQ will approve them instead.

-- Ryan

Well done Ryan. I didn't know that.