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Caching is Caching. and there is nothing wrong with either hobby...just keep them seperate and not hybridized ;)

But Dixie are you saying that posting letterboxes on gc.com is not a good way to educate geocachers about what letterboxes are? Would you say my letterbox on geocaching.com does not educate?:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=286f64a1-ff2d-4808-8203-5eeacd46165e

It follows the principals of letterboxing. The coordinates take you to the trailhead which you can find by using the map feature, you don't even need a GPS unit, you use the directions to get to the box and when you find it you will open up a tupperware container that contains a logbook, a hand-carved stamp, and a pencil. ALSO a note that tells people what to do i.e. take an impression of the LB's stamp, leave an impression of your signature stamp (or draw something or just sign the log). Do not take the stamp. No trinkets please. No trades.

Lone R

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But Dixie are you saying that posting letterboxes on gc.com is not a good way to educate geocachers about what letterboxes are? Would you say my letterbox on geocaching.com does not educate?:

*shaking head*
no...I did not say that.
I said that in my opinion the two shouldn't hybridized.
if you wanna do caches and letterboxes do them.
do whatever you like with your stuff i suppose...
I just don't think it makes sense to combine the two things into ONE container.
why not plant a GC and then tell the finders that a LB is close by and here are the clues: _____
or vice versa.

and by all means...EDUCATE
and educate in a way that teaches that a stamp should not be traded and trinkets or gifts need not be left in a LB...so when you state those facts then I think you are doing a good job of educating. It has nothing to do with where to list the LB

it never hurts to have those that EDUCATE

I prefer LBing...but I am not saying that I will never try GCing...who knows...but i bet even if I do LBing will always be obsession

dixie
who really didn't want to get into a debate or the misconceptions about her thoughts... :-)

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Below is a link to one of my letterboxes posted (with the "letterbox" icon).

Yeah, that's really good. You've done several things right:

* It's not a letterbox hybrid, even though you used the letterbox hybrid icon. It's a pure letterbox; you're just listing the letterbox clues on geocaching.com so geocachers can participate if they choose, and they can get credit for a geocache find.

* The coordinates don't take you to the letterbox, they only take you to the starting point. That way anybody who just loads the coords in the GPSr without actually reading the cache listing won't find it.

* No trade items -- again, it's not a hybrid, it's a pure letterbox that just happens to have its clues listed on GC.com.

I was thinking of placing one like this around here and see what happens. It may blow up in my face, but hey, it's the effort, right? :-)

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I do however feel like the two should not be combined for a hybrid...

I can report that most geocachers agree. In fact, in my early days I was pretty enthusiastic about making hybrids (Two for one!) but it was a discussion on the geocaching forums that convinced me that was a bad idea.

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This is why, I believe, cachers DON"T know what to do when they find an apparently extraneous piece of Lock'n'Lock left in the woods.

I hasten to point out that Lock-N-Lock containers are just as popular with the geocaching crowd as they are with letterboxers!

Now here is a suggestion (please note that this is not on the suggestion board). There should be a little icon similar to the little stars or feathered cap that gets posted whenever someone "Jumps the Shark" and the thread gets moved to this board. Maybe after three of these little icons the poster has to stop posting for three days.

Whenever the topic gets beaten to death I'm always curious to see which post is the cause and effect for the move. Can it be marked as such?
Don

POint taken

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There should be a little icon similar to the little stars or feathered cap that gets

Well clearly the icon should be a horse, kitten, or lemur. Would the icon have a number associated with it so we can compete to see who has the highest kitten count?

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Would the icon have a number associated with it so we can compete to see who has the highest kitten count?

Absolutely! I think an orange kitten flying through the air with the word "Pull" might be a winner.

Don

Who moves the thread? Is it anyone that can do it or are the threads monitored? I agree, some of these posts go on way too long....

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Who moves the thread? Is it anyone that can do it or are the threads monitored? I agree, some of these posts go on way too long....

Any Moderator has the capability to do it. I was thinking about moving it, but then didn't have the cajones to do it with the Green Tortuga's post. I think when it gets right down to it Ryan probably moves more of them as compared to anyone else. There are some boards that Ryan doesn't watch as much as others, but usually a moderator will give him a 'heads up' if there is a problem.
At least here on AQ the posts can get moved to this board and no one has to receive any of the boards as their 'favorites', so if topics get too lengthy and it gets moved a person doesn't keep receiving it, unless they are masochists.

Don

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Whenever the topic gets beaten to death I'm always curious to see which post is the cause and effect for the move. Can it be marked as such?

It's rarely just a single post that causes a whole thread to be moved. In fact, if there was just a single post that's a problem, I'd be more likely to delete it than move an entire thread!

I tend to be trigger shy about moving threads since I don't want to be accused of censorship. I generally don't mind other people's opinions--even those who disagree with me--as long as they stay civil. But I still prefer someone else to "call lemur" on a thread so at least if someone disagrees with the moving of a thread, I can point out that other people thought it should have been moved too. ;o)

Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised when a moderator takes the initiative to move a thread themselves. AQ doesn't track which moderator moves a thread, so I don't have a way of knowing who it was unless they tell me. Most of the time, though, I'm the one who moves a thread.

The geocaching thread--I don't follow that board since I'm not much interested in geocaching and missed most of the hubbub about it until the cowboy post on the main AQ board, which I liked enough to leave it there rather than move it to the geocaching board where I thought it belonged--not realizing that the subject was already becoming a dead horse for a lot of you!

Though in this case, I wouldn't have moved the thread because it had some new information, a new perspective, and wasn't the same arguments I've heard over and over during the years I've been letterboxing. I thought it was a good post, with a new perspective, and more-or-less has a happy ending (with the exception of the negative view cowboy now has of letterboxing). It was a heartfelt apology, he's taken steps to fix the problems he caused, and deserves forgiveness. Most missing stamp stories don't have a happy ending either, and I liked the fact that this one did. I'm a sucker for a happy ending. =)

I hoped the thread would die there, or at least come to a quick death at that point and held out hope it would do so. But since some of you seem to prefer to continuing the arguing about hybrids, how to educate newbies, and misunderstandings--none of which is particularly new or interesting--I've finally called dead lemur. You can still argue about it here, but most of us are pretty tired of it and would just as soon not have to read anymore about it.

I guess, to answer the original question in the subject, everyone's who posted to a moved thread can take fractional credit for getting the thread moved--including myself if I've participated in the thread. =)

-- Ryan

I saw a thread get moved to this board the other day that had maybe 10 posts when moved...it ended up with only 14 total. It was about traditional boxes and their status...and another thread that had some rather hard bashing going on sometimes remained where it would get much more traffic even after dozens and dozens of posts. I just figgered that someone didn't like the opinions on the one thread even though the were legitimate. *shrugs*

dixie
*still scratching head*

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I saw a thread get moved to this board the other day that had maybe 10 posts when moved...it ended up with only 14 total.

I'm not referring to this particular incident, but there is another factor that comes into play besides the size of a particular thread--the history behind the thread.

Wow, it'll really snowing outside, isn't it? Big flakes! =)

But I digress....

Sometimes people start a new thread that's just a continuation of an existing thread. New, short threads are generally easier to move and cause less problems with AQ. I've been known to leave a long thread that I think is about to die rather than risk moving it and confusing people when it shows up again as a "unread" post on a different board. (I recently made changes, though, that reduced the chances of this significantly. It's still a concern, though not nearly as much as it used to be.)

Another thing that sometimes happens with me, at least, is I may not realize a thread is on the wrong board. I usually click the "View all new messages" button and get up to 50 messages displayed all at once. If I'm not really paying attention, I'll read posts that are clearly on the wrong board but not even realize it.

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I just figgered that someone didn't like the opinions on the one thread even though the were legitimate. *shrugs*

That shouldn't be happening. If there's a thread that needs to be moved but nobody's doing it, contact a moderator. Or if the opposite is true, a thread's been moved that you don't think should have been moved, write a moderator. (Use that "Contact Us" button at the bottom of every page.) I can't promise the thread will get moved (or moved back), but at least a moderator will consider it. =) You could AQ mail me as well, but if I'm off doing something and don't check my mail for awhile, it could take longer to get a response. I always read messages to moderators as well. =)

-- Ryan

Just out of curiosity, How many moderators are there?
chadams

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Just out of curiosity, How many moderators are there?
chadams

Are you asking only about moderators, or admins, too?

I don't actually know myself...I can think of at least 4 other than myself. I've never stopped to think before.

CQ

whats the difference between a moderator and an admin?

OH. I didn't realize there was a difference or I had never stopped to think about it either :- )
I was just curious the work force that helps out ryan. Thanks to all of YOU since you guys probably never get thanked!

chadams

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Just out of curiosity, How many moderators are there?

Hmmm..... I'm not sure. Quite a few, but a lot of them don't use AQ all that often. I would guess only four or five actually bother to use their moderator powers, though.

*looking through database*

There are 16 moderators.

And 3 admins, for those who are keeping track.

A 1 webmaster, of course. ;o)

-- Ryan

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Hmmm..... I'm not sure. Quite a few, but a lot of them don't use AQ all that often. I would guess only four or five actually bother to use their moderator powers, though.

*looking through database*

There are 16 moderators.

And 3 admins, for those who are keeping track.

How many of those 16 moderators are among those who use AQ often?

CQ

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whats the difference between a moderator and an admin?

Admins have "special" powers that a lowly moderator does not. They can edit and delete other people's boxes, add new cities that need to be supported, create new message boards, add and remove people from user groups, blah, blah, blah.

Moderators have a special board they can post on about moderator issues and can move threads, but that's about it. =)

Webmasters can see special statistics (queries used to create a page, how fast the queries run, etc.), see reports of errors that AQ has logged, and can access the database directly if somethings needs to be done that can't be done from an existing page on AQ. Definitely requires technical skill. (Admins don't need any technical knowledge--everything is done from a normal AQ page like every uses.)

-- Ryan

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How many of those 16 moderators are among those who use AQ often?

Depends on your definition of "often," I suppose, but I'd guess about half of them log in at least every couple of days.

-- Ryan

Ryan, you forgot the 2 Turtle Doves after the 3 admins!

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Ryan, you forgot the 2 Turtle Doves after the 3 admins!

And let's not forget ..... 1 letterbox in a pear tree!

FG

"On our letterboxes, we put it right up there: THIS IS NOT GARBAGE!! THIS IS NOT A GEOCACHE!!"

LOL! I have taken to writing on the lid:

"Neither trash, nor geocache!"

I need another line or two to make this an official poem...

I'm not feeling all that original tonight - which is unusual for me, I can usually play with words. I'm SURE others will come up with some lightbulbs for ya, here's what I've got.

Although this site (http://www.rhymezone.com) doesn't have "geocaching", "geocache" or "cache" in it's system I note that that the following possibilies DO show up:

Rehash (ing)

Diaper Rash (ing)

(poor) White Trash (ing)

Hot Flash (ing)

And my personal fave: SKIN RASH (ing) muuuuuuuuuwaaaaaaa This I COULD ....Work With!

preboxed

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"Neither trash, nor geocache!"
I need another line or two to make this an official poem...

depends on how you pronounce it I guess...I have heard it as cash and as cash-shay.
so if it's cash-shay

"Neither trash, nor geocache.
Please rehide well, I say"

or

"Neither trash, nor geocache.
Please rehide well, this fine day"

or

"Neither trash, nor geocache.
can keep letterboxers away"

if it pronounced as cash...

"Neither trash, nor geocache.
Rehide well or we get brash"

or

"Neither garbage, nor geocache.
Do not toss in the trash"

dixie

'tain't trash
'tain't geocache
Please be careful and rehide our stash!

And he's moderator of the NY board too..although it hasn't seen much action as of late...*hint* * hint*

LW PhD