Geocaching.com has become not only a hobby but a small business. It's run by the Groundspeak company. The geocaching.com game has grown so large that it's run by a staff of 70 paid people (and many volunteers). Responding to suggestions regarding changes to the website has historically been rare or very very slow. To hear that they responded to your email and offered to contact owners of nearby caches is quite a nice surprise (more than I expected they would do). Their usual reply is to suggest it in the forums, where the members talk among themselves and nothing happens.
Personally, I think you have to ignore the elephant in the Hide N Seek recreational industry. Just figure out a way to work around it.
The easiest way is to put little eye-catching information cards in and on your letterbox. Get the message out at the source.
Consider also that occasionally a regular person, who knows nothing about geocaching or letterboxing, will stumble upon letterboxes. To an untrained eye it could look like a pirate treasure game where the finder gets to keep the loot. Let the untrained masses know how the hobby is played.
What I've seen a lot is "This is a letterbox. This is not a geocache. This is not trash" written on the box. To someone who doesn't know what a letterbox is, and barely knows what a geocache is, what does this tell them about how they should interact with the box and contents? Make sure that you get the most important message out loud and clear: 'Do NOT Take the Stamp. Leave it in the box. Not a Trade Item.'
This summer I got wondering.... just how many people in my area leave 'Do not take the stamp' information in the box or on the back of the stamp. My findings: none of the stamps that I found had "Do not take the stamp" information. Most of the stamps had writing on the back but it was usually an arrow showing how the cache should be placed and/or the name of the stamp/letterbox.
Lone R
--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, wrote:
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> I just stated the problem and provided a possible solution.
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> FYI, I did reach out to webmasters at the Geocaching site and they offered to help with a specific box by notifying nearby owners of geocaches. I told them I was looking for a broader solution, but it was a good start and I am encouraged by their willingness to help.
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> Silver Eagle
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> ---In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, prattfamily777@ wrote:
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> I don't understand why letterboxers are so determined to pass out rules for everyone else, when the don't want to follow rules, themselves. I am a letterboxer and I enjoy the art that goes along with it. I am ALSO a geocacher and I enjoy the hunt. I have accidentally come across letterboxes while geocaching and have been pleasantly surprised, but I knew what they were, otherwise I probably would have traded in the same way, but only because the boxes weren't properly marked. Instead of being so rebellious, register the boxes in state parks, like geocachers do, so they won't be permitted to be as close. Don't put boxes where they are not welcome; it gives us a bad name. If you want to raise awareness, you'll have to stop being so secretive; you can't have both. Marking your boxes, like so many have suggested, seems to be a great idea and very effective or attaching one end of a string to your box and the other end to your stamp... Geocachers would be smart enough to figure out that it isn't meant to be taken if it's attached. But whatever you do, please just stop complaining if you aren't going to do anything constructive, like providing a solution. Geocachers don't sit around complaining about Letterboxers all the time and it would be much appreciated if letterboxers would do the same... It kind of ruins the fun for the rest of us that just want to enjoy it.
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> Sent from my iPad
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> On Jan 15, 2014, at 3:12 PM, Dondo_48@ mailto:Dondo_48@ wrote:
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> I have had stamps go missing also so I can sympathize. There once was a letterboxer who had their clues plugged into a separate site. In order to access those clues you had to read their waiver or resp. AND to make sure people read these you had to click on a specific word in this write-up.
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> If someone would contact the geocache community 'leaders' perhaps they could work something that the next time each person logged on they had to read this write-up that says letterboxing is a separate hobby in order to access the Geo. clues. I'm sure if people put their heads together something like this could be done. Each person would only have to do this once. Hopefully they would get the message and be educated.
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