Logging a TB pick up

[The Dommer Party]

Okay, so I am new to this game/sport, but I made sure that I understood how to properly log trackable activity in order to keep the information correct in the system. Our family recently released 4 travel bugs into the wild and from a log entry yesterday, we suspect that there may be a small problem with one of them. Someone posted a log entry that they found the cache and "switched trackables". As ours was the only known trackable in the cache, we suspect that it is no longer in that cache but rather a different one is in there now. We may check on it soon just to see. Now I'm not blaming the cacher for this mistake. I did send an email inquiring about the whereabouts of our bug, but I tried to be polite and friendly. No word back, but I'm not too worried yet. My point of this post is that this led me to an idea. When you have trackables in your inventory and log a visit, there is a section that lists your trackables and asks if you dropped any off. Great! I think part of the problem with people not logging their PICK UP may be due to the fact that you need to go to a different section of the site to do so, and preferably (IMO) before logging the visit. If you have a cacher that hasn't read all the FAQs, forums, etc, then it is almost seems pretty easy to NOT understand how to properly log trackables, or to even know that it needs to be done in a specific way. My idea: How about when logging a visit, there is a section that asks you if you picked up any trackables? It could either have an entry box right there to enter the tracking code or at minimum link you to the trackables section of the site and tell you something like "If you picked up a trackable from this cache, you need to enter the tracking number into the system." This 'picked up a trackable?' option could maybe only appear if there is supposedly a trackable in the cache, but due to the fact that sometimes there ARE trackables in the cache but they are never logged, perhaps it could always ask if you happened to pick up a trackable from this cache, even if it isn't known to contain one. Any thoughts on this? Has this already been suggested? I really think this would help prevent the problem of people not properly entering TB/Coin tracking numbers into the system when they pick them up.

[+Kryten]

It would make sense for the TB "pick up" and "drop off" processes to be symmetrical. BTW, it's best not to get too fond of trackables since they are usually destined to "dissappear" without trace.

[The Dommer Party]

Yeah, it won't be the end of the world if we never hear from this TB again. It IS a bit funny though because my wife named it "Hope" and when we released it she joked, "Let's HOPE it doesn't disappear within a week."

 

My post isn't so much about losing (or potentially losing) a TB, but rather making things easier for people to understand what to do when they pick one up.

[The Dommer Party]

Sorry my first post above had no line breaks. I had them in there, but it kept taking them out. I think I've figured out how to avoid that now (shift+enter).

 

If you're reading this but skipped that post because it was too difficult to read, here is the basic gist of it:

 

In order to help people realize/understand the need to log TBs and coins OUT (picked up) of a cache, perhaps they should have a reminder message and/or a box where you can enter a tracking number of any bugs or coins you might have picked up while you are at the 'log your visit' section. Similar to when you have them in your inventory and it asks if you dropped any off.

 

It could just list what is KNOWN to be in the cache, but since that is often wrong (because of improper logging), perhaps just a way to enter a tracking number from the log entry page. There are probably a few ways this can be done, but the idea is that when entering the 'visited' log, the person should, at minimum, be reminded to log them, even if only a link to the trackable entry page.

 

Below is a rough mockup I did showing my idea. After entering a tracking number, it could add it to a list then refresh the page, allowing you to enter more.