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"Zero Miles" search
Board: Letterboxing Help Desk
Jan 8, 2012 7:15pm
Thread (disabled) Board
I think that something is funky with using the "0" in the mileage search for a town.

I have 42 unfound box listings in Leominster, MA. I see them all when I type in "Leominster MA" and leave the search at 25 miles. Of course there are other towns with boxes within that search.

Since I was just focusing on Leominster, I changed the search to "Leominster MA" and set the town to "0" so it would return all the boxes in the city limits. To my surprise, I only see 8 listings.
All say Leominster, but have no street address in the listing. All the boxes with street addresses do not show.

I tried it for Andover, MA and got the same type of results. If I put in zero for miles, I only get listings with no specified address...

I know it didn't used to be this way. Has something gone haywire?
Re: "Zero Miles" search
Board: Letterboxing Help Desk
Reply to: #668082 by The Vs
Jan 8, 2012 7:41pm
Thread (disabled) Board
If I put in zero for miles, I only get listings with no specified address

From what I understand the boxes that have no exact location are all listed at the center of the city. By searching for 0 miles you are also searching for 0 feet or 0 inches. So it should return a result of only boxes without an exact location. You may try to adjust your search by typing in 1 mile or 5 miles depending on the radius of the size of town.
Re: "Zero Miles" search
Board: Letterboxing Help Desk
Reply to: #668082 by The Vs
Jan 8, 2012 8:33pm
Thread (disabled) Board
I think that something is funky with using the "0" in the mileage search for a town.

Yeah, I changed that. Don't use "0 miles" for all boxes within a city anymore. On the Advanced Search page, you'll see a checkbox to "use exact locations." Click that instead to do the search you're trying to do. A "0 mile" search now returns exact location matches--in a much more strict sense of the word.

The "softer" exact search--what you're trying to do--has it's own checkbox on the Advanced Search page, though, so just use that instead and forget that the 0-mile hack ever existed. =) The 0-mile hack now will only return boxes "somewhere" in the city you specify--excluding boxes listed at specific locations within the city.

If that makes any sense....

-- Ryan
Re: "Zero Miles" search
Board: Letterboxing Help Desk
Reply to: #668117 by Green Tortuga
Jan 8, 2012 8:57pm
Thread (disabled) Board
I think I am still confused...
Re: "Zero Miles" search
Board: Letterboxing Help Desk
Reply to: #668117 by Green Tortuga
Jan 8, 2012 9:02pm
Thread (disabled) Board
Ok. I see how it works. But the zero miles still seems easier!
Re: "Zero Miles" search
Board: Letterboxing Help Desk
Reply to: #668128 by The Vs
Jan 8, 2012 11:16pm
Thread (disabled) Board
But the zero miles still seems easier!

It wasn't very intuitive for people, though. You have to know about the hack to take advantage of it. Now there's a nice little checkbox for people to click labeled with what the option does. =) User friendly!

-- Ryan