Just in case you would otherwise miss it, it is now possible to list your stamps on Atlas Quest.

Each box listed on AQ can now include one more stamps. This is entirely optional, but for those of you who just can't help yourselves, there is now a proper place for you to list all of the stamps within one of your boxes. =)

-- Ryan

I should also mention.... this was a pretty substantial update. Even had to take AQ down for a half hour while updating the website to support this feature.

As far as I know, it's all working properly and like expected, but please be patient if you find any bugs or problems that I need to work out. There's a good chance that some could have slipped through the cracks!

-- Ryan

It might not be a bug, but it now appears that every box in a series is "the first box"
When seeing a number before a name is it generally assumed to be a numbered list.
1. Barrington
1. Bristol
1. Burriville
1. Central Falls.........

I planted 40 stamps in 40 different boxes over 3 miles, so definitely a series, is there a way to hide the count before the box name if theres only one? Or use letters for the stamps In a box?
So more like
1. Box One
2. Box Two
3a Box Three
3b Box Three 2nd stamp....

https://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.php?boxId=362697

Edit: definitely a bug. I added a fake second stamp and the box after was labeled "2" but then back to "1" for every box after that!

Yep, totally a bug. Sorry about that. It should be fixed now! =)

The stamps aren't really supposed to show numbers at all--you'll only see a number as part of the name of the box (i.e. "Stamp #1") if the stamp has no name and there's more than one stamp in the box.

If the stamp has a name, that'll be displayed. If there's only one stamp in the box and it doesn't have a name, it doesn't display a name at all.

When you're adding/editing a box, it'll display the stamp number as roman numerals. I thought about using letters, but I figured some people are going to occasionally hide boxes that have more than 26 stamps in it and I wasn't really sure what would happen if I tried to use letters for them. So I wanted to use numbers that basically allowed it to be limitless--but I also didn't want to use "normal" numbers so they wouldn't be confused with the box numbers. So I told AQ to use roman numerals instead. Which in most cases, I think people can understand easily enough. (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, etc.)

By the time they get to 50+, it might be hard to figure out precisely which number stamp something is, but the actual number of the stamp never really seemed important. Mostly, I put it there more to delineate one stamp from another. But the roman numerals don't show up on the box details or clues or anything either.

-- Ryan

From your blog post:

Hmm, feelin' a tad judge-y? 😄

Seriously though, I'm sure the good peeps of our ranks appreciate your hard work and responsiveness to the hue and cries of desire.

_{(not mine, of course, but what are you going to do...)}

^{I kid, I kid}

I really don't care if people want to count or track stamps--it's the incorrect listings that cause confusion and problems.

It messes up counts, upsets people when their find counts change because the incorrect listings are deleted, or it'll upset people who don't think stamps should be listed, and it just causes angst and problems.

AQ had been intended to list boxes, though, and not stamps, so that's what I always enforced, and it's been a pain in the tush. And there's not really any reason to list them. If it's not a pathological need to list stamps, I'm not sure what it is.

AQ had always been about listing boxes since day 1. It wasn't controversial back then. It wasn't something I surprised everyone with. It's just been a long-simmering problem and it's my hope and wish this update will fix the problem once and for all--giving people a place to actually list stamps. An official way to track stamps. I hope it scratches that itch those people have.

-- Ryan

This works great. I just edited one of my Postal Boxes that is currently in circulation. There are 3 stamps in the box/envelope and they make one image. I originally listed the box with one stamp and added info in the clue indicating the 3 stamp sequence.

Adding the two additional stamps in the listing did not affect my P-count which is the way it should be imho. I don't usually have more than one stamp in a box, but it is becoming more and more common in the postal cohort.

LTCs and Postcards often have more than one stamp image--so there's that also.

AQ was suffering a fairly substantial attack by hackers from all over Europe and a few in the United States, trying to inject SQL into searches.

It didn't work--the process created invalid SQL that didn't run at all recorded an error for me to see what was going on, so I started blocking all of the IP addresses those attacks were coming from. (About two dozen blocks of IP addresses in all.) One of the blocks I mistyped which caused it to block about 25% of all internet addresses around the world. Oops!

It was actually blocking IP addresses, not disabled accounts. (Although people who have had their account disabled see the same message, which is why it says what it does.)

And once I realized I had typed in an unusually large block of IP addresses to ban, I just had to fix it and everything went back to normal.

Then I went back to blocking all those IP addresses that were trying to hack into AQ. They really were coming from all over Europe: Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, England, and France. Plus a couple of attempts from Ohio and New York City, which seemed not to fit with the rest of the pattern.

Anyhow, sorry about the downtime! I was just fighting off virtual pirates and got a little carried away, I guess. =)

-- Ryan

I'd rather you disable my account rather than lose AQ all together to Hackers wanting a huge ransom to get the info back.
Thank Great green one for protecting all of us.
~Aurora (The hicks from the sticks)

We thought you were mad as us for not making a donation to support LBNA! We hurried and wrote you a check... and put it in the mail.

DoubleSaj and Old Blue
really!

Just to be clear, no accounts were actually disabled. It was just blocking you because of the IP address you were using, and only because I copied the IP address range to ban incorrectly.

Not sure what the hackers actually wanted to do. As far as I could tell, they were just probing AQ for weaknesses. Which is actually a very regular occurrence. AQ auto-bans dozens of IP addresses every single day when it detects that their trying to do something nefarious. I also have a couple of "tripwires" that monitor for suspicious activity and have banned literally millions and millions of IP addresses--entire ranges that those corporations or governments use when banning individual IP addresses didn't seem to be effective.

So... none of this is actually unusual. Just my accidentally blocking too many IP addresses--that's more unusual. My bad. =)

-- Ryan

Yeah, me too. I thought, "what did I do!?" when I saw this.

I just figured you had finally found about my sordid and criminal past and decided I was a security risk. LOL
--BTW Atlas Quest turns 20 today. 20 years of growth.

Oh, we run background checks on everyone who shows up and we're well aware of your sordid and criminal past. It's one of the things we liked best about you--not boring! ;o)

-- Ryan

I feel as if I may have been the inspiration for this policy...

I read that as the "need" for this policy. 😁

Glad to see your probation officer still approves of your involvement in our hobby!

;)

Hey, Wassa what kind of bird doesn't sing?

😉

Mental Note, do not box with sagacorn again, you never what she is really carrying in her back pack. 😂😂

I had to write to something, that comment you wrote had me laughing. 😂

Well that was fun, thought my acerbic demeanor somehow nuked my account! So glad that was not true. May I continue my generally annoying behavior now?

"Hey, Wassa what kind of bird doesn't sing?"

Yeah, just don't pick up the soap>

I read this while taking a drink of water.

Bad idea!

It has finally come--the ability to link your accounts!

Not super useful at the moment, but it's a start. =)

You can link to your LbNA account from the My Account page.

-- Ryan

Will this future update also allow you to see boxes posted on LbNA that are not in AQ???

Not planning on it. If someone doesn't want their boxes listed on AQ, I'm not going to force it.

-- Ryan

Some of you might have noticed that AQ was down for a few minutes while I updated some code. Overall, it was a pretty minor update (and thus the reason I only needed to take down AQ for a few minutes), but here are some of the tweaks:

• Planter's choice is now a keyword instead of an attribute after it was pointed out to me that it's not really a "filter" item like attributes are generally meant to be used for.
• Keywords are now displayed on clues.
• While I was updating keywords, I added a whole BUNCH of "official" keywords. Basically, I looked at the 100 or so most commonly used keywords and the most common and useful ones I elevated as "official". Many of them are attributes that people have asked for over the years but didn't make the attribute cut.
• The exchange page of your logbook will now display the date an exchange was first added to the database and, if the same exchange was added more than once, it'll also display the last date it was added. Since AQ has only been tracking this for a few days now, very few entries will have this extra information, but you'll start seeing it show up in the future as you add new exchanges.
• I've added "signature stamp" as an attribute for personal travelers. This does not mean that you are required or even encouraged to list signature stamps--but it's there for people who feel compelled to track them and an option to record them for those who feel compelled to record those sorts of things. (If someone hasn't added a signature stamp that you want to record a find on, premium members an mark it as a find on an unlisted box.) I, for one, have no intention of listing my signature stamps.
• The maximum length of a password has been increased from 50 characters to... well, whatever your browser will allow in a text input field. (56k?) No excuses for bad passwords! (I've updated my password to use 64 characters.) =)
• Plus a few minor bug fixes that nobody has noticed except the persons who reported them. They're fixed now! =)

I think that covers all the changes. For the most part, they're largely cosmetic changes.

-- Ryan

Gosh golly that is super nifty! You are amazing thank you!

Okay, after someone tried to use an entire sentence as a password (I suspect it was copied and pasted in error), I'm revising the limit from "unlimited" characters to 1024 characters for a password.

You guys are always pushing the limits, eh? ;o)

But you should still be able to create super strong passwords with a 1024-character limit!

-- Ryan

Give them just over 2 tenths a mile and they expect the whole thing 🤣

Give us 2 tenths of a mile and we'll take a parsec. 👽