+Don_J Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 Received my Gecko the other day and was very frustrated trying to activate it. The first five were letters followed by 0. Took me a bit to realize that the last letter was not a letter, it was a number. I've been doing this for almost six years and understand the nuances of figuring out the exact code required to properly move a trackable. What I'm wondering is if new cachers also get frustrated, give up and simply quit trying to move trackables because they can't figure out the 0, o, the B, 8, and so on. I realize that I have to add a tag to my gecko to give the proper ID. Five letters, followed by a zero, (that looks like a oh) what are the chances? Quote Link to comment
+dfx Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 Tracking numbers never contain O's, they're all zeroes. Of course nobody tells anyone that, so it doesn't really help. It's funny though, because it would be an easy thing for the website to simply consider them the same, then it wouldn't matter what the user enters. Quote Link to comment
+Droo Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 the problem of misreading tracking numbers is as old as time..... well, kinda! But it used to be made even worse by designers who didn't want these pesky codes interfering with the look of their creation and would make them so tiny you'd need not just a magnifying glass but maybe a microscope too. You get pretty good at taking macro shots when you're aiming to be as sharp as you can with the best possible highlighting to show the contour difference of some of the letters you mentionded --- Bs and 8s are the worst. But the good news is that this issue has been raised enough times that it happens less frequently. AND Groundspeak has a rule too to separate 1s and Is or 0s and Os.... Tracking numbers, except for the prefix, have 0s and 1s while Activation codes have Os and Is. Quote Link to comment
+fuzziebear3 Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 Tracking numbers never contain O's, they're all zeroes. Of course nobody tells anyone that, so it doesn't really help. It's funny though, because it would be an easy thing for the website to simply consider them the same, then it wouldn't matter what the user enters. Coins from Oakcoins/geoswag often have the OC prefix, so at least in the prefix I know they can have letter O's. Not sure about the rest of the body. Computers are very picky ... O's and 0's are not even close. Searches would be unmanageable if it had to account for these electronically. Best bet is to use a magnifying glass, or take a picture and enlarge it. Quote Link to comment
+Don_J Posted June 6, 2011 Author Share Posted June 6, 2011 Tracking numbers never contain O's, they're all zeroes. Of course nobody tells anyone that, so it doesn't really help. It's funny though, because it would be an easy thing for the website to simply consider them the same, then it wouldn't matter what the user enters. Probably the most intelligent post of the weekend. Thanks... Quote Link to comment
+aka Momster Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 If one of my travelers has a zero in the tracking number, I disclose on the trackable page that the "0" in the tracking number is a zero. When accessed from the geocache or event page trackable name links, I hope that information will improve the odds that the trackable will get logged. At least it can't hurt. Quote Link to comment
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