Do People Know They Can Mark Bugs Missing?

[+Otter and Lemur]

A source of some irritation to me:

 

I visit a cache's page and see that it allegedly contains a TB. However, there are several consecutive entries going "no sign of the TB". Idly, I click on the TB and see that it was logged into said cache nine months earlier. I go back to the cache and see dozens of finds since that date. Many reference "no sign of the TB." The conclusion: the bug got picked up, either by a muggle or by someone who didn't know how to log the bug or thought it would make a nice souvenir. Nothing new there. But here's the rub: both the bug owner and the cache owner are active, current cachers, and neither knows that you can edit a bug and mark it "missing".

 

I've even seen a few cache owners add notes to their cache pages saying "The BUG IS GONE!" in hopes people will stop asking them about it.

 

I know cache owners haven't always had the ability to 'evict' missing bugs from their caches, but it seems that a tiny handful of people seem to know that it's there now.

 

I wish that bug owners had a button instead of the current drop-down menu -- if they don't want to 'recalculate distance' or 'move bug to last location', they may never notice the third option, 'mark bug missing'. It'd also be nice if there was some way to make cache owners more aware that they can boot long-absent bugs.

 

-- Lemur

[+Eric K]

I also believe the bug owner can mark it as missing also.

 

Since the option for removing a bug from a cache was just recently added a lot of cache owners that don't frequent the forums may not be aware of that option.

 

I would suggest sending a nice note to the cache owner and bug owner informing them that the bug is missing and let them know how they can mark it as missing as they may not know how to do that.

[+Otter and Lemur]

I also believe the bug owner can mark it as missing also.

 

...

 

I would suggest sending a nice note to the cache owner and bug owner informing them that the bug is missing and let them know how they can mark it as missing as they may not know how to do that.

 

I know bug owners can mark a bug missing -- I made reference to it in my post.

 

And I *have* sent notes to bug owners and cache owners attempting to explain how to mark a bug missing. Generally they write back, EXTREMELY confused, because the method of doing so isn't sufficiently intuitive.

 

A bug owner who edits his own bug with an eye toward marking it missing has to know that "mark bug missing" is lurking in a drop-down menu below "recalculate distance".

 

When you're a bug owner and you don't even know that you CAN mark your bug missing, and you go to the bug page and look around for "mark bug missing", you generally don't think to look in a drop-down menu that currently lists "recalculate distance". It's sad that folks won't open the menu to see if it's there, but it's true. I've had plenty of people write back and say "I don't SEE an option for 'mark bug missing'."

 

Cache owners get the same screen and the same ability to mark bugs missing, but since they're not expecting to be able to clean up missing bugs, they never even go looking for it.

 

I think the user interface could be made a little less obfuscatory. Unfortunately, no matter how easy it is for the user to use there will always be people who don't see a need to mark a long-gone bug missing and there's nothing we can do about that.

[groovy chick]

it was 5 weks until i realised that i could mark my bug mia but at least i know for next time ay! groovy chick

[+Walts Hunting]

Thank you for this discussion. I have a missing bug and have heard the term "mark as missing" made a couple of visits to my bug site on the web and couldn't find anywhere how to do it. The comment about the drop down box got me there.

 

I do agree that all of those choices should be available as buttons.

 

I was getting ready to grab it using the id number and keep it forever.

 

Thanks again.

[+Milbank]

There are a number of Jeep TB's that need to be marked as missing.