Sorting Office

Sorting Office is PostboxMap's community verification game. You are shown a postbox photo and a simple question (for example, which royal cypher or form best matches the box). Your vote joins others who have seen the same postbox. When enough players agree on the same answer, that value is treated as crowd consensus: it is queued for moderator review and may update the public record. It is gamified because you earn contributor points when your vote matches the winning label, and you can climb the leaderboard like any other contribution. Sorting Office does not replace moderators; it helps the community surface likely corrections faster.

Sorting Office is in beta. The site owner can enable it site-wide and choose a public launch so all signed-in users can play, or grant access per account. Open PostboxMap from your installed app (home screen): the game runs in standalone PWA mode, not in a normal mobile browser tab. Rules, scoring, and access may change, or the feature may be removed.

From the dashboard, open Sorting Office. Each card shows a photo (tap to zoom) and a prompt with two labels. Tap the option that best matches what you see, tap Neither if neither label fits, or tap Skip if you are not sure. Some cards test you against values moderators have already verified (control rounds); others ask you to help fill in missing or disputed reign, form, or pattern data. You can only vote once per postbox for each field; duplicate votes load another card.

Votes are counted over a rolling window. When enough distinct players pick the same label, crowd consensus is reached. The site then queues a correction for moderator review rather than changing the map instantly. Moderators can approve or reject like any other correction. If consensus confirms a value already on the postbox record, that field can be marked as community verified. This keeps quality high while letting many spotters contribute small judgments in the field.

You earn 1 contributor point when your vote is part of a crowd consensus that queues a correction (or when you answer a control card correctly). Points count towards your tier on the leaderboard and your public profile. For the full scoring rules, see Scoring & Ranks and Scoring and ranks.

Use the photo zoom if the cypher or casting detail is small. If you genuinely cannot tell, Skip rather than guess. Neither is for when both offered labels are wrong. Remember that British postbox identification takes practice: the Royal cyphers guide and Postbox forms and types articles on this help centre are useful references when you are learning.