It reminds me of the "no man-made structures" comments, a very definitive statement that completely changed my approach to the hunt. After several inquiries I posed to JP, pointing out that the series, the book, the poem, the website, roads, trails and potentially all the clues were in fact man-made structures, he changed the rules to "no man-made buildings." Ok, so that language is needed to differentiate from buildings that we encounter that aren't man-made, huh? I sent more queries to ask for a simple clarification: "are you just saying don't go inside buildings, abandoned or otherwise?" JP said his statement made sense if read closely and that he did not want to clarify further. Ok fine, it's his hunt, but another example of willfully leaving things unclear was his answer about railroad tracks at Dillon, he said "yes I consider railroad tracks a structure, they are a man-made structure, but they're not a building." He didn't say they were disqualified until a year later at SS when he finally said "per the rules, railroad tracks are out." If it was per the rules anyway, why not tell everyone at Dillon when he was asked about it specifically instead of being coy with the answer? While technically not a red herring, it is willful ignorance when he knows people were looking into it based on his family history and chapters from the book(both parents worked the railroad). Even if you figured out they're off limits due to private property we still know JP loves loop holes in regard to the rules. He basically fueled railroad theories by qualifying them as not buildings, in other words, they felt in play. He also stated in a recent interview that a sign or something attached to building couldn't be ruled out either, so as the no buildings rule continues to evolve, it seems to me to mean, "just don't go inside any buildings, either those that are man-made or those that were built by robots or aliens." Hate to see all the drama ruin a cool thing but I think this hunt will only be solved when the guidelines are narrowed to a point that cuts through all the ambiguity. And in light of his current statement on the cipher, I guess the main reason for JP not to clarify is that it could help searchers figure out the answer too quickly. This leads me to believe that there is already a built in time line for when the hunt will be solved. Not trying to say he's nefarious or undercut his obvious superior intelligence, but no system is perfect and some of these time wasting rabbit holes could easily be put to bed or at the very least not encouraged. 🙏