To all: Please read and comment.

The overall goal for using the internet is to provide you with the options you
need to find letterbox sites and to help others find your
sites with a minimum of fuss (for me as well as you).

Toward that end I would like you to tell me what you want to see here.
The way it works now is adequate for the number of our current users, but it is
not likely to be adequate 6 months from now IMO. I will need lead time to plan
whatever changes are necessary to accomodate an influx of people. Please make
your needs and wishes known now so that whatever changes are made will reflect
them.

I don't plan to change the basic mapping structure. Twice in the past
suggestions were made to change it and most of you did not want it changed so it
will remain as is.

Proposed changes for posting clues:

Modern e-mail notes can be made up of web-content. Most people are familiar
with filling out forms. So I will probably reduce the process of posting clues
to filling out a form and forwarding it to me, Mitch or someone else who can
register it on the site.

Please give input if any you have. My biggest concern for you is that you will
all be able to do this easily without special instructions. I also want to make
sure you can make your finished clues reflect your personal tastes in color and
form. At your option you may want to include contact information. You may or
may not want a regional map or clues map to be included. You may also NOT want
any options at all. In that case the basic form we now use will be selected by
default. But what I see for the future (if its at all feasible) will be an
e-mail form that looks just like your finished page as its to be published. You
will be able to type in the content (as its to appear), change the colors,
fonts, images etc. (as they are to appear) and then add whatever supplementary
information you feel is necessary to the letterbox.

Part of the porocess of determining whether or not this is feasible is finding
out (from you!) how it needs to work and what it needs to look like in order to
be

1) easy to use
and
2) easy to customize and be creative

Our current system only allows people with web publishing skills to be
creative. It is NOT easy to use. This has always been a glaring fault of web
publishing. But there are ways to overcome that. And I am willing to explore
possibilities, pick brains and create a form that will accomplish this for you.

But I need your input. Please do make some comments. Some of you may be very
busy, but if you would at least state the number one thing of importance to you
I would appreciate it. I respectfully ask you to not
say something like, "Why don't you create letterboxes instead?"
Remember, I'm not just taking up this concern for you. Its for the newcomers
who have not started yet. I view it as my primary role to create and maintain a
medium for you to share your clues. I want this to work cleanly so that the
process of getting your clues out will be not much more difficult than writing a
letter or making a phone call. Once I've done that and the system works and has
been amply tested
I will probably devote more of my efforts to letterboxes. You know every group
has certain people who bring certain things to it. Some of you are artists, some
are map surfers, some are hikers or orienteerers or general hobbyists.
I'm a network technician who's into maps.

OK. Send some comments please.

Dan'l

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/letterbox-usa
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com