I am very sorry to read Randy's most recent posting about his
frustrations and plans to remove his clues from his website. I don't
claim to know his mind, but Randy and I have corresponded privately
at length over the years. If he does withdraw from letterboxing this
will be a great loss for the hobby. He has been instrumental in the
development of US letterboxing from the beginning. His recent posting
was uncharacteristically open about his frustrations. I could see
this coming, and it was one of the main reasons I raised such a big
stink a couple months ago about certain contributing issues. However,
I think the biggest issue is simply that people need to understand
that there is a need to openly discuss _all_ aspects of the hobby.

As Randy has stated before, most people probably could care less
about the history and issues that affect the future of the hobby as
long as the clues magically get listed on the LbNA website (through
the real considerable work of the volunteer webmasters) and they have
this list to socialize. That is understandable, and I have no problem
with it except that there are important issues that need to be
discussed even though they may not be of interest to everyone. To me,
open discussion without hostility AND tolerance of postings that
don't interest any particular individual are key to the health of the
hobby. Randy appears to have had enough of a lack of tolerance. I can
certainly understand this. However, I really hope he reconsiders. If
both Randy and John DeWolf withdraw from actively participating, my
motivation to continue diminishes considerably. Hopefully that
doesn't please too many people ;-)
--
Regards,

Eric Mings

Letterboxing International: http://www.letterboxing.com
StoneStashing: http://www.stonestashing.com