Dear letterboxers,
Some of you are getting individual emails from an irate member of this list
whose messages have been moderated. His emails were not forwarded from this
list. I made a promise to disallow politics from this list, and I intend to
keep it.

If you do not wish to participate in further debate over the politics of
letterboxing, you will have to contact the sender of these messages
personally and ask him to quit including you in his bulk emails. As creator
and moderator of this list, I will not allow this to be a forum for an
ongoing debate over whether we need a website that is operated as a group
effort, or one that is controlled by a single individual.

As I stated previously, this is now a moderated list. I am not playing God.
The list is moderated by a group, not by any one person. There WILL be a new
website established especially for the members of this group. It will not be
a mirror site of previous systems. It will be a better site with innovative
features. The decisions that must be made for operating this new website
will be made by members of this talk list, not by one individual.

This is not an irrational, impulse decision on my part. An outstanding
majority of the active members of this talk list have contacted me to suggest
that something of this nature be undertaken. The people have claimed
letterboxing for themselves, against the wishes of those who would control it.

It appears that nearly all of you wish to have your clues remain on the old
site as long as they are welcome there, but have them copied over to the new
site as well. This is the approach I will be taking with my own clues.

There are no input forms to fill out to accomplish this. Just let me know
(on list, or off) and I'll see that your clues end up on the new site. No
need to update your bookmarks, either, as long as they currently point to
www.letterboxing.org. As soon as the new site is operational, this domain
will be redirected to our new site.

Admittedly, I am serving as a spokesperson, at this time. This is not
something I am doing alone, however. The new site will be supported by a
group effort. Webpage design and hosting will become a collaborative effort
of volunteers from around the country. No one has the time to maintain our
website in a vaccuum. Time restrictions were largely what prevented the old
site from being able to serve our needs realistically. Only this cooperative
network approach will provide the resources required to keep up with the
growth of our hobby.

Thank you for your patience during this time of transition. It was best to
get this done, and let the dust settle as we begin the great Letterboxing
Summer of 1999.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/letterbox-usa
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications