In a message dated 6/2/99 9:31:47 AM Central Daylight Time,
jdewolf@mail.icrsurvey.com writes:

> I have had some farily extensive communication with Dan's in the past week
or
> two. As a result, Dan's has asked me to pass the following on to the list.
> These are excerpts but I am confident they have not been taken out of
context.
>
>
> Dan's wrote:
> "Please tell the letterboxing community that I am bowing out
> of letterboxing until such time that the guarantees I asked
> for can be made. Or just tell them that I'm bowing out for an
> indefinite time period, and if they want to know why to contact
> me at mailto:elf@pclink.com
>
> I do not feel like trying to contact 64 people individually in
> order to let them know that I am not doing anything with
> letterboxing now (or to try to explain why to each question).
> So it would be a big help if ... you would post a simple
> statement on my behalf, including my simple reason for doing
> this (mainly that having a single moderator is not acceptable
> to me and that everyone should have a guaranteed and enforcable
> equal opportunity to express their opinion within the equal context
> of whatever rules are adopted).
>
> And there's this:
> People may wonder why when they do not see their submittals going
> up on the site, so it would be nice if ... you could make this
> simple statement on the list to prevent them from sending in clues
> submittals needlessly and wasting there's (and my) time.
>
> I would appreciate it if you
> mention to them that whatever ideas or material I have contributed
> or created are their's. I do not consider my ideas or material
> to be in any form other than gift-form (from me to them). But I
> absolutely insist that they do not in turn claim ownership of it.
> I insist that they let it remain free."
>
> JDW
> West Chester, PA
>
>
> -
This is or should be a sad day for all the people in this group! It my wish
to be dropped from this mailing list ,for the only two people who ever tried
to help me understand this sport /hobbie are never heard from any more .
I think in timeyou will see that you let the heart of letter boxing get
ripped out and tramppled
Sincerely,
Sherri in Texas

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Hey Sherri,

sorry you came to letterboxing at this time. I am sad that Dan has
decided to bow out at this time. This group has always existed on the
basis of a friendly, open exchange of ideas. Recently some serious
issues have arisen. We split off from another letterboxing group
because the site owner wanted to be able to print our clues and images
for money. When we asked Dan to protect us from this very thing with a
simple copyright statement he balked even though a clear majority of
group members agreed with the premise of copyright protection. I am not
sure why Dan does not want Randy or anyone else to house their clues
anywhere but on his site. His technical explanation to me was not
especially convincing. I have conversed with him offlist in several
e-mails. I think he is very emotionally involved in letterboxing and
has a crystal clear vision of what he perceives letterboxing to be.
Unfortunatley, it does not seem to jibe exactly with what others
intend. He does not seem to be able to compromise on these points. I
think I speak for the rest of us who have been involved in
letterboxing-USA since its inception when I say that he will be sorely
missed. He is a pioneer in this fledgling hobby. Whatever he decides
in the long run, in my mind he will always be one of the great
letterboxers.
--
Thom Cheney
tcgrafx... among other things

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erik/susan davis wrote:
>
> "letterbitching"

In spite of the seriousness embodied in the original post... I got a
major chuckle from this term. good one Erik... I think this belongs in
the forthcoming "Letterbox Glossary."
--
Thom Cheney
tcgrafx... among other things

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The same reasons I drifted away from orienteering are rearing thier
Ugly heads here in letterboxing. I thought it might be different......

Both seem to attracted highly educated independant thinkers and there is
were I think the trouble lies... It is important to remember that, the
actionsopeople take are what they believe to be in the best interest of
letterboxing.

Dave


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Sherri-Joe:

I am very sad to see you feel the need to depart from Letterboxing,
especially as it sounds like it is related to the recent schism between
some members of the group.

As for helping you understand this sport: none of us here are "experts"
- we have learned and developed our own methods and materials as we went
along. In all liklihood, none of the US Letterboxers has ever been to
Dartmoor. But, if you need ideas about how to get started, read the
"Getting Started" (which I wrote) and "FAQ's" (Randy's) pages of the web
page. And, if you still are unsure about any aspect, ask on-line: you
will find all the help that you need. Or off-line, to any one of us -
people are pretty generous with their time.

Yup, it is a sad day, in some respects, when Dan, one of the 'founders',
pulls up stakes in a sort of huff because certain 'terms' were not met
to his satisfaction. It is sad that I was unsuccessful in the advice
and council that I shared with Dan - I spent literally hours trying to
talk thru the "issues", as I understand did others, all of which fell
upon deaf ears. Nobody has ripped any heart out of letterboxing. It has
continued to grow, in spite of some rather petty "letterbitching" that
seems to rear its head from time to time.

If you REALLY have an interest in the sport, make a letterbox, go find
another, and share your experiences with the rest of us. It is, in the
end, about having fun, as so often has been said. Some here find
letterboxing fun, and enjoyable. Others may have other motives:

> "..... And if I rejoin it will be my responsibility to risk
> mentioning "taboo" topics or not. Personally, I cannot imagine
> anything more of a crashing bore than only discussing finds, new
> boxes and the weather. So Erik, each person's boredom is quite
> subjective."

There you have it. You be the judge.
Erik Davis
aka "The Vt Viking"



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Dan conveys his desire to drop out of the letterboxing scene, stating that...

> my simple reason for doing
> this (mainly that having a single moderator is not acceptable
> to me and that everyone should have a guaranteed and enforcable
> equal opportunity to express their opinion within the equal context
> of whatever rules are adopted).

I'm not going to dwell on this, but wanted to point out that we do not have a
single moderator, and that any actions taken in regard to Dan were done so
after consulting with many members of our group, and were a direct result of
numerous complaints about his long, argumentative postings.

I personally made several attempts to ask Dan privately to stop making issues
out of non-important things, and to put a halt to his plans to exclude
certain letterboxes from our website. Dan made it clear to me that he was
not open to compromise. He seemed convinced that he had the right to make
rules for the hobby since he had volunteered his webspace to house our clues.

I agree that opportunity for expression is very important, which is why a
vast majority of the members of this group were not in favor of Dan's actions
to exclude certain letterboxes from the website, or to control the content or
difficulty level of clues. The growth of letterboxing in North America has
been a group effort, and should not be controlled by any one individual
(myself included).

Personally, I have other things to do besides pick up the pieces and try to
organize a group to take over where Dan left off, but I'm doing it anyway
because I love this hobby, and I don't want to see it abandoned. I want to
see future decisions being made by the entire group, not by a webmaster or
moderator. I have no interest in being the dictator or owner of our website.
It belongs to all of us.

> I would appreciate it if you
> mention to them that whatever ideas or material I have contributed
> or created are their's. I do not consider my ideas or material
> to be in any form other than gift-form (from me to them). But I
> absolutely insist that they do not in turn claim ownership of it.
> I insist that they let it remain free."

Regardless of these sentiments, all clues and artwork belong to their
creators. Responsibility for the placement and accuracy of clues is also on
the shoulders of the person who places the box. Volunteering to do
data-entry for this organization does not entitle me or my colleagues and/or
predecessors to insist anything about your clues. All works published on the
group's website are, by default, copyrighted and protected unless
specifically declare otherwise. No webmaster can take away these rights or
determine after-the-fact that inclusion on the website assumes that you have
given up these rights or donated your work to the public domain.

I have already said more than I wanted to. I hope this issue can come to a
close.

Thank you for your patience,
Mitch

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Thom:

> I think I speak for the rest of us who have been involved in
> letterboxing-USA since its inception when I say that he will be sorely
> missed. He is a pioneer in this fledgling hobby. Whatever he decides
> in the long run, in my mind he will always be one of the great
> letterboxers.
> --
> Thom Cheney

Let me second that sentiment. Well spoken!
Erik



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>This is or should be a sad day for all the people in this group! It my wish
>to be dropped from this mailing list ,for the only two people who ever tried
>to help me understand this sport /hobbie are never heard from any more .
>I think in timeyou will see that you let the heart of letter boxing get
>ripped out and tramppled
>Sincerely,
>Sherri in Texas
>
Well, Sherri, I can't agree with you that the heart of letterboxing is in
any individual. The Letterboxes that have been placed here have very
little to do with the list, but it is a fun way (when it IS fun) to
communicate our new adventures. That there are disagreements is not very
surprising--it happens in every community. I regret that they are painful
enough that people feel a need to depart, but it's an individual choice.

Julie
(in Texas, too)

"Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss
on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old
questions are again upon you." --Abraham Lincoln

It's the Atmospheric Cookie!
http://members.tripod.com/~anniespark1e/links.html



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Thom wrote:

> I think I speak for the rest of us who have been involved in
> letterboxing-USA since its inception when I say that he will be sorely
> missed. He is a pioneer in this fledgling hobby. Whatever he decides
> in the long run, in my mind he will always be one of the great
> letterboxers.
> --
> Thom Cheney

Thom,
I couldn't agree more. As most of our long-time members know, Dan and I had
become very close. I considered him to be a friend, even though we only met
in person on one occasion. We shared many intimate details of our personal
trials and tribulations, and often wrote to one another on a daily basis.

I do not understand the motivation behind his recent statements, and I regret
that I was forced to take a stand against his intended actions. There is a
hole in my life that has been left by Dan's absence, and I am not happy about
this. I think he just let his aspirations for the website get in the way of
what was best for the hobby. He had great ideas, but was going to have to
eliminate some of us in order to make them work. This was not an acceptable
alternative.

Dan is most definetely one of the pioneers of American Letterboxing, and I
hope that someday he will rejoin our group. If and when that happens, I
assure you there will be no hard feelings on my part.

Sincerely,
Mitch Klink, "Der Mad Stamper"

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