I hope you understand that this is a thread that I felt needed to go on for a little while before I chimed in. Sometimes jumping in a little early can effect where it leads and I'm pretty comfortable where it is going. Yes, I'm for the bigger picture of responsibility but I do sense (and actually might surprise a few on this thread) that I may change how I view my/our participation on the board. From day one I was comfortable that the board belonged to you - the community; and that we were simply someone who allowed an open forum for it to evolve, similar to owning a coffee house where the intellectuals meet. I'm quite interested in seeing that continue the way this board is used and supported by all of you. To ozstamps points, yes I use the board from an external point-of-view for research and employee training, but honestly, who wouldn't if they looked at the tremendous value of opinions. I'd still use the board the way we do even if i wasn't hosting it. And as most of you know, many other organizations use the board as well. Don't you know most of the major media uses it as well as programs for their own research?

Now, to the point of moderators. I actually think we should start moderating the board from our end, though probably not in the way you typically picture a moderator. For now, members of my staff are only looking for incidents of profanity. Nothing more, nothing less. It might be a good idea to train them to look for incidents of flames and disruptive posting and simply pass that along to me or someone I appoint on my staff to take a quick look at. We are approaching 1,000 posts a day and it is utterly impossible for me or anyone else to know what all of those posts are about each day. And given my other responsibilities as a business owner and travel, there are times where I have to go for weeks without seeing the board. With a little more responsibility on our end, I think we can speed up the time to action (and only if necessary) of addressing flame wars and posting irregularities. I don't view this as moderation because these employees won't actually be addressing the issues themselves, rather they will serve as an early warning system. Now you might say that members of the board all ready function as that. Very true, but the major difference here is that the issue becomes internal to deal with. Currently when the community chimes in for censure, it becomes a whole other topic and that we've seen is almost too much. MileageGod69 was such an example. As many of you know, I personally contacted him and he was fine with my request to talk travel in a public way of contributing to the board, but that was only well after it had already erupted into public censure and the ensuing threads. Moderators are a good idea, my reserve on that is similar as to what is most common among those who have posted here, is a moderator an editor? I hope not, because there have been quite a few threads so articulated here that they have changed my opinion on a few things and I'd hate to think that I may have "moderated" them simply because they weren't in the mainstream of opinions. Let's see what this thread continues to gather for thoughts and come up with a plan.

And, you have again reminded me of something long overdue (thanks Doc), we do need to do a better job of posting the "rules of the board." Consider that a priority around here as of now. I think Doc provided some excellent backgorund on what the rules might contain, any other issues that are outstanding that you all think would be beneficial to address for first timers and also to remind some of us that have been around the board?

As always....simply thanks.