Protocol for inviting others to join us here?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Beyond the Sidewalks : One Thread

Well, the title is my question. Are we allowed to invite others, or do you want to have control over that, Jim?

I am specifically thinking of my sister, Julie, who also posts on CS, and Sharon & Nick who used to post on CS, but left after they received a virus attack from someone on the board. Messed up their computer but good . . . er, bad!

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2001

Answers

I was going to ask that same question! I'm thinking of a couple of folks from the BWH forum.

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2001

It's going to be hard (and it wouldn't be right) to stop people from coming here. Jim has the right to control the content of posts, and hence the nature of the board. We can all strive to keep threads constructive. Maybe a statement of philosophy for the board would be timely, Jim?

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Sharon and Nick weren't the only ones with that trouble...

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Good morning all.

If you all know of people that you think would be interested in coming to our forum why don't you give them an invite. I had thought initially that I would do the contacting but I've changed my mind.

I tried to gather as many names as possible from the Countryside forum (specifically from the "any pagan homesteaders?" thread) but I've now run out of people to invite. I'm sure it would be good to get our numbers up even higher in order to keep discussions flowing nicely.

I've contacted (or tried to contact) about forty-five people. Of those forty-five invites, the following four came back as undeliverable:

*sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com)
*Nick (wildheart@ekyol.com)
*Anne (HT@HM.com)
*Lady Beth Willosnake (willosnake@hoitmail.com)

Now, I know about Nick and Sharon because of an email discussion I had with John Leake. I imagine they wouldn't come even if someone here knew of way to contact them. But, I could be wrong - if you know of a new email address for them feel free to send them an invite. And if anyone here knows Anne or Lady Beth's real email addy, go ahead and invite them, too.

Joy: Absolutely invite your sister. Please tell here that my neglecting to invite her wasn't deliberate and that I'm really sorry for the slight. :-)

Jorja: Yep, go ahead and invite whomever you feel would enjoy coming to our new forum.

David: I've been wanting to craft some kind of statement of philosophy since creating the forum but haven't found the time. All I've got right now is the rules and guidelines that I included in the invitation you all received:

RULES
1.) No Spam
2.) No Porn
3.) No Proselytizing or Witnessing

If you violate any of the above rules you will be asked to stop. If you continue to harass the forum your posts will be deleted and your ISP will also be contacted.

GUIDELINES
1.) Be Civil & Follow the Golden Rule - treat others as you would like to be treated.

BTW, you all might want to include the rules and guidelines listed above when inviting anyone new to our forum.

And if any of you would like to start a new thread and collaborate on ideas for crafting a statement of philosopy please don't hesitate. Things have gotten a little busy here at home so I may not get to it for a few days (at the least).

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001


Here's the official invite that you all received. I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to use it when inviting new members.

-Jim

Hi xxxxxx,

I recently created a new forum as an alternative to the Countryside forum and I would like to formally invite you to stop by and maybe make it a place that you'll visit frequently.

I've noticed lately that the Countryside forum is becoming more and more a haven for far-right fundamentalist Christians. It seems that moderate christians, pagans, liberals, gays and lesbians, environmentalists and others with differing viewpoints from the fundamentalists haven't been posting quite as much lately. Some of this is perhaps because of harassing emails and even computer viruses that were sent to some forum members possibly as a form of intimidation. I'm concerned that if these sorts of things continue much longer the fundamentalists will win by default and those of us who differ with them will end up giving up the CS forum and scattering to other areas of the Net.

I'd hate to see that happen. So, I created the Beyond the Sidewalks (BTS) forum as an alternative for us "free thinkers". Now don't get the idea that I'm giving up on the Countryside forum, but instead think of this new forum as a lifeboat for a worst-case scenario. It's also my thinking that if all of us with strong opinions can find our own forums to vent at, the Countryside forum will maybe move back to a place of stability for ALL of us to discuss specific homesteading questions.

It is my hope that the BTS forum will become a place (a sanctuary perhaps) for weary individuals to come to when they're fed up with the ultra right-wing antics on the CS forum. As I state in the "welcome" message on the BTS forum, I won't put up with spam, porn, proselytizing or witnessing and I won't hesitate to delete the troublemaker's posts after an initial warning and I WILL contact the troublemaker's ISP if necessary. Hopefully that will prevent problems in the first place.

So far I've invited about 40 people to the BTS forum by private email. I decided to do it this way instead of posting a general invite on the Countryside forum. I figured that people could get a chance to get comfortable with the new forum before we make it general knowledge to the rest of the Countrysiders.

So, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Again, I hope you'll stop by to the new forum. As I stated earlier, I've contacted about 40 people so hopefully we'll have plenty of "stuff" to talk about. And feel free to talk about whatever you like - the forum isn't just about homesteading.

I hope to see you there! :-)

-Jim Morris (prism@bevcomm.net)

Beyond the Sidewalks forum
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=Beyond%20the% 20Sidewalks

The rules and guidelines are simple:

RULES
1.) No Spam
2.) No Porn
3.) No Proselytizing or Witnessing

If you violate any of the above rules you will be asked to stop. If you continue to harass the forum your posts will be deleted and your ISP will also be contacted.

GUIDELINES
1.) Be Civil & Follow the Golden Rule - treat others as you would like to be treated.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001



Thank you, Jim, for the clarification. I have contacts for Sharon & Nick and I think I might even be able to find the other two -- one of them at least.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Oh, There's one other thing I wanted to talk about...

Should we post a notice over at Countryside about our new forum or should we hold off on that for awhile and just continue with quietly inviting people here?

Letting everyone over at Countryside know of this place will allow sympathetic lurkers to head on over here but it will also alert potential disrupters, too.

My thought is to hold off on posting anything to Countryside at this time. Let's build our member base here first before we make it general knowledge to everyone.

That's my thought, anyway... What do you guys think?

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001


All I can think of is Stan (sorry to name names) coming on over for the sole purpose of telling us we're weak and can't take the CS forum, blah blah etc.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Jim, I am enjoying the atmosphere here. I know eventually it will change, it always happens, but why hurry it along???

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

I too would like to keep the forum by invitation only, at least for a little while longer. My computer is still messed up from the last virus that some loving CS member sent to me.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001


Since I wasn't invited, should I back out? You can make this a private forum if needed.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

No, don't go, Chris! I don't think the spirit here is exclusive, but rather just to escape some of the harrassment that goes on at the CS forum.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

No, don't leave Chris. You're more than welcome here. :-)

I invited people here by invitation instead of a general announcement because I didn't want a big incident over at the Countryside forum.

But, over time, people are bound to come here by means other than a personal invite. Heck, the forum is listed now on LUSNET's main page so anyone that see's it will be free to wander in. And ANYONE is welcome here as long as they abide by the rules.

So enjoy yourself, you're with friends. :-)

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001


wow, I definatly don't think that you should post this on the countryside forum, I get so mad everytime I go there and everytime anyone says Anything that is not fundamentaly religious they get soooo bent out of shape. please please, dont invite Them to come over here and stump all over us!

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Thanks for the reassurance. I'm going to like it here.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001


It really is nice not have any malcontents on this forum and it seems like if you open this up to the general public the malcontents will just come over here. Didn't the fundies start their own forum, there are a couple of very opinionated people that I rarely see posting on CS lately. That's just my two cents.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001


Yup, Leslie started a very nice forum (which is also moderated to prevent non-Christian malcontents from posting *there*.) I would sure hope that the feeling of "letting them be" could be reciprocated for us folks here.

I agree, from very personal experience, to not make a big deal out of letting people know this is here. I am not an exclusive-type person by any means, but I spent a LOT of time and money getting my computer back to working because of the assaults that I received for "annoying" someone(s) at the CS Forum. Not worth it...too many wackos over there for some reason...

People will find it anyway.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001


The atmosphere here definitely seems lots more laid back and relaxed. I'm a fairly new "poster" at CS, but after the last question that I posted (which seems to have been blown entirely out of proportion), I'm leery of posting anything... anywhere! Maybe I'll just sit back and "lurk" for awhile.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Did anyone invite Craig??

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

I had wondered if I should have invited Craig but hadn't done so, yet. But now I can't seem to find his email address over on the CS forum...

Does anybody want to invite him or maybe send me his email address?

Thanks.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Jim, I tryed to e-mail you with Craig's address and it came back undeliverable. I will try again. If you don't get it e-mail me and I will do a reply thing. diane

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

Thanks diane, I got it.

I should tell everyone that whenever I respond to someones post, my email address is listed slightly different. If you look at my address below this post you'll notice a little _ at the end of my email address. I had to do this because of the way this forum is set up. If I post using my exact email the forum software puts the post at the head of all the other responses. I think's it really dumb but I can't figure out a way to change it. It has something to do with my being the moderator of the forum.

If you ever need to get a hold of me my correct email addresss is listed at the bottom of the main forum page.

Hope that all made sense - my brain has sorta been on vacation today... :-/

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Well, here I am, checking in, since I was nicely invited -- and I do thank you.

My opinion would be to leave it to invitation for the time being. As pointed out,others will find it eventually (inevitably?), but perhaps it will be nice just to have a respite for a while. There have been many issues on the CS Forum that I would have *liked* to have an intelligent discussion about, because I am less than informed in some particular area that has just degenerated so badly to private agendas that it's hard to sort out any true information to base my own thoughts on.

Have Dee and Annie Miller been invited? I didn't agree with Annie on the public execution bit, but at least we were able to have intelligent discussions about it, and I am usually interested to see what either one of them has to say.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


From all the post so far it looks like we'll keep quiet regarding posting a notice to the CS forum. The atmosphere has been relaxed here up till now and I wound't want to do anything to jeopardize that.

Julie: I did send an invitation to Annie Miller... Does Dee share the same email address? If not, feel free to invite Dee or you can send me her email addy and I'll be happy to do it.

Oh, and before I forget... Welcome to all you new posters! :-)

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Craig travels alot sometimes for his job but also posts on another board I go to. I'll see if I can round him up. Also, I'd forgotten about Pat Mikul. Any one correspond with her?

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

Hows about Jay Blair - the worm man from Alabama. He's always seemed pretty laid back. And I like reading about his "weird worm experiments" too!! Wonder how the worm burritos ever turned out...?

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

I could swear that Jay has posted here. I started to get into the worm business years ago, but was/am to insure to do something on my own like that.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


I did send an invite to Craig but got an auto response that said he was out of the office.

And yes, Jay Blair was invited in the intial send out.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


I went ahead and notified Dee and invited her on over!

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

What about Gerbil? Does anyone know how to get in touch with her?

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

I was thinking about Gerbil myself, she helped me a lot last year with my garden woes. Wouldn't her email address be in the CS archives? If not I may still have the emails we exchanged.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


How about Soni? Notforprint (aka greenbeanman)?

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001

Hi everyone! Thanks Julie.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001

Hi Dee, glad to see you could make it. :-)

Joy: I did invite Soni but haven't heard anything from her.

I don't have Notforprint's email address so if someone wants to invite him/her please feel free to do so.

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001


I had "notforprint's" email address and forwarded Jims "invite" email to him.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001


Hi everyone! Greetings from Kansas. Thanks for the invitation to the new location.

I expect that I'll be reading the forum daily, but just don't know how much I will be posting. I'm sure it is a time management problem, but at times I feel that I'm spread pretty thinly between my interests.

I have used my legit email address for this posting and will decide whether to use it or the phoney later. I used to average anywhere from 300 to 500 emails per month, but I've had to cut back for time constraints as that was all I seemed to be getting done. For anyone that does email from time to time, just know that I may sometimes be slow to respond back to you.

Thanks again, and let it be known that I will try to behave. If I don't, just tell me to go sit in the corner and I'll know what you mean. lol. Notforprint aka greenbeanman

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001


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