(pdxflyer) writes:

But again I come back
to one of my earlier statements which is, Pilot Chronicles is not
intended to be better or worse than Usenet or any other forum. It's
meant to be different.

O.k., so you've identified a need for further fragmentation of pilot
safety information and you're working to provide it.

(I'm still trying to figure out why PilotChronicles is a "unique
opportunity to learn from, and contribute to, the base of knowledge
that keeps all of us alive and flying." What's unique about it?)

If you prefer the message board format for
sharing your stories I say "great", go for it. Just know that there
now exists another way to share your experiences. There's nothing
wrong with having choices available.

If the need is simply to share a story, yes, having choices is great.
One of the choices, for example, is writing it on a piece of paper,
and then taping it to the underside of your toilet seat. That method
is readily available to most everyone

If the goal is to make it easy for others to access both for reading
and commenting for all eternity, the toilet seat idea isn't optimal.
Usenet however, is a great solution.

Even though I love vanilla ice
cream I sure appreciate there being a hundred other flavors to choose
from.

But in this case your desire for lots of choices comes at the
detriment of the reader. (Note, however, that Usenet does offer an
infinite choice of clients. That seems a lot more important to me
than having choice of places and methods to lock away the data.)

If every time you choose another "flavor," I as a reader have to make
the same decision in order to access your information, it's a pain
for me. And there are (ideally) a *lot* of readers for each author.

What I strongly take issue with is the comment regarding stories being
locked up in a proprietary web site. We are a public web site just
like the message boards.

By "message boards" I hope you don't mean "Usenet." Storing data
in a database controlled by
InStep Interactive
5136 NE Alameda St.
Portland, OR 97213
US
and allowing select people to read, modify and add content upon
approval is nowhere near the same as being "public" in the way that
Usenet is.

What happens to all of the effort users have invested if InStep
folds or decides that PilotChronicles.com is no longer worthwhile?

Our members maintain control of the
chronicles they submit. They have complete editing capability, they
can add/swap/delete photos, and of course they control their
membership information. In short, we give members

....not the "public"...

as much control and
access as possible without compromising the integrity and security of
the web site. Your use of the word "proprietary" seems to imply
otherwise.

That was my misunderstanding. I didn't see an easy way to share the
data that's in your database with the public. All I saw was
"Copyright © 2004, Pilot Chronicles". Now that I understand that the
content is open to the public, I think I'll build a tool to mirror
the content to Usenet, providing yet "another way to share your
experiences".

Thank you for clearing up that issue.

--kyler