Well, the last thing I expected was controversy.

www.soaringtrader.com was created in the interest of trying to provide
a more feature-rich, automated, classifieds service to our community
as well as to provide another professional looking site to represent
the sport. I like to think we met those goals and I've heard from
some people who agree. I'll also point out that soaring trader is not
ad/sponsor supported and doesn't seek income as some other sites do.
There's nothing wrong with that - it's just another difference.

Regarding there being a number of classifieds sites, that's free
market Econ 101. Soaring trader is not the first such site and it
certainly won't be the last.

That said, I'm willing to speed the free market a bit in order to
address the issue of the dangerous proliferation of soaring info and
photos

If the SSA wants to adopt this site (complete site, code, whatever),
I'll donate it (does someone from SSA.org read this newsgroup?). I'd
like to see the SSA host the best classifieds site and hope they could
benefit from it. I understand there are a lot of SSA Web site changes
in the works so maybe they're already close to releasing something
even better than soaringtrader.com. If so, the soaring trader domain
will be happily forwarded to SSA.org.

If the SSA doesn't take up the challenge, I'll make a similar offer to
www.wingsandwheels.com in the interest of consolidating content,
adding features, adding interface appeal and reducing Tim's workload
so he can get out more often. I also appreciate what Tim's done.

All of this assumes that there is a better interface and better
features at soaringtrader.com which is subjective. If you disagree,
please don't attack me. I've got the best of intentions and I hope
you've got better things to do.

Finally, if everything stays the same, www.soaringtrader.com will
remain an independent service that will be used if it's good or will
die-off if not.

Have a good day.


P.S.
I just read the most recent post. Tim, this is a hobby (not a
business or wanna-be business) with a goal of doing something helpful.
If it's not perceived as such, I'm sorry. Read my FAQ and "about us"
for more info. This would be a hell of a bad way to harvest people's
e-mail addresses for sale to spammers.

Also, I asked permission of the poster of each soaring ad from any
source I could find in order to seed the new site. I'll send you a
copy of the e-mail and my contact info, which isn't hidden. Some
people said "no" or didn't respond and their ads were not posted.
When a poster wanted the ad placed on www.soaringtrader.com, they
generally wanted it verbatim. In other cases, they changed it.

Everyone who has an ad posted can delete it themselves if they like -
it's a self-service Web site, which is the point of the whole thing.

In the worst possible case, this was just a bad idea (though I've had
some really great feedback) - not an evil plot.

Let's all lighten up a bit.





"Al" wrote in message ...
Now is it me seeing this or has this guy ripped all the forsale gliders from
wings and wheels?

Tim care to comment on your site being ripped off?

Al



"TraderGuy" wrote in message
om...
www.soaringtrader.com is a new (and free!) site for posting classified
ads for sailplanes and soaring-related items.

Features include:
- Ability to submit, modify and delete your own ad
- Dial-up connection-friendly
- A "search" function
- An easy-to-use interface
- Obscures the poster's e-mail address (if they desire that) to avoid
spam
- Ads are deleted after a set period unless renewed by the poster.

Enjoy.