Lighthouse Keepers is me. I created this identity to see what the title would be for a new member if I eliminated any title for what was known as "Newbies" before.

At first there was no title and the next day the default title "Junior Member" popped up.

When I went to post the message "No More Newbies" (this thread), the name and password defaulted to the 'new' one rather than my 'JChidester' one. I didn't realize that until the next day when there were already replies to the thread so I couldn't do anything about the name under which I posted.

I did away with the 'Newbie' term because some previous posts had indicated either than it didn't describe a long time collector new to the Forums or that some felt it might discourage new Collector Forum members from joining.

Sean - when the Forum software was upgraded some months ago, a new feature was that it could display the information that you COULD see if you clicked on the sunglasses icon. When I turned that feature ON, as I recall there was a good reaction from most people.

The Forums are always in flux. That's good IMHO. A new look every once in a while, a few features added or subtracted. Not everything works out. It appears the "Open Forum" isn't working for what I thought it might and perhaps "Newbie" wasn't as offensive as it seemed to me to be -- at least among the WACKOS.

Kind of like First Class Scouts remembering they were once 'Tenderfoot' when they started off. Having been a 'Tenderfoot' makes being 'First Class' more meaningful.

I'm always open to suggestions and ideas.

Please re-read the first message in this thread and you will see it was posted in 'my voice' not intended to be posted as some anonymous person.

My apologies for the confusion this may have caused some.

John Chidester
Your Humble (?) Servant