Open letter to members

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

After reading comments from some members about the new Finlander Forum, I counted the members (118) and noticed 73 have never participated or written anything. That doesn't sound good for the future of the list. If it closes down, what are we going to do? There isn't another comparable list. Some of us belong to Finngen, but participation of members there isn't much more than on Finlander. We know that on Finngen mail has to be confined to genealogy. There's no allowance made for stories, pictures, chit-chat, recipes, etc. which are allowable on Finlander. There are no family trees and ahnentafels on Finngen such as we have on Finlander.

I'll admit that when I first checked into the new forum I almost convinced myself that I didn't like it and would never find my way around. I probably am the oldest member on Finlander and I don't know beans about computers. But I've been learning for 20 years and I'm determined to master this list. If I can do it, I'm sure the rest of you can, too. I've been stuck more than once, but Hasse is good about helping.

I think we have to give some serious thought about whether we want to keep the list going or close it. And if we let it close, what then? Hasse has said that because of security risks, we can't keep the old list going so we can't have it both ways. He has put so much work into the Forum and I admit it's one of the best lists on the Net. So let's show some support for Hasse and the list.
Thanks.
June

[Karen Norwillo Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Karen Norwillo]

June,
I agree. I was a bit intimidated at first, but as I got more familiar with it, I don't seem to be having too much problem navigating around. Please don't let it close. It would be an awful shame to lose such a great site. Karen

[Tracy Boeldt Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Tracy Boeldt]

I've read a lot of the posts and can agree with a lot of them. I do not want the forum to close because no one visits the site anymore. This is the very reason that I love this forum--it is like a little community and we have a lot of good people here! I, also, was intimidated in the beginning with the new forum, but as you visited it does get easier. I'm afraid that times are changing with all the viruses out there that the old email forum just isn't safe anymore and that is a shame! So, come on members, let's start using this forum!
Tracy Yeager-Boeldt

[syrene Registered Find all posts View Profile Close syrene]

new format

Yes, I am a dog too old to learn new tricks! However, once I caught on to the "last thread" and "next thread" button, navigating through the forums got easy.

Hasse, doesn't the fact that there is a membership of more than 100 "listeners" mean the site is "used"? Some chatterboxes like me respond to everything. But after 25 years of teaching, I know that 90% of the class sits there without participating. And years later, I will run into a former student who comments that the class was the most fun or interesting. Some people just prefer to absorb what's going on. And we don't need a test to see what they have taken in
Greetings!
Syrene Forsman

[Margaret Rader Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Margaret Rader]

I really like the new forum. It's easy to use now that I have discovered the "show new posts" or whatever it's called up in the upper right hand corner and then the "go to latest post" to the left to the thread name.
Seems like there are quite a few posts this Saturday AM!

Margaret