Status of this forum from a BCA/ RDiv perspective

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I have posted this on the General Discussion Board and have sent a copy to Roberta Vasilow and Jeff Brashares the former and current BCA Presidents.<P>It seems that the BCA Reatta Discussion Forum is being targeted by Peter the maintainer of these discussion boards.<BR>We question, is this the result of independent action on Peter's part or is this something the BCA Board has requested?<P>He posted a request last week only on the Reatta board as to whether the posters there would accept advertising to cover some of his costs and time to maintain that board.<P>The original post there has been deleted and an associated post on this board which generated some very healthy and intelligent discussion has also been deleted.<P>Since this is an important topic to all of the BCA, I took the liberty to post a link to the original post on Reatta Board, here on the BCA - General Board. <P>I am also posting a link below to today's new topic on the status of the forum which is still only on the Reatta Discussion Board. <A HREF="http://www.aaca.org/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001767.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.aaca.org/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001767.html</A> <P>The Reatta Discussion forum post generated around 30 replies. Most of the posters are Reatta owners who are not members of the BCA and Reatta Division, BCA. <P>They expect the discussion board to be available for free and would support advertising to get it for free. <P>Others in the minority (to avoid unnecessary and unwanted advertising banners)would support an extra fee to access the board (with or without BCA/Rdiv membership) because of its value while some believe that this should be a be a BCA and Reatta Division membership benefit supported by the current dues structures or a slight increase in dues to cover the costs of this service. <P>Also, if this is a member benefit, members would prefer that a member only area be established so that those that are supporting the costs of running this have access to it and those that do not support the costs through membership dues would be incented to become members to access the information they feel they have a God given right to get for free!<P>The original post has been deleted by the board moderator, Peter, which is an insult to me since I spent a considerable amount of time word smithing several replies to the post in support of his cause. <P>As a Reatta Division member I was prepared to recommend affordable ways the Reatta Div could help with the costs of the Reatta Discussion Board. Of course the Reatta Division, BCA would expect something in return which would be new and continuing memberships which would create the same opportunity for the BCA since BCA membership is a requirement of Reatta Division membership. <P>The Reatta owners (who expect this service for free) that are non members and non joiners were incensed with this proposal.<P>As a BCA member and one who is considering AACA membership, I would think that those organizations would also contribute a sum which they can afford in some agreed upon proportion to their associated boards or the activity on their associated boards.<P>In general I was supportive of Peter's efforts but I have reconsidered and withdraw my recommendation that the Reatta Division, BCA and BCA contribute to the support of running these discussion boards.<P>In my longest reply to the original post I posed questions which remain unanswered.<P>All we learned is that Peter took over the discussion boards and ran some on a personal server and some on an AACA server. <P>When the previous BCA/General/Reatta/Performance Discussion Boards had some unsolvable software problems "a former friend who was the BCA President (Roberta Vasilow) at the time" asked Peter to take over the running of the BCA Discussion Boards using the AACA Discussion Board software which has been very reliable and usefull to members and non-members alike. The only other thing we learned was that at some point Peter started receiving $50/month from the BCA to run/maintain the BCA Discussion Boards which he seems to be having a harder time doing now with the volume generated by especially BCA Discussion Board and in particular the Reatta Board which has the highest volumes of all BCA and AACA Discussion Boards.<P>Since my questions concerning the true costs of running the board and what each entity's (AACA, BCA, and RDiv) proportion would be went unanswered, the desire of the majority to have Reatta targeted advertising by Reatta parts and services (which at this time is basically none), and that I was refered to (in a posting today) by Peter as a "jerk" for questioning whether the posting was being censored or having technical problems on the AACA server or my PC when I observed that five replies to the original posting appeared for one hour Friday night and then disappeared for five hours, I WITHDRAW MY RECOMMENDATION AND SUPPORT OF THE BUICK CLUB OF AMERICA AND THE REATTA DIVISION, BCA CONTRIBUTE TO THE RUNNING OF THESE DISCUSSION BOARDS UNTIL MY QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED AND THERE IS A MEETING OF THE MINDS!<P>I did find out that it was my browser that somehow needs to be refreshed, that caused the missing replies. I apologize for the original inference of censorship but today's censorship of the original post was totally uncalled for as a poster today has mentioned.<P>I also, apologize for the lengthy post but had to get this off of my chest and feel this is important!<P>And so as not to lose this text again in case it is deleted, I have copied the former BCA President, Roberta Vasilow and the current BCA President, Jeffrey Brashares on this post.<P>Buickly yours,<BR>Marc Brouillette<BR>BCA #12340<BR>RDiv #213<BR>Newsletter Editor<BR>Reatta Division, BCA<BR>

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Marc,<P>Feel free to contact me directly for your answers. (which i (or you) will post here, after we've talked)<P>Peter<BR>520-881-8101 work<BR>520-881-7363 home<p>[This message has been edited by peterg (edited 11-05-2000).]

[Guest]

Please read the following:<P><A HREF="http://www.aaca.org/cgi-bin/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getannounce&ForumNumber=3&Start=2451856.99&End=2451866&Session=2451856.1829" TARGET=_blank>Status of this BB</A> <P>Peter<P><BR>------------------<BR>Peter Gariepy<BR>peterg@aaca.org<BR> <A HREF="http://www.aaca.org" TARGET=_blank>www.aaca.org</A> <p>[This message has been edited by peterg (edited 11-07-2000).]