[John]

A lot of you may not have been involved with a forum with large numbers of members before.

This site is well handled at the moment with some excellent contributors that are both friendly and articulate. That is the strength of the site.

I have been with one site virtually since its inaugaration, three and a half years ago, that has seen it's membership shoot up to nearly 40,000 and that in itself brings problems due to so many diverse opinions. It also becomes very manic as you can't keep up with the new threads and photos that go on the site on a daily basis.

I have mentioned this because as this site grows the busier it will get and the more diverse it will get. The admin have to be prepared to keep an eye on its progress because if they don't WAB could lose its way, and we don't want that.

The owner of the major site I am in is a friend of mine and kept ringing me and asking why I would want to be part of this site when I had all the facilities and membership of his site. My answer was that WAB was relaxing, it was only to do with Britain's wildlife and that the whole concept was different enough to capture my attention. I still don't think he fully understands that I can be fully functionable in his site as well as this one.

All I ask is that you don't lose sight of the fact that as this site grows in popularity the more chances of attracting the wrong type of member to the site will increase. If left unchecked they can cause untold damage.

Let's us all make a constant effort in keeping WAB as it is now and not to allow ourselves to get sucked into what I would consider diversive elements that tend to creep in from time to time.

Be aware that we all have our own opinions and that they may not be in line with yours. Constructive debate is the way forward but within that framework the danger is that someone will try and force their opinion on another member or thread. Keep it simple, put your opinion forward, perhaps enlarge upon it and if it is not being accepted just agree to disagree. If we can do that the debate's will flourish along with the site.

If we can keep this site friendly and chatty, as well as informative, we've won and WAB will grow to become the site to be in.

We have all made a good start so far, and much has to go on the shoulders of Stuart and his team of volunteers in acheiving that. Now the hard part is fast approaching where we have to keep the site as it is now.

John