Dear Silver List members, Nine days ago list owner Gary Hawkins announced that the silver-list would be going down in seven days. Several people asked him to help us to save the list and offered to help. He agreed.
I have accepted the job of list owner. I've opened an account with Eskimo and control has been transferred as of yesterday. I will be sending them $60 to pay for my account for the coming year. I want to thank Gary Hawkins for all that he has done for so many in providing this forum. Gary remains a member of the list, and I hope he will continue to contribute often. In fact, because of a feature of the list control software, Gary can't unsubscribe unless *I* let him! <tee hee hee> (I'll fix that pretty soon, Gary!) I still have more to learn about the details of running a list. Hopefully I won't disrupt things by my ineptitude and we will not have any problems that need more skill than I have yet. The Eskimo folks and Gary are generous with their help, so we'll survive. **So we will have a place. What shall we make of it? ** What is our mission? What tasks should we undertake? How shall we conduct ourselves? What will each of us bring to it? For my part, these are the ideals I bring to the task: **I will strive to have reasonable standards and apply them consistantly.** I won't be a tyrant. But I will read the list with the rest of you and I won't let things get out of hand before fixing them. I hope this will foster freer flow of ideas, information, and encouragement among us. **I want everyone to be heard, have their needs met, and to be treated with the respect they deserve.** Please respect the fact that we have members from all over the globe, many professions, and of all manner of education, faith, philosophy, and experience. If you feel strongly about something, you will have to understand when others disagree with you. And if an idea seems alien or even dangerous to you, you must recognise that its advocates take it seriously and respect their feelings in any response you make. **Respectful disagreement in all non-essentials will be the norm.** You are not here to make converts to your personal philosophy or viewpoint. It is your responsibility to stay on topic, and to present your own arguments well and without attacking others. **I want this list to be a welcoming place for newcomers.** The only constraints I will put on this is the basic assumption that colloidal silver is safe, effective, and worthy of study, and in limiting commercial activity. **I ask you each to share freely from your experience and study.** I do not intend to respond personally to each question asked or need expressed. In fact, I will resist my normal temptation to jump in on every new discussion. I don't want this to even *start* to become a one man show. Your job is to reach out and offer as much as you can to each new request. Finally: **I believe one of my proper roles is to foster a consensus.** That is, to identify what we agree upon and document it, and to define areas of debate and present all sides as fairly as possible. I hope this will help us keep moving and give everyone a sense of where we need to be working. Toward these ends I want to propose a few things I would like to see us do. And I think that, for the next week or two, we should have a good discussion of these and any other ideas you may have about the purpose, functions and goals of this list. While doing this, let's not be distracted from meeting the needs of our members... I think we need a written charter, mission statement, and list rules that can be sent to new subscribers and re-posted every so often. I would like us to start a silver-list web page. We can build a FAQ and an archive there, and provide links to the most frequently cited resources on colloidal silver. We can use it to publish citations and copies of historical research and accounts of our own practice, study, and results. It will be a way to lead newcomers to the list while becoming a clearinghouse for information that is relatively untainted by commercial bias. I would also encourage an effort to reach out to people who joined in the past and left dissatisfied, along with the new people we find who need what we have and don't know where to look. Sort of an "under new management" sign in the virtual window. When all this is well begun, I think we will enjoy a much happier and productive environment here. We are grateful for the benefits of CS and want others to share in them. The Silver List can and should be one of the best vehicles for doing this in the online community, while we each spread the word to our families and friends in the "real" world. I cannot do even a small part of this alone. I would like the list and web site to represent the combined resources of all of us together. I enjoy the friendly and generous nature of the people I've met here. I respect the knowledge and experience you bring with you. And I feel the serious responsibility of the kinds of needs people bring to us. It is an honor to be able to help. I look forward to all that we have to learn together. Thank you. Let's begin! Sincerely, Mike Devour [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] [[email protected] ] [Speaking only for myself... ]
