[Tweeters] David Cook's post was superb & useful; Tweeters could legalize and encourage more like it

[Hal Opperman UW]

Hi Ed (and all Tweeters),

Tweeters is whatever members make of it. It is your list. There are no administrative restrictions whatsoever on the type of post you are advocating. To speak personally, not as an administrator, I would be glad to see more trip reports from outside the state. But it’s up to you guys to go ahead and take the initiative.

As a general reminder, here are a few excerpts from the Welcome message that goes out to all new subscribers.

TWEETERS IS A GENERAL EMAIL LIST DEVOTED TO BIRDS AND BIRDING, especially in Washington State and the Cascadia region. Bird sightings, trip reports, field identification issues, and the status, distribution, habitats, natural history, and biology of birds, provide the prevalent—but not exclusive—subject matter of the list. Postings on topics of conservation, ecology, and wild critters other than birds, are acceptable, indeed encouraged.

 TWEETERS IS UNMODERATED. No list “bosses” screen messages for posting. Subscribers themselves serve as a self-moderating community, governed by guidelines.

GUIDELINES: AVOIDING INAPPROPRIATE TOPICS. Tweeters is a forum for discussion of birds, birding, and the natural world broadly construed. In the interests of all, please limit your postings to topics that fall within these bounds. In addition, exercise judgment and common sense to STEER CLEAR OF “HOT-BUTTON” ISSUES that all too often provoke inflammatory rhetoric and unenlightened debate of a purely adversarial nature. The first sign of any such disruption of civil discourse can be expected to trigger rapid intervention by the list administrators. Examples of notoriously objectionable topics include: CATS (pro or con) ; HUNTING (pro or con) ; RELIGION (including intelligent design/creationism vs. evolution ; and PARTISAN POLITICS.

Offers of for-fee services (such as guiding) are not allowed. Nor is commercial advertising of products (as distinguished from product endorsement). Notices are permissible for availability of individual items such as birding gear and books for member-to-member sale, but negotiations should be conducted off-list. Announcements from not-for-profits about a new publication, or service, or event, are welcome.

Good birding, and please have at it! Where have you been and where are you going next?

Hal Opperman
Tweeters Co-Administrator (with Elaine Chuang)
halop at uw.edu
  


> On Dec 24, 2023, at 4:04 PM, Ed Newbold <ednewbold1 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 

> Hi all,

> 

> I find it dispiriting to open the Tweeters digest and see only one or two posts. Is my chosen sport dying?. 

> 

> If a rare bird is found, only a few public-spirited individuals (who I applaud)  bother to tell Tweeters anymore, most of us bird-chasers have migrated to e-bird or even What's ap for real-time bird sightings info. But WA-only rare bird sightings posts are more or less the only type of post on Tweeters (other than equipment-sales) that are specified as legal.  

> 

> (The regular reports from Marymoor and, Nisqually as well as other periodic reports from such places as Joint Base now form the backbone of Tweeter's repeating content and as such do a wonderful job but there could be more flesh on the bones).

> 

> A type of post that could give Tweeters new life and new relevance would be trip reports from outside Washington, a particularly great example was David' Cook's recent excellent report on his trip to Colombia, from which I learned things I did not know. A post like that would be of crucial interest to anyone planning a trip there. But it is time to think of Birding not just as a participatory-sport but as a spectator-sport as well, just like Football and Baseball. People who are not in a position to go to Colombia right now (such as me) might be thrilled to scroll through a blog post with pictures of the birds and the trip, and happy to bookmark the information for future use. Think of it like people who can't go down to Century Link Stadium on a given night might still want to watch the Mariners on TV. It's the same phenomenon.

> 

> 

> And Tweeters can be part of it and help make it grow.

> 

> Cheers,

> 

> Ed Newbold

> 

> 

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