[Skywise]

Thanks everyone for the comments.

I think what needs to be realized is that what Earthwaves was, is no more. Times have changed, people have changed and come and gone. Trying to regain the "glory days" just isn't possible, and perhaps hinders anything that Earthwaves could become in the future.

But that doesn't mean the website itself is dead. We can reinvent Earthwaves into something new, and see where it goes.

I'm not looking to open this up into a wild west show where anything goes. There needs to be some modicum of control. But I think it would be safe to rebrand Earthwaves as a forum where any earth science related topics can be discussed, pro and con, science or "alternative" - not just earthquakes, but also geology, weather, volcanology, oceanography, etc.... I think even the few folks we have now could cover several of these subjects. For now, the existing forums will do, but as topics become more popular I can create subforums as needed.

I will open the board up to the search engines. This should attract more traffic to the board since it will then show up in the searches. I know from personal experience I've found lots of the answers to my questions on chat boards while googling.

I think I'll leave registration as it is. Anything other than fully open and automatic registration reduces to the setup we have now, so why make it more complicated? If you're not a spammer, I'll let you in. If I open things up fully, I'd have to keep cleaning up the spam. Better to not let them get in in the first place. It's easy for me to cross check IP's against known blacklists.

Brian