allowed to post or not post as they choose, I have to disagree with you as to one thing you wrote. Friendly? I'm sure many who do not post are very friendly. Helpful? Here's where I disagree. While they may be helpful people and help out when they can, by not posting they are withholding help to the general chipboard reading public. My favorite thing about the board is how much I learn from it...still. Anything that someone knows or has that is not commonly known or owned that is not being shared is some bit of information that might be interesting, educational and helpful to others, if it were shared. There are many ways posters can share with the chip board group: photos and scans, stories, descriptions of chips and casinos, reports like the illegal of the day reports, sharing questions that others may also have, providing answers to questions that have been posed, vacation stories, offers to trade and sell and observations (like variations) or experiments (like cleaning chips, or leaving them in the sun). I'm sure there are others. I wondered when I first hit the board how I could possibly give anything back to these people who seemed to know so much. So, I took pictures on trips and posted reports of the casinos in areas I visited. Or pointed out the differences in high res scans of Aruba variations that may not have been obvious to people casually looking at the Caribbean Chip Guide. I tracked down a couple of chips and made attributions and paid for manufacturer cards on some others. I did what I could. When I learned a bit and knew the answer to questions, I shared it. Opinions are always helpful too. I have had some confrontation on the board (I have an I've been Stu'd chip, for example), but nothing serious at all. Actually, it's pretty easy to avoid. My point is, there is probably a lot of great information in the minds and collections of those lurkers that most of us will never know. It's fine if they don't want to post, but we do miss out on something when they don't.

IMHO.

Michael Siskin