I believe that many years ago images may have been lifted from other sources, but I don't know of anyone who has done that for years. Of course, I wouldn't know, but I thought the policy changed some time ago. I believe that if people who own the images ask that images posted without consent be removed, they should be removed.

I believe that all of this is best accomplished in a friendly and cooperative way, not by hurling accusations on the Chip Board.

I believe that IP addresses give you a basic geographical location, and do not point to any individuals. Charles Kaplan, by the way, lives in a very densely populated area where other chip collectors also live.

I don't believe it is productive to target individuals, but rather to work to reduce and eliminate improper Chip Guide posts.

I have no problem with your goal to eliminate improperly posted images. I do not approve of the methods you and others have used to achieve this. I believe if similar tactics were used against your website or against anyone's website or business, you or the others would be quite angry. Treat the admins like you would like to be treated and I won't post a thing.

I believe the Chip Guide has a lot of integrity. I believe a number of accusations I have seen by you and others have been false and some don't even make sense to me. A Chip Guide admin has no need to post to the Guide under a phony contributor name. They can post without a contributor name. I do believe that images have been improperly submitted by people who are not admins who didn't realize they shouldn't, even though the submission form requires that they state that they own the image they are submitting.

No system is perfect. That does not require hysteria. A large number of people have seen the Guide run smoothly for a very long time, while growing and having additional useful features added from time to time. I trust that they will not believe that suddenly, the Guide is being used to target people or deliberately steal.

Michael Siskin