I concur with Linn's entire post except for the irreverent thought that his significant other has never been involved in Garden Club politics...I do think it would be of value for those who have a professional affiliation in preservation to make it known so that the rest of us may put a proper weight on their comments, however I also think we would be doing ourselves a great disservice to restrict viewpoints to "official" preservationists.GME

What if the interchange required people to sign posts with their full names and strongly recommended that they annotate their profile or point to a website where some background info is available. This would greatly help in "considering the source" of statements - and it would be another step in discouraging abuse of the forum.Tom Cornillie

I am not sure that would really make a difference except to restrict the flow a bit. Too much control could create a situation where an iconoclastic view would not be published. The moderators can certainly handle the truly ridiculous and at least most of the time I really do gain from reading opposing views, even the ones that are not well crafted.What is important is whether the subject matter is at least remotly appropriate for this board. What oftn seems to happen here with errors of fact and so forth is a peer review proces ery much like the academic world, if far less formal. To my mind it works.GME ( who has spent most of the last week vetting dissertation proposals)

When I first read Ted's suggestion, last week, about having a professional affiliation, my feathers got a little ruffled, because I don't have a real professional affiliation. I have been involved in a privately funded locomotive restoration project for several years, though, so I guess my opinions should count.On another forum (which uses similar software to this one---) I am pretty careful to cite sources when I answer questions; usually Alco diesel questions and I cite Kirkland, Chris Macdermot, the appropriate Alco TP, etc. And I get shot down sometimes by railfans that think they know better. Fortunately that doesn't happen here.But please don't go to the silly "rating" system, based on just the number of posts, that the other forum has to track one's creditability. Being a "veteran" or "guru" is not what this forum needs. For example, I would rate one post from someone like Linn Moedinger higher than a thousand posts from some of the "foamrRRs" out there.

I agree that there shouldn't be a rating system. Rather, regular readers of this forum should (and probably already do) develop their own 'gut' sense of who is and is not credible. Also, all of us have gained experience and expertise from different sources and apply it in different ways - and it would be futile to assign some type of ranking system to these. However, I do think that it would be to the interest of all if participants would post somewhere a list of recent/ongoing projects and interests (wheither they be oriented toward research or restoration). Regardless of credibility concerns, it would do much to facilitate networking among participants on this board. Tom Cornillie