It is hard to argue with the message from ImFromNaples relative to the "excitement factor" of the average small town message board. Town message boards in general are not exciting. In fact the only one that I've ever seen that might be called exciting involved local politics and descended into some very nasty name calling and all kinds of accusations and self destructive verbal behaviors. That "exciting" forum eventually destroyed the entire web-site. I'm not sure that "exciting" is what town residents are really looking for in a message board. If one is looking for excitement in community forums, perhaps they should be looking elsewhere.

The intent and benefit of town message boards is to allow the public a forum to voice opinions, inform and discuss various activities and issues. A town message board also gives the resident with a minority opinion an opportunity to lay out his argument before the public and provide various alternative viewpoints to an issue. These are not things that residents do every day. Long periods of time can go by before any issues come up that move any residents to post messages, so I wouldn't be looking for any wild activity to be taking place.

The Bristol forum was put in place as a stop-gap measure until we were able to complete the re-build of the web-site and find a good workable forum. We are still working on the main site and have not yet begun to research the message board situation. We will continue to limp along with the one we've got until our first priority, the web-site is completed. It may turn out that we decide to remove the existing forum until we can guarantee that we can have an appropriate one. The whole matter of the forum has not really been addressed and discussed yet. Please be patient. We're moving on this site as quickly as time and schedules will allow.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the current content of the entire site. I think you will enjoy the results of our efforts.

Terry Docteur (Bristol)