Boats you were indeed one of the first ones to join this Forum so I need to rephrase my term charter member and I apologize to all. 

Prior to this site being developed their was a dedicated group of individuals who met nightly and if memory serves me right it was on the old MSN Chat site. This is the group of individuals that I was referring to as charter members. 

Not knowing how long the MSN Chat line would stay up and running this group of individuals started dreaming about having our own web site developed and to make a long story short Jim Borton said he thought his son Josh could put it together.   

There is allot more to it than just this brief description but I need to clarify the term charter member as quickly as possible so those who were not a part of this group but were indeed some of the first ones to sign up need not respond.

J.Louis

I don't know that the concept of charter members is appropriate here.  We tend to dwell on ancient history somewhat too much, sometimes.

The site dates back a long time to the old shooters.com site.  We had a board there, and if you think this board has some dissention, you should have seen that one!  The concept for this site started when the shooters.com site shut down.  Green Frog expressed the thought that it would be nice to have our own site, as I recall his comment, "where we can get together without a bunch of contender and handi-rifle guys asking if a .45-70 will kill a deer".  That led to the formation of the MSN site, that as I recall was started by Corky.  It had limited use, and then MSN shut down their forums.  A group, again led by Green Frog, tried to get a new website started.  An individual, or two, put together a site.  When an argument came up, they got mad, packed up their website, and went home.  Green Frog again pushed the idea that ASSRA should sponsor a website.  Jim and Josh graciously agreed to set it up, and it has been a great success.

If you use the idea of charter members dating back through all the board iterations, I'm one.  And I'm not an ASSRA member anymore, due to some controversies in the past.   

What you all have here is a good board, where like minded people get together, and discuss things in a relatively amiable fashion.  It's quite good for an internet forum.

My recommendation would be to leave it as it is, it's evolved over time to be quite a nice place.  The board that spun off it in the last greatest fight, the single barrel board on the double gun forum, has evolved into something quite different.  A new spin off from this one might evolve differently yet.   

A good principle to consider is that anything that lasts for a few years uniquely evolves to fit it's niche.  This board has done so and has reached maturity.  If it doesn't fit your needs, it might be a good time to look elsewhere.

dave

Dave -

Good history of the forum, thanks!

I miss the old shooters.com - as do lots of folks.  Many have gone on from there to  participating heavily in other forums - someone counted perhaps a dozen that ended up moderating one forum or another.

It, like this forum, lost a number of good people as a result of controversy.  Some got PO'd and a number got kicked off - only to gravitate to other forums and have done well.

We've grown and matured.  This thread has gone for a record number of exchanges back and forth without verbal abuse ..... Which considering thre range different perspectives is good.

Tim K

I am very thankfull for this forum and try to read it almost every day. All of the folks that I have talked on this forum have always been the the most informative people on any forum, there is only one othe forum that comes close. If I had the funds I would be a paid member but right now I have not worked in a year do to a simple medical procedure gone real bad at my local hospital.
The quality of advise that I have been given by folks like J louis, Green Frog, SS Dave and all of the others is only the best. 
The only thing on here that trips my trigger is when we get tese cottin picken spammers on, and they are getting on here somehow. I never see these on most of the other forums I go to. But in all fairness the floks that run this forum have there hands full dealing with all of the items in the forum and my hats is off to them for taking the time to run this beast.
Best regards
Michael White
USN Retired Seabee

I too reiterate the responses made by both Michael and Marlinguy.I want to make a motion that we move on,we've beat this subject to death--Fritz

Gentlemen this topic was just started one day ago and it surely should not conclude today so in all fairness please provide the original charter members the time and opportunity to choose to respond or not to respond. Just because they have not provided a response to date does not mean that they don't have an interest in doing so or have had the time to do so. If they choose not to provide a response then I will take the time to address and respond to BP's original request from me.

J.Louis

All, I know that the Forum probably has evolved from it's origianl start but I'm sure it is still doing a great job in keeping us all informed about anything to do with Single shot rifles. Heck you all even send folks to other forums when in doubt or to just check them out. I'm sure that we all are not just single shot fans, but at least we are all firearms fans, as a whole we all do pretty good keeping on topic. We even answere questions about muzzle stuffers, I own several too. Gun are great and we as a whole are a great lttle organization.
One thing that keeps amazing me is you think a topic is long dead and I'll be someone will remark about it and bring it all back up again, and that helps keep it interesting.
Mike

This has been my favorite website for years. Because of it I joined the ASSRA. Other than the fact that I would like to see a seperate Stevens section, I am happy with it and would prety much leave it as is. Something for most everyone and great people. There is more Stevens info here than anywhere else that I can find so I am good with it. I also have many other firearms interests as others here. I have never shot competitively and may never do it but I find a lot of things relating to comptitive shooting to be of interest. The one thing I wll caution everyone here about is to beware of the trap that may people involved in hobbies fall in to. They get so obsessed with the hobby that they forget that the whole idea is to have fun. When people get so obsessed with something and take it so seriously that it is no longer fun, it is a sad thing.