Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 13:56:10 -0800 (PST) From: "Avalanche Center (CSAC)" This special notice includes some important information - please read it! The transition to a premium service will be finalized over the next week. For info on this see http://www.avalanche-center.org/Bulletins/maillists/ which is also the place to look anytime you have questions or experience problems. Bookmark this page. If the info there does not help you then contact us via e-mail. Before finalizing the transition there are a number of points which need to be made to everyone. First, a few clarifications and disclaimers which result from discussions with cooperating avalanche centers over the past couple of weeks. Cooperating centers are Eastern Sierra, Sun Valley, and all three Montana centers - glacier country, gallatin, and missoula. (However, these points apply to non-cooperating centers as well.) 1) The CSAC is requiring a contribution _of any amount you choose_ to remain on our list service (with a few exceptions). This is not being required by the avalanche centers producing the bulletins.. In particular, the US Forest Service (which is the source for most US info) does not charge anything for their information. 2) All bulletins are available for free on the CSAC website, other web sites, and usually by phone as well. 3) The avalanche centers issueing the bulletins have no requirement to cooperate _at all_ with the CSAC. This includes US Forest Service centers. Those centers that do cooperate do so voluntarily. Please let them know if you appreciate this. A few additional points to be made: 1) The transition of our mailing lists has generated a certain amount of very negative e-mail. This accomplishes nothing. It's bad kharma. Bad kharma and avalanches - think about it! Nasty e-mail to the wrong people is double bad kharma. This means cooperating avalanche centers in particular - if you want to send angry e-mail at least send it to the CSAC. If you do not wish to support our efforts that is fine - please feel welcome to use the website info for free anyway. 2) The CSAC is a nonprofit organization, we have no government funding. Your contributions fund the service you receive. No funds are used to pay anyone, including the director. (Anyone wishing to imply otherwise should get the facts first - we file all required papers with the OR dept of Justice and the IRS and these are public.) 3) We had one incident of a list of e-mail addresses being misused. This is described on the mailing lists page, as is our response and our policy on this. Most people were angry about receiving unsolicited e-mail and happy with our response, although one person thought the spam offered a good deal and felt we over-reacted. This was a misuse of our resources and a violation of trust, and any similar incidents will be handled in a similar manner. We put up with too much without this type of additional headache. Hopefully after this transition is complete things will become more friendly once again. We also anticipate that special notices such as this one will be needed only infrequently. Thanks for your patience and your support. We are trying hard to offer the best service possible with limited resources. Jim -- *********************************************************** Cyberspace Snow and Avalanche Center (CSAC) 131 NW 4th St Suite 397, Corvallis OR 97330 #343 - 3495 Cambie St, Vancouver BC V5Z 4R3 (541)754-8353 (541)461-4279 Fax http://www.csac.org snow@csac.org Jim Frankenfield; Director ***********************************************************