I guess we have to wonder about how much we are saying, and how many folks are actually listening. Our list-owner Ned Keller mentioned an interruption in ohio-birds service yesterday when we exceeded our limit of 50 posts per day, and traffic is down today, for whatever reason. I increasingly delete a lot of ohio-birds messages without finishing or even opening them, but I wouldn't want to discourage anyone's interest in birds, so here is a proposal, based on all-American principles: free speech if you can pay for it. Ohio-birds is not free, and the more we use the more costs are incurred. Maybe we can work out an arrangement with our benefactors at Miami University so that instead of being blocked we can reimburse them for messages that exceed fifty in a day. We could then set up a system in which the fifty most interesting messages go through free each day, but others incur charges. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but here are some suggested guidelines: 1. for any message announcing a "first" sighting of a species, a charge of 25 cents for each previous message announcing sightings of that species in the state during the previous month (these charges could really mount up, and maybe we could endow a scholarship for a MU freshman!); 2. for any message merely repeating the routine seasonal appearances of common easily-identified birds (typically rose-breasted grosbeak, dark-eyed junco, ruby-throated hummingbird, turkey vulture, etc.) a charge of 50 cents (another big money-maker); 3. announcements of organized birding 'events' for which admission is charged or at which items are offered for sale: 50 bucks per post. We could also encourage more informative posts by giving credits (which one could accept as cash or use later to offset charges such as those above) of a. 5 cents per species exceeding 30 in number in any reported day list (on the assumption that if you tallied a decent number of them you are luckier or more observant, at least offering a more informative report) b. 50 cents per observation of significantly interesting behavior (by birds, or birders), not just ho-hum easy IDs c. 10 cents for each link/reference to non-commercial ornithological information (on the WWW or elsewhere) or other sources of learning pertinent to Ohio birds d. 50 cents for intelligent questions asked about which the standard sources have little to offer by way of an answer e. 75 cents for the same questions answered satisfactorily f. 10 cents for each bit of genuinely helpful or interesting first-hand information: directions to a site, ID hints, any stories about things that happened more than 24 hrs ago (i.e. "history"), etc. g. for posts that solicit open discussion, 50 cents, plus 10 cents for each public response and so on. If these charges and credits seem trivial, remember that 50 posts a day runs to 18,000+ a year! I'm sure others will have better suggestions about what kinds of posts should cost senders and which should earn them credits, so let us hear about them. Or maybe we could do something else to control the bloat... Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]