For over twenty years ohio-birds has been where Ohioans look for rarities reports. I don't see any compelling reason not to continue this tradition. In offering this instant service, the OOS doesn't promote itself or require joining anything. It allows posts of any length. It does not encourage posters to use pseudonyms. It has no advertising, and has been relatively immune to spamming and other manipulations. It is a free and open instant venue for rarities reports. In addition, ohio-birds is intended to be a source of learning about Ohio's birds beyond reports of rarities. It encourages participants to share information about good birding venues, and discussion and debate about the occurrence, distribution, identification, and ecology of Ohio birds. It has informative archives going back a long way, with reports of found rarities a prominent feature. It really has no rivals in these realms. The lack of online photos is the only drawback pointed out by users, especially those looking for rarities. Photos are reassuring when unknown observers report things, I suppose, and including them on ohio-birds postings might be a way to support reports. The drawback would be burdening the site (remember Miami University generously provides for ohio-birds traffic) with other more popular but less important uses of photos (beginners' ID questions, bragging, routine species, etc.), and I don't know how the OOS feels about going this way. It seems to me that restricting rarities reports to commercial sites like Twitter and Facebook is a mistake, as also is not sharing by confining some interesting reports only to local Ohio web sites. I say this as a reformed lister, too; over recent years I have tried to make my bird observations more meaningful than additions to my own or others' lists. Bill Whan Columbus Disclaimer: I was among the founders of the OOS, but have not been a member in recent years, and I do not speak for the Society. ______________________________________________________________________ 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]