oh, I'm still around ;-)
Been focused on making a living though, which doesn't leave much time
for anything else. I signed up for MPwH (for 3 months) on a whim and
then didn't even write up a profile until just a few weeks before my
subscription expired and, at that point, I read/posted the message
boards and got to know a few people. I didn't know you were there! I
would have written to you for sure ;-)
M2

On Wed, 4 Feb 04, 04:15 , Arlyn wrote:

M2slo2cht wrote;

Hi Yosh  ;-)

On Sat, 2/7/04, 16:47, zippetydoodah wrote:

Indy certainly seems to appeal to a broader spectrum of people than
other events I've attended. IOW, they have something for people other
than strictly the party people. All the events have a great party so
the party peeps always have a great time at every event. Some events
have a dinner too. A few events have activities planned during the day
(i.e. Atlanta) that promotes mixing, mingling, and allows people meet
each other.  Indy has all that and more.

And Indy has advantages the others can't match. Most importantly, the
Indy Group books the *entire* hotel for for the weekend. That makes it
*really* nice. Just knowing that there's nobody in the hotel but
groupies, makes a huge difference in creating a more relaxed
atmosphere for the whole weekend. It's so much easier to meet people
when you know everybody you run into in the halls, the elevator, the
lobby, the excercise room, the pool, the parking lot, EVERYwhere, is
with the group. There's no worrying about an outsider overhearing your
conversation from the next table or down the bar or in the hall, or in
the lobby, and it just feels like a huge "group hug" all weekend long.
At other events, you can't really let your guard down because there
are always other hotel guests around, and in fact there is always at
least one embarrassing "mix up" between a groupie and another hotel
guest. Not that the other events aren't fun, but that's one big plus
Indy has over all the rest.

Another thing about Indy, on Saturday morning, Indy puts on a seminar
with expert speakers and a Q&A session afterwards. The philosophy of
other events (or what I've been told when I asked) is that  since they
don't lose very many participants by NOT putting on a seminar, why
should they bother? Well ... that's one way to look at it. But that's
my point about Indy being more inclusive. Indy puts the seminar on
anyway, regardless of whether it increases the party attendance or
not. And they do it for a small segment of herpsters that are
forgotten about at other events. It's for the people who are actually
interested in the subject of Herpes, and/or most in NEED of support
and/or information. Granted, the seminar is always well attended by
party hpeeps as well, but I say bravo to the Indy crew for doing the
right thing and not forgetting the peeps who are interested mainly in
learning, support, and sharing information but NOT necessarily in the
more popular activities (party) of the weekend.

MPwH is the only profit oriented (pay for) herp site that I know
about. The rest are free, set up and run by volunteers. And yes, the
censorship hangs over all aspects of MPwH like a wet blanket so it's
not a good place to exchange information about anything except trivial
chit chat. As a result, very few people, who actually know their stuff
about herp, post anything there, even though that type info would be
allowed ... supposedly .... maybe ... depends though.

That's true. The "terms of service" spell out quite a bit of what you
can/can't talk about, even in direct, one on one messages between
individual members. So there is actually no such thing as "private"
correspondence there. It's easy to forget that someone's watching
though, when you write a message directed to another individual.

Happens a lot! LoL! But mostly people just leave in frustration.
MPwH has it's place, I think, but open discussion and info sharing is
not it's strong point (understatement!) LoL!

Good advice.

M2