We have had requests from users for interactive services that will allow users to have contact with other collectors in various ways. The ideas suggested were as follows and details on each are given ...

1. A mailing list
2. A real time chat
3. An email service

      The idea suggested was for a simple mailing list that would allow users to share philatelic ideas and information by posting emails which are then sent out to all list members. Further talks revealed some problems with this system and measures have now been put in place to reduce these risks as far as possible.

      The main points raised were that users tend to recieve a lot of spam mail and as such are reluctant to give out their email address. In addition it was pointed out that these types of service do not store picture attachments, thus in te case of a philatelic site where much is based on being able to see the item in question, it becomes self defeating.

      To combat these problems we have put the following measures in place.

1. All those who sign up have to be accepted by a moderator
   Those known to us will be accepted straigh away, others will need to make a philatelic posting to show their intent
2. All images will be stored with the text of the posting
   In this way all details are retained for later inspection
3. Email addresses are protected
   Although displayed they can not be harvested by spam robots

      In addition, should any user still not wish to use their main email address, we provide a free email service as detailed below.

      This service provides a real time chat system with who-ever is online. No sign up is required, just enter a user name and chat.

      As this is a free service, there is always the possiblity that someone will come online, make stupid or rude comments or just generally be a pian. The only means to combat this is to use the option to ignore the person. In addition, sometimes with a number of users, the conversation can be hard to follow. To overcome this you can select a person and have a private chat - one to one

      As already mentioned under the mailing list section, we also provide a free email service. This is not the greatest in the world but does allow you to sign up for the mailing list without using your main address. The service can be used in the normal way to send and recieve mail, you just log in via the site and use the service as normal. In addition there is also a calandar and reminder service linked to the service, so no reasons to miss a club meeting ever again.