Don't just cut-and-paste that. The address is messed up a bit so as to prevent spambots from finding it. Manually type it into your email program. Don't forget the first d in sandford and don't forget that it's .org instead of .com.

Just tell me that you want to register for the board, and include your (preferred) username and (preferred) password. I'll create the account within a day or so. I'm not at the computer 24/7, so responses won't be immediate. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Feel free to write to the email address above if you have any questions or concerns about the registration process.

And so I'm going to explain a few things that shouldn't need explaining. Is it an attempt to justify my actions? Sort of, but not exactly. It's an attempt to explain why, for a board that's supposed to be dedicated to an author and revolve around his works (and works of related authors), anarchy just doesn't cut it. Or something like that.

The first big problem people have had is with my ban on sex talk. "It's part of everyday life!" they claim. "It's perfectly natural!" they say. And, on one notable occasion, "The only reason you don't want anyone talking about sex is because you're not getting any." The truth is, it has nothing to do with any of that. It's that past experience has shown that the board members collectively act like they have a fourth-grade mentality when it comes to sex. Really. If the topics are left unrestrained, eventually they turn into a "giggle" / "lick" / "tee-hee" fest that is just... useless. It clutters up the board. Worse, it doesn't just drag down individual topics, but the board as a whole.

Don't say it doesn't happen. It has happened. It's happened more than once on this board. Yes, I concede that it's possible for reasonable adults to have a reasonable conversation about sex, but it's never happened on this board. Recently, when someone started a "Lucas's Sex Life" topic, it degenerated into "giggle" / "lick" / "tee-hee" in less than a dozen posts. And that mentality spilled over into other topics. It really does drag the entire board down.

So in short, if you want to talk about sex, go somewhere else. The internet is vast, and I imagine there are probably sex-related sites out there somewhere.

The next big complaint I've received is that sometime's I'll delete topics that I personally view as irrelevant. "How dare you do that?" people say. "It's a free board!" Well... it is, and it isn't. The board is, as I said above, dedicated to a particular author. If anyone can post about absolutely anything, then the board ceases to have that identity. It just becomes another backwater internet cesspool of nothingness. I don't want that.

Yes, there is an Etcetera section. And yes, you can post about virtually anything there. But if that's the main reason you're coming to the board – to chit-chat with people whose only connection to you is that they're Sandford fans – you're probably in the wrong place.

This isn't to say that the board needs to be all-Sandford all the time. But when the Etcetera section is the most frequently read and appended, then the board is at risk of losing its identity. It shouldn't be so out of balance for that to happen.

No doubt people will still find problems with my policies. I'll get letters from people saying that no, really, they can talk about sex in a responsible manner, even though the opposite has proven true repeatedly. They'll accuse me of being a dictator for trying to keep a John Sandford board sort of vaguely loosely based around the idea of being a John Sandford board. There will be those who argue that because the internet has total freedom of everything, my board should follow suit.

Well, no. This isn't going to be that kind of board. Ideally, it'll be about the works of John Sandford, the works of his competition, other books, things with a similar theme, and very occasionally topics that give us a glimpse into the lives of other members. It shouldn't be the kind of thing where you can post everything. Because when you do that, it's really a board about nothing.

And that's all.

Enjoy, and have fun! And ignore those people who say that because I'm now taking a tougher stance against sex-talk and general board clutter it's now impossible to have fun. In fact, prove them wrong.