Hi all,

I think I like the somewhat frozen in time nature of Zoss as it does come to my mailbox and it's in plain text. It's like the Internet was not so long ago when I first started using it before we had all of the bulletin board options, etc. that we do today. With Zoss, it all gets done on the list--buying, selling, questioning, arguing, posturing, informing and being part of a community. It's part of the nature of the beast and it's kind of fun to take it all as it comes.

As for the selling, I like how many of the posters are providing more pictures and more information about the pens they sell. It's educational for me. In the past, when I've sold regularly on the list, I made a regular contribution to Tom as I was profiting from the list. I make those contributions less regularly now as my participation in pens at most all levels is less regular than before.Still, I think it's important to support the list whether you sell on the list or not and I think that part gets lost in the conversations about selling on the list.

I like the Zoss list because I don't have to shuffle through the endless "What pen are you carrying today?" and "What is the best pen for a newbie?" conversations that constitute much of what passes for traffic on other forums I go to. The answers to the latter are always the same ones posted by the same people. I see little substantive in that. Zoss provides more substance than that and I see the selling on Zoss as part of that substance in many instances. 

I can understand the frustrations. We all have communities that we participate in that both delight and frustrate us. My church, for example, does just that! ;) But I continue to participate because my life would be poorer without that community. I won't say the Zoss list never frustrates me. It frequently does. But I also find many things on the Zoss list to delight me as well. The digest version makes it easy for me to quickly read through and decide which is what.

Sincerely,
Richard Jarvis