Excitement at BookCrossing.

[skyring]

If you go here, you'll see why I have been bubbling over with excitement about BookCrossing for the past few weeks.

I haven't been able to say anything until an announcement, but Scott has impressed me hugely. He understands BookCrossers and BookCrossing, the way that we are a member-driven community, rather than one driven from above. For a guy who is the President of BookCrossing.com, that's an important view to have.

Scott is also embarking on a round of visits to conventions. I can thoroughly approve of such a plan. And I'll get to meet him in a couple of weeks in Charleston. For anyone who has been wavering about attending, now is the time to make a move. I can promise that Scott's talk at the convention will be one well worth listening to.

Comments

[annulla.livejournal.com]

First I heard of the move to California or the search for a president, but then, the people that run bookcrossing are very secretive. It wasn't that way at the beginning, but it is part of the culture now. :(

[skyring.livejournal.com]

There are very few secrets in BookCrossing. Ron has had his own life apart from running the site, but he's always been available at conventions to ask questions, and journalists have little trouble getting onto him.

I guess you could call me one of the people that run BookCrossing (but only in a very minor way). If there are secrets kept from the members, it is usually something like "We're going to introduce a new product or service, what is the best way of wording the announcement?". We discuss the details and get the news out as soon as possible.

Yes, there are secrets within BookCrossing, but in an organisation committed to ensuring the privacy of its members, that's always going to be the case. Those who have access to private details are very few in number and take care to keep things like names and email addresses out of public gaze. if you want to tell the world your real name, that's fine, but we won't reveal it.

Likewise we keep private our policies for dealing with trouble makers. We get the occasional spammers, stalkers and book-hoarders, and we have ways of dealing with them. But we don't reveal the extent of our abilities, and I trust that the wisdom of this policy is evident in the general good nature of the community.