WEASNER'S EDITORIAL PAGE Last updated: 10 February 2000

I've been asked many times over the three+ years this site has been online to do an "editorial page." Keep in mind that this EDITORIAL PAGE is just that. It is MY area to say whatever is on MY mind. Comments are welcome of course.

My apologies to everyone for not making the following announcement sooner.

In my last editorial, I discussed the expansion of this site beyond just the Meade ETX telescope line and the possible evolution from "Weasner's Mighty ETX Site" to "Weasner's Tremendous Small Telescope Site". The site has already expanded to include the Meade Digital Series (DS) line of telescopes. However, based upon reader feedback I have determined that the ETX and DS user communities are best served by retaining the focus on these small telescopes. In addition, the increased workload on your humble webmaster to maintain a quality site would have become overwhelming had I continued the expansion into a general small telescope site. I hope that those who endorsed such a large expansion will understand that the demands upon my time would just be too much. I appreciate your past support and hope that you will stay with us.

I do have some exciting plans to provide even more useful information to ETX and DS users in the future. This information is not currently available elsewhere. And this brings me to the second item discussed in my last editorial: the cost to maintain the site. Unfortunately, I am not quite ready to make any announcements about that but I think I have developed a solution that will meet the needs of all site visitors and provide increased value to visitors, while avoiding the perception that advertisers would have any content or editorial "ownership", which, of course, they will never have. I look forward to announcing this but please be patient as I still have many details to work out.

I do have one other new announcement to make. In order to make the various Feedback pages more useful as a resource for tips, information, and Q&A, I am announcing a new page: "User Opinions". Currently, there are messages posted on the Feedback pages that contain opinions, suggestions to Meade, comments on these editorials, and other items that are more appropriately placed on such an "opinions" page. If you want to submit an item to the opinion page please put "opinion" in your message subject line; this will help me sort my email in preparation for posting. If opinions are buried in other messages received, I reserve the editorial right to post such messages on the opinions page. Your help is requested: please do not mix items for the Feedback pages with opinions in a single message.

Lastly, today I drove down the freeway in the rain to Meade to pick up an ETX-125EC and Autostar (replacements for previous evaluation units that were on short-term loan). I randomly selected the ETX from a pallet on the shipping dock (I hope no dealer gets shorted!). This random selection was done to eliminate any confusion on whether this was a specially tuned one just for me. It obviously wasn't. I suppose there will be those who will say that by supplying a telescope to me is another way for Meade to "buy" influence" on this site. Baloney. I have this unit as a resource to me to provide assistance to other ETX owners. Does Meade benefit from this? Sure they do. Do site visitors benefit from this? Sure they do. Do I benefit from this? Sure I do. But who benefits more? Since I would not likely have purchased a larger aperture telescope any time soon, visitors will get the most benefit. I know that most visitors appreciate this.

But you know, it is a real pain to get a new telescope on a rainy day. And it is supposed to continue being cloudy and raining for several more days. Bummer!

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