Excellent post, Rainbo1956.

I think we often try to make everyone feel welcome here, I always try and post in the "I'm new here" threads. I think the one thing that we do, and I'm sure people on other boards do as well, is that we are a little guarded until we are certain that the new people are really here to meet others, contribute and be part of things. Often on message boards you will have those who post drive by spam, or one sentence posts just to get their sig seen. I think it takes effort on both parts. Once a person answers a number of posts and lets people know they are interested in being involved, others will warm up to them. When you already know someone from the industry or the shows, you already have a feeling that they will most likely be involved, so it's easier to let them in.

I see this in my leather clubs. People will come once or twice to see what everything is about, and you try to make them feel welcome and spend a lot of time and effort making them feel at home and they just dissapear. So you start to feel like you don't want to put out the effort until you get an idea if they will be around a little while. It's the same way on the boards. But maybe we need to meet the newbies with a little more enhusiasm and that will keep them around.

Here's another idea. You had said your friend posted here and did not feel welcome, why not introduce her and let people know that she is a friend of yours and that she does great work? That way, we have an idea that this person will want to be part of things.

Once again, feedback is always good, and even negative feedback is good because it gives you a chance to learn what you may need to work on.