Having met Rick through this site, (and on the way to meeting more Mudcatters, I hope), and always thrilled by this community, I nevertheless am with Neil on this. I was going to post something about this myself, but Neil is right to do this. While the Mudcatters are a wonderful group, I think it is important to realize that the site is essentially open every day to wanderers over whom we have no control, and for whom we have no time to develop antennae readings . I was reading annap's thread(s) with growing apprehension about the information you were giving out about your home and situation (also jealousy cause I can't make it, but that is another topic!). This is not really a password controlled site. For instance, I think it would be very easy, after reading a number of threads, to fake into this, ask for directions to come a few days early, and so on to your semi-isolated place (or that is how it reads) where there are just the two of you, not that young (you just told us that) who are prone to welcome strangers into your house (you told us that too).
I don't think this is just paranoia: the cold fact is that this site is really open to anyone, anyone who has access to a computer anywhere. We can forget this easily because there are "community signals" here -- but we are not really in your neighbourhood, next door. There are cunning and not so cunning, but not at all well meaning people out there with constant access to the Internet. I am not trying to dampen your open hearted enthusiasm, in fact it is thrilling, but please be careful, Anna.
Yours, PeterT.