Dear Silent. Having read both your post and the one by David posted on the 29th, I find both of you have valid points of view. However, when this forum was password protected, it all but died. As a somewhat frequent reader/poster myself, I found the use of the password made my reading of the forum a chore and I didn't come here nearly as much. I personally think the best way to handle this form of communication is simply to ignore those who post inflammatory comments as David stated. We all recognize such comments and it takes the wind out of their sails to ignore them. When owners have legitimate concerns to post, I still think we need to keep this in the open so more owners will read and consider what is being said by our fellow owners. I'm not sure that, by so doing, we discourage those who would be prospective renters or future ownners. I think the value of bringing up such issues outweighs any negative impact they might have in that regard.

Why is it that only anonymous, perhaps non owners complain about our relative open and free discussions regarding ideas how to improve our operations and maintenance.
The whole idea is to allow all owners to enjoy and relax at Casa Ybel and perhaps give some valuable good ideas on how to make things better.
Our weekly owners meetings for resident owners have not been very successful, as a matter of fact old timers tell me they do not bather to attend due to a certain experience of lack of follow up from our management company, and they often get laughed at for bringing up certain items.
I wish notes were taken and placed on the web, I would be happy to provide that service of placing them on our Forum every week.
It makes you get the feeling the answers we get are defensive answers saying “that’s how we do it and we can’t change it. Other owners tell me the same questions are brought up all the time and that gets boring. I know we are paying large amounts of money over the year to Thistle Lodge for the service and use of the dining room for every meeting, to bad we do not have a meeting or conference area of our own.

My suggestion to provide free services to all owners over the year, with a message board on our web for the board and others to use, weekly updates, rentals and sales for only $1 a month for all owners, no other fees necessary was turned down by our board, and the thousands of Dollars spent on our colorful Sand Script could be saved. It had a couple of our owners listing units but a lot of advertising from Thistle Lodge and others, with no real content for out own operations.

We have looked into changing to a private secure web site where each owner uses his or her own password with the owners week and unit number as user name.
This means there will be no common password, you make one up yourself for your own use and the secure part of the web site will be coded for you by you. You must send an e-mail to www.casaybel.com with those 2 items. That will keep your access open, unlocked, and you can change password if you choose any time. The user name will be “: Unit week (2 digits) and unit number (3 digits) as a 5 digit user name.
Such as 02210 or 34180
You provide your own password with 6 digits, letters or numbers can be used, no periods or commas please.
This is going to be a major update and rework for our outdated old fashioned web site.

Any thoughts on how we can cover all expenses for all these bells and whistles with an annual subscription fee, no board approval or involvement needed, and rentals and sales or other messages could be posted with no other charges? We could have this in a few months.

The web site will still be open to the public, but various types of boards will be available in the secure private sections for owners only...
These boards can be used privately between owners for messages to each other, photos, greetings, new ideas, and “what to do” guest book passing on discoveries of good places to eat, things to do and “don’t miss” items with new attractions. You write it yourself!
“Have you tried the new Sanibel high speed sightseeing trip one and a half hour thrill ride with Dolphin families chasing you “round the Island”? It is very popular!

This forum is a very usefull site for owners and prospective buyers/renters. I read the comments often, but do not post many notes. I agree that we should have a private owners only section. As mentioned, it is very counter productive to suggest someone buy or rent after reading some of these complaints.
Our last attempt at a private site was not successfull. I also did not get on very often. The secret logon was so long and complex, you needed a PHD in computer science to use it. If we use a short and simple log-on code given out by Carl I believe we will not jeopardize our legitimate owner/users from logging on.
This system works for Cassa Ybel's official site, even though some of our users have published it on this forum. Now I realize that there will still be some non-owners that will be able to log in, but there numbers would be significantly reduced.

This issue remains a concern. Has anything been done to provide a simpler private access to this forum for owners? How can Carl complain about rankings on tripadvisor.com when he has not addressed the potential unfavorable perception of our units on this open casaybel.com forum?