An Apology From The Guys at The American Woodworker

Dear most valued members. A week ago, we had a discussion appear on our Free For All Forum that started out innocently enough. It was the discussion titled Civil War. The discussion started out as an American History lesson by some of our members, but towards the end of the discussion, it became something completely different.

I, and The American Woodworker Steering Committee consisting of 10 members including myself, would like to apologize to all members of The American Woodworker for offending you if you saw the discussion at the time it was happening.

As we strive to keep our forum clean and safe for all members to enjoy, sometimes things beyond our control take place, and this was one of those times. We take this matter very seriously, and we are very concerned that this episode might have effected some of our members to the point that they no longer are willing to come back and visit this great network of woodworkers with a just cause. During the time the offensive posts were taking place, we had quite a few new members who came aboard, and they were welcomed by the offensive posts. This was not the first impression we wanted those new members to have of us. And this is not the impression we wish our veteran members to have of us either.

I, John Morris, the owner and operator of this fantastic website, felt overwhelmed with the responses of our members regarding the offensive posts. I dealt with the offenders the best way I knew how, and I handled all the inquires as well. The post was also deleted fairly quickly, but not quick enough.

Because of the overwhelming responses, I reached out to several members of our site to get a feel for how we can handle this situation in the future if it ever arises again. Through the encouragement of one of our members Dan Wyatt, I formed a Steering Committee to help deal with the many challenges and responsibilities of site ownership. And I would like to thank Dan for this great idea. We needed to show our members how serious we are about providing a fun, safe, and family oriented woodworking forum community for all to enjoy. Our steering committee has been tasked to help with guiding this site into the future, and to help keep an eye on the pages of our site for future postings that go against the fabric of what The American Woodworker stands for. Also, myself and our Steering Committee, are working as we speak to draw up a new set of rules for posting on the Free For All Forum and the entire site for that matter. We are now involved in daily discussions regarding these very important issues.

Our site is not a place for hate speech, pornography, foul language, nor political endorsements or controversial statements regarding religion, sexuality, race, or physical disabilities. We will not allow jokes or humor considered to be in bad taste within the boundaries of common decency.

Though we allowed political statements and satire in the past, this is no longer the case on our site.

This site is not a place for you if you use our forum community to participate in any of the above practices.

Our site has always been a site for woodworkers of all ages, but we have never officially stated so.

This site is now officially being declared a Family website.

I am proud of our site, I am proud of what we have done in such a short time, I am honored and proud for all the charitable work our members have performed as a result of our encouragement to help our soldiers returning home from war. We are a good place to be, and I will not stand for any of the above negative practices to take place on my site.

I have formed the Steering Committee to help me achieve these goals and to show our members, that we are very serious about providing a great family woodworking community for all to come in and enjoy.

Thank you so much for being here,

John Morris

The American Woodworker