An Invitation to Readers

Thank you for continuing to read The Woodstock Advocate. Tonight the counter hit 20,000, only 2 1/2 months after the counter was placed on this site. Why did I put on a counter? My request to be considered "media" for the purposes of receiving crime reports was rejected, because the blog had only 2,000 hits in a year.

Without a counter I had no idea of the number of views. Now I have an idea. The 20,000 are not "unique" views (those of different readers). If you come back three times in a day, that'll be three clicks.

Here are my invitations.

#1. Is there something you would like me to look into?

If you know of something going on that doesn't smell right to you, send me the information. You can email it to gus@woodstockadvocate.com. You can fax it to (815) 338-2666. You can mail it to Gus Philpott, P.O. Box 1222, Woodstock, IL 60098.

Confidentiality will be protected! I will not use your name without your permission, if you provide it to me. If you include contact information, I will contact you for more information if I need it, unless you ask no contact.

I generally confirm information by feeding my horse an extra measure of oats, polishing up the armor, and trotting around the town. Stories get even better when 2-3-4 people tell me the same story, adding new details to the basic facts.

#2. Forward articles to people you think might like to read them. Just click on the little envelope below the story and forward it by email. No postage! I never see the email addresses to which stories are forwarded or yours when you forward them. So you don't have to worry about spam from me or any use whatsoever of either email address.

#3. Please comment on articles. I appreciate and respect all views. Please keep it clean; I won't pass Comments that are vulgar or profane. No libel. I may re-open Comments to publication without reading them first. They were that way, initially. Then the cyberstalking got too heavy,and I figured that many readers might not want to read the nastygrams.

The current position on moderating comments is not for the purpose of censoring them. I'll pass through almost all of them.

Thanks for reading!