I'm going to take what is likely to be considered an unpopular stance on this issue.

But first some background. Joe and I have had many hours of phone conversations. As soon as his problems were made public I helped push him towards generating income by helping other POGGERs with bus repairs and maintenance. We spent many phone conversations talking about inverters, Norgren valves, suspension systems, etc. I still support Joe and want him to continue to be a part of POG with respect to helping owners maintain their coaches.

I would like to see him back here.

But this entire topic needs to be put in perspective.

As Denny points out I have trashed CC at times for their singular lack of timely support, something I NEVER did about any converter until Ray Davis was badly abused by CC in his quest for help on his first coach. I spanked Liberty for failing to include a check valve or backflow preventer on certain coaches with HeadHunter toilets. Joe and I have been brutal in criticizing Michelin. I have been open in pointing out that owners of certain Marathons may have overloaded front axles and tires. All of that could be considered trashing converters and suppliers. I stand by what I said.

But there is one serious difference nobody has expressed. I am nothing more than a POG member expressing an opinion on an open forum. I am not in business repairing buses, I am not competing with services selling coaches or service or maintenance. I may have helped some folks with work on their coaches or offered advice, but I have never taken a penny for those efforts. Joe as a person who is doing business in competition with any of POG's advertisers who repair or maintain coaches is on a different level. First, he is competing with the very advertisers who support POG and keep it afloat. Those folks such as Liberty and Parliament and all the others have employees who have had formal training on our coaches, they PAY to advertise on the site, and they have liability insurance so their customers are protected.

Because of that I think they are entitled to a level playing field.

So from Skiffer's point of view he has a situation where his bread and butter is threatened by PAYING advertisers who feel it is unjust to allow a competitor to advertise for free, to compete without some formal training, and to do so without insurance (which they have to carry just because it is good business). I have no knowledge of who if any has complained about Joe, but I can envision complaints being made and Jim being put in the position of allowing Joe to continue as he was risking a serious loss of revenue, or asking Joe to at least make an effort to be on a more equal footing with the advertisers.

I have heard one side of this story, as have others. I believe until we can get both parties to the issue in the same room and hear them both speak we will not know the full story, only the one we are being told.

Joe is a Prevost owner. He qualiifes in that regard to be a POG member. I would hope that at some point he can pony up his $100 and join us. If he wishes to compete with advertisers I would say word of mouth is all he now needs, so if he could rejoin, he needs to be aware as a competitor he has an obligation to either stay silent on some issues, or pay as an advertiser, and address the training or insurance issue (that's between him and Jim) he should be a part of this group. There are a lot of us who may have done some business because of this group but not in competition with advertisers. I am sure some electric boxes have been purchased from my daughter, and I bet one or two cars have been sold, but none of those things dig into an advertiser's pockets.

Remember, one of the things that makes this a great forum is we can say anything we want within reason. But as soon as we become competitors with those who are financially supporting this group, and we are not paying to advertise, we should be very careful what we say and how we say it.

As to the privacy issue, there is none. On a site like this there is no free speech. We are at the mercy of the Webmaster who has a lot of differing points of view he has to protect. PM's are not private. I don't know why anyone should consider them private and if something needs to be expressed that is confidential it should be done via the phone, in an email or in person.

We can treat this as a popularity contest for Joe, or we can look at this as a knotty problem that has put Skiffer in a no win situation. I think the solution is simple. Joe and Jim need to communicate. We need to stay the hell out of this. If Joe and Jim can resolve the issues that is great, but if they cannot that is too bad, but it is not the end of Joe or POG. It just means Joe will not be on POG and Jim will have lost a contributor to the forum.

Flame away.