Hayes Lowe
Previous 19th flag discussions, and big complaint.
Thu Apr 26 08:47:18 2001


Lee (and all),

This flag has been discussed on this board at length in two threads. There are several things that really bother me about this whole 19th flag deal.

First is that hours and hours of research were put into this question by members of this board based on questions and statements started by James. You can easily see the hours that went into this research by reading those two *very* long threads. James never once offered that he had additional information that may have kept us from having to spend those many hours of research for him. He could have stopped us at any time.

Second, somebody will now benefit from these hours and hours of free research. And in all likelyhood, somebody is going to benefit commercially. I am happy to help an *individual* (not a commercial entity) with research for personal use, but I want to know all that they already know to begin with and whether somebody is expecting to profit commercially from the research. I'm a professional writer (as are several regular contributors to this board), and I have many published works over my 14 year career. I made a living doing that for 10 years. I don't do free work for someone else to publish it.

I don't know what the ultimate fate of this flag is planned to be, but it being displayed on a commercial website is a *big* indicator that a private sale is possible. And, I certainly don't like the idea that we are told, after having produced so much research for free, that some big article about the flag is to be published in a commercial publication. At a minimum, if they don't use anything that we produced, they got free fact checking.

I feel that some confidence has been deceptively breached in this. And, its going to make me much more careful and selective in what questions that I answer on this board and the research that I do for those requesting information. This is the way that a good thing that benefits many is quickly ruined.

Hayes