Thanks for the kind messages of support and thanks which have been sent to both the Forum and to my email address.

As I said before, the Australian Museum is no longer able to fund the Forum or provide technical assistance. I am trying to find an alternative way of hosting the site, and hopefully we will be up and running again at the same url - www.seaslugforum.net.

For what I hope is just a temporary solution, a 'flattened' version of the whole site will be available. It will have all the messages and Fact Sheets but no changes or corrections will be possible and no new messages will be posted.

For this to take place I have been asked not to post any more messages. To find out what is happening, a bulletin board will be available on the flattened site where I can post updates on the Forum's return.

Thank you all for your support over the past 12 years. Many of you have said how grateful you are for all you have learnt. I am glad we could help. The point of the Forum was to be a two-way means of communication between scientists and non-scientists so we could share information. I am sure many of my professional colleagues would agree with me when I say that we scientists have learnt an enormous amount of new information from the photos and observations sent in by divers and naturalists world wide.

This is not the happiest message I have posted on the Forum, but hopefully we will be back shortly.

Best wishes
Bill Rudman

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Dear Bill,

Let me thank you for your devotion to the sea slugs community. Numerous messages bellow show the gratefulness of many members, and I'd like to express mine too.

Your comments on the Forum provided me with many information on these wonderful animals. But more than anything else, you taught me to observe sea slugs closely, to distinguish significant characters, to analyze their environment in field. You gave me more than any book. So, thank you for sharing with us your knowledge and your experience.

Like Kathe Jensen I think that this Forum was an essential tool for the sea slugs community. It allowed contacts between enthusiast divers and scientists, established useful collaborations, so that science makes progress.

I hope solutions will be found to keep the Forum active and alive. I only have a basic HTML knowledge but if you need a financial contribution, I promise to do my best.

Good luck and thanks a lot,
Marina

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I just returned from a dive trip and read this very sad news. The most important response is to thank Bill Rudman for his outstanding efforts on behalf of all of us who are interested in or experts about nudibranchs. Beyond that, if there is a viable funding plan and technical solution to the current problems, I hope we will learn about it soon enough to learn what we can do to help restore the Sea Slug Forum.

Mickey Rosenau

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As a major influence on my development as a diver and underwater photographer, I want to thank you for your tireless efforts on the Sea Slug Forum. This is a valuable resource for many stakeholders in the scientific, photographic and recreational diving communities. I have been trying to get the word out to the diving and photographic community to support you in any way they can. I have always appreciated your gift as a taxonomist, and have enjoyed stirring up discussion now and again...I fondly remember the embarrassing International Eubranchus misakiensis day! I am hoping for a positive resolution to this dilemma, and hope that an answer can be found. This is a resource too precious to dismiss.

Warm regards,
Marli Wakeling

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Is not a dream..
Is a reality...

let say... 20$ per year...

Dimitris

Thanks Dimitris,

As I said earlier, I am having help in trying to rebuild the Forum with simpler, but good, software which should be much less expensive to operate. Thanks to all who have offered money. If we can get the SSForum operating again I may ask for some voluntary contributions, but at present they are not necessary

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

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Dear Dr. Rudman
The news is simply demoralizing.
I ask the museum or who is responsible, if they understand the loss of such a knowledge now wasted not only for Australia but for all the world that from all around looked and learnt more and more about this little niche that linked people who have never seen them before and made us passionate about a subject which may enrich nothing but human culture, where others ignore it.

But I am convinced that your person is so important that you won't be left alone ... So I and many others will wait for you and your unique help.
Franco

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Hi Bill
Sorry to learn about the difficulties with the SSF. Looking over the list of contributors and their various areas of expertise, it is clear that you reach a broad and world-wide audience with the web site. Furthermore, unlike many web pages which can be run by any anonymous whacko, regardless of true expertise, on any subject, posting anonymous drivel from anyone else, regardless of expertise, but with access to a computer, you have maintained a high level of authority and review over the messages posted on the SSF. I have cited a Fact Sheet or two from the SSF in some of my publications in the primary literature.

Although the solutions to the SSF's current problems seem to lie in programming, I'd guess the real solutions are found in some level of reliable funding. I think most internet users never give a second's thought to how it works, how its infrastructure is maintained or where the funds come from to do it all. The internet is just there, sort of like oxygen. But the truth is lots of people have to work on it and it actually has massive costs and, for the most part there is no free lunch, as the current problems with the SSF illustrate. Some of your users have already offered to help financially. Personally, you may have no stomach for the business end of it, to which I am very sympathetic - but some sort of a business plan for the SSF may allow it to reliably generate the funds necessary to keep it running and also permit most users access. You may have considered all that already, but I thought I'd at least bring it up.

In any case, many thanks and best wishes.
I'm off to the Keys next week to see what the BP oil spill disaster is doing. There may soon be no slugs (or anything else) in the Gulf of Mexico anyway.

Skip

Dear Skip,

Thanks for your comments. Hopefully in a relatively short time the SSF will be up again accepting and posting messages.

Every night I see the news on the oil spill. I think of all those opisthobranchs I have seen on the Forum from the Gulf of Mexico.  It reminds me just how little we know about the fauna of that region which may be in the process of being destroyed. I hope your visit to Florida will not be too depressing.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

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Locality: all the oceans of the world. Illustrator: Jan Kocian.

Jan Kocian

Dear Jan,

Thanks for another wonderful illustration - I particularly like the sad face on Melibe and the eyes of Armina peeking out of the sand. I hope, like you do, that the news of the Forum's demise is premature.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

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I am sorry to hear this as the forum is by far and away the most authoritative in the world on sea slugs. Dr. Rudman has personally helped me with identifications and nudibranch behavioural issues on several occassions and the database has helped many other times. We're passing around the message on scuba boards to see what can be done.

Michael Smith

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I can only echo the sentiments of the others who have written. This is a devastating development. The highest value of the forum lies in its unique interaction between divers, beach goers, academics, and you. Once converted to a static database we lose not only access to your experience but a whole community.

Again echoing others, why not set up some kind of account into which we can contribute funds for immediate technical aid? Why not have different levels of voluntary financial memberships for ongoing support? So many of us have spent hundreds - in my case thousands - of dollars on guide books yet so often our first step towards an id is to consult the Forum. I'm sure we would happily contribute to keep it going.

Deepest regards,
Leslie Harris

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Dear Bill and all sea slug forum users,
I am very sad of this news. I'm sure that we will be able to find a new way for the forum live again.
Many thanks for your works, knowledge and availability since the beginning.
I can 't believe that it's the end...
Thanks again, many thanks and take care.

NB: I want to send you a picture of Moebilli with red mouse...
See you soon.

Sincerely,
Hugues.

Etang-Salé, Reunion Island

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Dear Bill,

I discovered the beauty of opistobranchs after several dives in New-Caledonia and I bought an underwater camera to take some pictures of those beautiful animals. Your forum is the only reference website to identify or share information on it. I hope you'll find another to keep it alive.
Thanks for your great job and the time taken to provide us advices and guidance on our quest.

Be confident a solution can be found soon.

Dominique

New Caledonia

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Hi Bill,

I'm truly saddened to hear that the Sea Slug Forum is closing. The SSF has proved itself to be a most useful resource for finding information on sea slugs and also as a means of adding to that information. It will be missed.

Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into the SSF. I sincerely hope a solution is found that will allow the SSF to reactivated in the not too distant future!

Best wishes,

John Chuk.

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Dear Bill,

It is with great sadness that I read your message regarding the pending demise of the SSF. I have enjoyed the SSF for many years and it had become an almost daily ritual to look at the newest messages about exotic species of sea slugs.

Please let us know if there is any way that we can perhaps help to keep the SSF 'afloat'. Do you think the Australian Museum would respond positively to an e-mail campaign? I'm sure the numerous users of the SSF would gladly mount such a campaign.

If this is the end of the SSF, I would like to extend my personal 'thank you' to you for helping me to understand and enjoy the world sea slugs. My diving trips were never the same after discovering the SSF. It has been an honor and privilege to have had the opportunity to correspond with you over the years.

Thanx again.

Ron Silver

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Bill;

Thank you for your tremendous contribution to our interests and passion. The forum will be sorely missed.

Yours truly;

John Yasaki
California, USA

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