Mission Statement

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Mission Statement

"This newsletter is temporary... I have my doubts as to whether

I'll still be doing this in five years."

Editor, Indy Squadron Dispatch, Volume 1 Number 4, November 1989

Mission Statement

The Indianapolis Dawn Patrol Squadron - normally abbreviated to "Indy Squadron" - was born on December 29, 1988, when the four original players met for their first games. The players were Scott Jones, Nelson and Stephen Skinner, and Dory Oda. Scott and Stephen had been playing unofficial 1-on-1 games for over a year before the first four-player games were held.

The publication you are now reading, the Indy Squadron Dispatch, started a few months later as a small, local newsletter distributed to Dawn Patrol players in the Indianapolis area. It's purpose is (and has always been) to inform Indy players of upcoming game days and promote local interest in the game.

We also carry other news of interest to a WWI aviation audience, including book and movie reviews, news on upcoming WWI-oriented events, museum openings and debuts, gaming news and more.

Published entirely online since 1999 as Indysquadron.com, ISD is the original local squadron newsletter and the longest continuously published local newsletter in existence. There is no publication schedule, but new issues are generally released every 3-4 weeks.

As webmaster, I pay for the site, domain name and web hosting space and hold copyright to the names:

Indy Squadron
Indy Squadron Dispatch
Indianapolis Squadron

Please note that I do not own the Indy Squadron nor do I make any such claim - the group belongs to the players, not me. I hold ownership of the name alone, and only because in order to have a site with our name on it, someone must own the name and purchase the domain before we can get the desired web address.

ISD has grown immensely in popularity and is now read by a significant portion of the Fits Society, a wide array of war gamers and aviation history buffs. Hence, we have broadened the scope of ISD's coverage to include many items that are of interest to the entire Fits community and military aviation enthusiasts.

However, ISD exists to support the game and unify it's players, not offer duplicitous material or competition to other Society publications. As editor in chief, I believe that ISD should not offer material that has been traditionally published by AERODROME, offered on the official Dawn Patrol web site or carried by other local squadron newsletters.

As a result, ISD will not carry full feature articles on individual games held at Gen Con, which has been traditionally covered by AERODROME. ISD will carry the immediate results in headline format and have discussions of Gen Con on the forum, but complete coverage of the event's individual games will remain an AERODROME exclusive. The same goes for the Society's Ace/Experienced Pilot List, official DP rules, financial reports, etc., etc., unless local players are directly involved and avoiding the story makes it impossible to publish coverage of the achievements of our own local players. These are all news items traditionally covered by other Dawn Patrol media. Don't ask us to cover them because we will not. Every concept included on Indysquadron.com is to the best of my knowledge an original concept which does not duplicate or cause competition with any other segment of the Society. ISD's goal is to complement and unify, not divide or compete.

ISD will also freely promote other DP sites, direct our visitors to those sites without reservation, and carry as much news and information as possible from other squadrons in other areas. If ISD can help your group promote your local or society event, squadron or web site, or military aviation history product in any way, we would be delighted to do so.

Visitors to Indysquadron.com should expect Indy Squadron gaming news to take precedence. This is, after all, the Indy Squadron Dispatch. We are delighted to have visitors from the entire Society, but the primary audience remains Indy members who love the game and WWI aviation history.

Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy reading this site as much as I enjoy editing it.

Stephen Skinner

Editor in Chief

Policies

Censorship and correctional policy:

A) The webmaster gets no pay of any kind for the work performed on this site... in fact, it costs him money. The webmaster pays for the web space, the domain name and the forum space out of his own pocket. The webmaster therefore takes the position that:

he will pretty much censor anything he wants
this publication will occasionally contain unintentional errors and we'll all just have to live with it.

B) That said, the webmaster does not practice deliberate censorship. His only sources for material are handwritten notes from gaming days and what he can gather from other players, and invariably, there will be many things that he forgets, considers of less importance, or just plain misses. Regrettably, typos and various errors will also occur. The webmaster apologizes for past and future mistakes and asks for your understanding.

Readers are welcome to submit articles and corrections - even opinions that are hostile to the webmaster - and in most cases they will be published virtually unedited. Readers may also utilize the Forum to post corrections. Corrections are welcomed and appreciated, and may be printed in a future issue.

If that still doesn't make you happy, refer to Part A of the Censorship Policy.

Quotations used on IndySquadron.com are from public domain sources such as the forum. They will be removed upon request of the individual quoted. No private correspondence is published without permission.

Privacy policy: We don't collect any personal information. Any information that you post or offer will not be turned over to anyone for any reason. The only data collected on this site is reflected in our hit counter (see bottom of page, "View Site Stats") and is open for all to see.

Article submissions are solicited from the readership. No payments can be made.

The Indy Squadron Dispatch has no set publication schedule. Issues are released as the webmaster can edit them. Ten to twenty issues constitute a normal year, with release dates usually following major events, Indy Squadron gaming days or 3-6 week periods.