Nicholas O. Lindan wrote

Anybody know of any others?

My favorites for gear information are currently

http://www.dpreview.com
http://www.robgalbraith.com
http://www.sportshooter.com

Folks willing to start, run and fund a discussion group, and
that are _not_ control freaks, are few and far between.

LOL! Phil Askey is relatively tolerant, Rob Galbraith less so
(especially if anyone mentions rip-off UK prices), but they don't insist
that non-posting visitors register. What's the point?

I found CompuServe, in it's early days at least, to be a
pinnacle of control freakishness.

IT managers by day, were they? :-)

--
Hil