Steve, this is a tricky situation which may get trickier. In my first post about Rick (which I deleted upon request from Dennis for legal reasons) I made it clear that newbies with a limited skill set were, imo, in a totally different league than Rick. I went out of my way to point that out and also to say that this was the first time I ever put a post up against a rider. I think posting about bad occurences rarely leads to anything and that action on scene should be taken.

There is a drastic difference between an innocent (very small, and one time made) mistake by a newbie that was made last night that may have lead to "carnage" in 20, but that actually didn't lead to much and a "repeat offender" that by all accounts, leaves a very strong impression in everyone's minds who encounters him. I believe the new riders last night won't intentionally repeat their mistake and obviously want to learn from it. I am also confident that prior to this thread riders understood that tangling kites is a no-no.

I am not convinced Rick is the same (in terms of learning from his repeated mistakes). His local forum is concerned as our we and now Damien says something. What to do? I don't know. But to me if a repeat "offender" isn't approached, who will be?

If we are going to honestly police this area, we need to (like Steve is attempting to do) agree on some basics or get a conversation going. It seems like a good idea.
However, repeated attempts have been made live (in meetings) and also made on seperate forums at making some agreements for over 5 years. Most conversations basically went nowhere. It's hard to agree as a group on anything, so I understand.

At this point I honestly believe that we are safer (as a group) than we were 3 years ago when we had less riders. The reason is that we can ride tighter with higher kites and most of the time not get tea bagged in gusts due to increased ability to spill wind.
I also think kiting is attracting respectful professional people out for a good time, so I am personally alot less worried and quite surprised at how well things are going (at least here).
3 years ago I honestly thought we had one season left.

I think what has kept this local scene so good and safe is the communication that exists at the launches and the helpfulness of the riders.