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Once upon a time, Fountain Pen Network user Kcat offered up a brilliant yet simple solution to an age-old problem: how to try a wide variety of inks without buying and storing whole bottles of each. FPN members around the world began exchanging small vials of ink by mail. Dillo became our vial master, graciously distributing the tiny vessels, at cost, to his fellow FPN users. All of our lives are more colorful for their hard work.

Time passed, with Kcat's system becoming more popular each day. Soon, the ink exchange posts numbered in the hundreds. Their permanent nature led to a cacophony of repeat posts, old and out-of-date posts obfuscating current ones. The task of finding an active, compatible trader in that din was a daunting one.

The ink exchange needed a breath of fresh air. Along came FPN newbie HedgeMage -- a professional web developer. HedgeMage envisioned a new way to find ink exchange partners, wherein users let their web browsers do the walking. Under the new set-up, users would maintain pofiles showing their ink haves and wants. These profiles could be updated as a user's collection changed, or set to "offline", removing that user from searches until he or she chose to resume trading. The result: a noise-free, automated exchange search that put the focus back on great ink, instead of on the search for it.

Not long after, HedgeMage began work on the new ink exchange, aided by members of aporetic's new FPN chat. Like everything on FPN, the ink exchange site is very much a community effort. Please help keep it that way by learning how you can contribute.