Hi Paul..
Here are my two cents on the issue...( and they are probably worth just that 2 cents)
OBT was very unique when it first started ...I feel JL did alot of good things.. I also feel he is a compassionate person..and he will always have a large following..
However Braintalk also changed as it grew..once what were fairly liberal open discussions before...became at times very tightly moderated ones...while at the same time in other cases there were still some liberal discussions and some criticism allowed..
To me what made it special when it started... was the open discussion and the compassion of not only the members but the adminstrators and moderators..( although many of us remember the days when there was no moderators on BT at all --except JL)....and it is obviously to big for that now...
But, I feel OBT is losing the open discussion and compassion for the most part..I mean there were "literally" years when not a single person" with ALS" was ever banned.....back then threads were just simply locked and words of reminding folks that this community was about compassion were left if a thread started getting out of hand...rarely even that was done at the ALS forum..then boom half a dozen or so people were banned some for merely questioning publicy why another was...
Right now fear.of being banned is why alot of people handled things through back door e-mail gossip and posts on other forums such as this......which to me just leads to more problems for OBT...there are also people simply afraid of criticizing BT at all...for that matter posting their thoughts on just about anything...
Challenging decisions and public criticism though is just not tolerated at all now there ..that makes little sense to me as personally I'd prefer my laundry to be aired in the forum on which I post..instead of many others..but as the rules are being enforced right now its walking a tightrope to openly discuss "any" problems there...
Maybe...and I don't know..if many of problems that have arisen there..because the forum is so big now..as Braintalk is/was one of the largest forums on the internet of its kind it is hard to say....
I post at both forums. though I am more careful in choosing my words there and what I feel I can safely say....as I have friends that post at both places..and I don't like to leave newbies hanging out to dry there..though at one point I got sick of everything and said to heck with it all ..which was bad on one hand as there are many people I missed ...but which in a way was good because my time on the computer took away my time from my family and problems were created due to that which I did not realize..plus I was posting there too much anyway and I did not want the forum to become to centered around my husband and I...as there are better caregivers out there than I..and everyone with ALS is just as important. I have a tendency to be to vocal and opinionated ..if you haven't noticed...but hopefully though I can find a better balance...that and keep our new computer system running..I can sympathize with JL there...Lisa