--of what to do about keeping the Braintalk communities alive, assuming they can be resuscitated.

My take on this is that while JL and others had done an admirable job at developing and nurturing the Braintalk boards, they have grown to the point that they need more than one person, or small group of people, to maintain them. There have been several outages, both large and small, over the last several years, and these need to be prevented, as the cost to the people who use the site--and with lurkers, linkers, etc., that rises into the hundreds of thousands worldwide--is enormous.

And I'm not just talking about the costs of not being able to interact--Braintalk is the world's largest neurological database, with info that cannot be accessed all in one place at any other website. As such, it is relied upon by doctors and researchers as well as patients and caregivers. Think of where THOSE people would be without JCC's Gluten File, Rose's B12 info, Mrs. Doubtfyre's supplement info--and the list goes on and on.

I have seen hints of a proprietary attitude about Braintalk among the moderators and JL occassionally; I suggest that once a board grows this big, even if one has originated it and nurtured it, one cannot morally say that one really "owns" it any more, even if one is within one's legal rights to still make that claim. Therefore, it might be prudent at this time for Braintalkers to urge that JL perhaps aid in setting up some type of governance board, beyond the moderators, and including technical experts, to prevent these outages from ever happening again. It may even be that the day-to-day monitoring of the site needs to be in the hands of such a board, which might even need to include paid staff, working at it full-time and with full-time responsibility. This would enable JL to pursue other projects, or travel, without that resulting in such long period of downtime if something fails.

Commentary is invited.