Reverett, this is a long winding road we're on. If money or religion could make us whole, it would have happened by now. Who knows, it could happen tomorrow.

Email lists and bulletin boards are become 'long in tooth' with the advent of social networking and instant 'news'.

What will evolve after NeuroTalk and Parkinsn?

Historically while email was in it's infancy before chat, listservs and bulletin boards were the most popular in numbers of subscribers.

As full search grew, community growth reversed because you could go directly to the answer you were wanting.

Privacy and copyright issues have also had a damping effect. Listowners or moderators became responsible for everything posted by subscribers and threat of lawsuit for copyright infringement became common place. What a subscriber reveals today through their postings may not be what they want for the public to know in future years.

I have had all of these issues in attempting to do the "good". Service to the community is fraught with all kinds of pitfalls. At a point, without some mechanism to fund administration I don't see a unlimited future for either PIENO or Neurotalk.

It is difficult to predict the future when your condition becomes politicized but by posting about Parkinson's puts a public face on the issues we face.

John Cottingham