[reverett123]

BrainTalk is important and probably more so than we can imagine. For every one of us who use it as a soap box or street corner hangout, there are dozens of "lurkers" who just depend on it being there. Just so they know that they are not alone and that if things get dire enough to overcome their hesitancy that there will be someone who understands.

Such a community lifeline is far too important to owe its existence to the health, stamina, or whim of just one man. It should be structured to survive just as the Internet was structured to survive by distributing control and resources.

John Lester has done a great work over the last few years and we all owe him a great debt. He has created a community which is unequalled in the history of the planet. One which future historians will study. It would not be hyperbole to put him in the ranks with Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth Catalog project.

But John, assuming you read this at some point, it may be that it is time for your child to leave home. If you come to agree then I suggest that it would be fitting that you took a role in bringing that about. We know of your interests in such communities. I assume that (perhaps unconsciously) BT has become less interesting for you as other projects beckoned and you yearned to move on.

While they seldom know it at the time, people of genius often do their best work in their youth. BT may well be the most wonderful creation to spring from your hand, but only if you finish it. Help us, John. We need independence and redundancy. A governing board drawn from the members and a phased and dignified exit by its father.

Perhaps you are overbudened. Shift your load to our shoulders.

Perhaps you find BT to be boring after 11 years, particularly when compared to the possibilities of your projects at Linden Lab. That would be normal. So change the dynamic! You are into innovative uses of online communities and BT gets in your way?? No, managing BT gets in your way. Take a lead role in the final step of setting your greatest work on a solid foundation from which it can manage itself. Your work is half done. It is time to finish it.

[redjpwranglergirl]

While I've only been a member of BT for a little over 2 yrs., and don't know all the "ins and outs" of it or what might have caused this latest problem, I have to say that putting the forum into the hands of a governing board drawn from the members would be a disasterous mistake. I feel like that would be the end of BT and the end of anybody taking anything seriously on there ever again. What would happen if certain members, who were placed in charge, didn't like other members who post on there regularly? What if someone complained against another member who happens to be unknowingly on the governing board? I suppose they could possibly choose to either ban that member temporarily or permanently or make it so miserable for that member that they'd go ahead and leave the forum on their own accord. How long would anybody want to stay here if they knew that other members, who might not like them or agree with them, could decide their fate? It basically boils down to "putting the fox in charge of the henhouse". While things might not always be handled like we'd like them to be, I think that JL had a very good reason for having things as they've been in the past and I wouldn't want anybody elses whims to decide if I or anybody else can post here.

[Phillipe]

Have to agree with the Redwranglergirl here and disagree with Reverett123.

[Jane]

Life at BT has been chaotic since the JL left MGH which resulted in the current division of responsibility and authority (power). This is a management style problem, not money. Hopefully, when this all shakes down, things will settle but I am not confident.

Jane

[Wittesea]

I think we need more than one person to be in charge of software and hardware problems (so we don't have another incident of the forums being broken for 6+ weeks).

But I don't think the extra people should come from BrainTalk members. Maybe JL has some local Boston people he trusts or works with that he can rely on to take care of BrainTalk problems when he is traveling, or maybe John Lester can ask other website owners (like DocJohn) to help carry the responsibility for software hardware fixes when John Lester is unavailable - or something like that.

We need more than one person to be responsible for BrainTalk - but the extra staff should not come from the membership of Braintalk - the extra staff should come from outside of braintalk (for exactly the reasons that Red pointed out).

[Phillipe]

Agreeance with Wittsea also. There could be problems like Red stated if other members of BT got their fingers in the pie. Need outside involvement not inside.