[DiMarie]

This by far has been the most trumatic outage for so many of us. The last one we needed major equipment upgrade and through donations there was an abundance of funds there to hopefully to maintain the system. John grew up and expanded out from MGH to his new endevour that requires him to trvel.

I agree with so many, if there are 50,000 me4mbers to BT, there are easily that many lurkers and others that find our topics through searches.

So it makes sence to have sa taff, utilize ad's, it is a 501 3C, or whatever the non profit is, so it should be viable to have maintance for the system.

I also agree with the first poster of the moderators. I think John tries to rely on them, at many times they handle matters fine and swiftly. But, unless a moderator is familar with the board they would moderate; to know the regulars, from those who use more than one user name not for anonymity, but rather to troll, resulting in flaming. To not fully comprehend the family structure on each board, when intervention measures are taken to reslove problems,it can lead to harsh unsupported decisions.

We are growing out of a project to a major part of many peoples lives they count on.
I hope that the old information on BT can be safetly retrived, and still there valuable to so many in need of it, now and in the yeears to come.

Yes, like the B-12, the various others that had help from something not so known, something as small as a support wrap, to a recommendation to watch for harmful side affacts are so valuable.
Good post.

[Jaye]

It's true that there was no lack of funds the last time the issue came to the attention of the membership. Yes, the D___ C____s have oodles of money, and I don't want to start a debate on how or why they have so much nor try to describe to the innocent what is the extent of their powers. So, although DC do do some good with me-too drugs that don't take too much work, aren't necessarily safe, and produce huge short-term revenue, their neglect of other sectors of the market would put me outside the group of those willing to support them with their personal anguish and dreams.

Back to Braintalk. I totally agree that this is a system that has grown well beyond playing with avatars, and JL might not have realized what he was pledging when he made all those heartfelt promises. He will have to trust some staff as we have trusted him all these years. "I was travelling" can't mean that there were no telephones, fax machines, radios, or computers, or that the man was bound and gagged. Busy is something I have seen and been, and something no one should be who has not been able to trasfer his position of trust to others. I'm sorry John, you have done beautifully with your dreams, but, you see, they came to life, and they hurt and bleed and cry without their own kind. We'll still love you if you're not all-powerful any more [and by all-powerful I mean you can't do it all]. Not even God gets notice for that any more,[i.e., certain theological circles are tending toward an omnipresent but not omnipotent God, but that's another subject, LOL], LOL.

Jaye

[Wittesea]

What about charitable foundations?

Almost every millionaire has their own charitable foundation so that they can give away money to worthy causes and get tax breaks. I'm not just talking about the mega-millionaires or the famous millionaires (like Oprah and Bill gates and Ted Turner) I'm talking about the run of the mill average millionaires who no one hears much about because they aren't famous.... but they have money and they run charitable foundations to give money to non-profit orginizations for the tax break.

So what about finding a list of the millionaire-run foundations who give money away and asking any/all of them if they would be interested in supporting braintalk?

And let's not forget all the government grants that are available to non-profit orginizations.


BrainTalk could have gotten $$ and funding a long time ago -- but as someone else pointed out, there was no one looking for the funds, applying for funds, or doing anything about it.... now maybe that is because of time constraints, or maybe because there is no one in official capacity who knows how to do these things. If that's the case, then we need to find someone who knows how to do it and has the time to do it -- several BT members have expressed that they have time and ability, but to my knowledge no one in official capacity ever took any of these members up on their offers to help.

All I know for sure is that an orginization as large as BT with so many people who rely on BT should not be offline for so long. Whether BT needs funds to keep the software/hardware working properly, or BT needs funds to pay a staff, or both -- Braintalk needs to do whatever is necessary to ensure that a crash like this never happens again.

[Jane]

As a not for profit organization, BT has had a governing/working board for quite some time. It is my understanding (whether true or not) that David first "came on board" in the capacity of developement/fundraising.

A number of the recomendations that have been discussed, have been implemented. They were put in place as it became evident that JL would not be as accessable as he once was. I would be very slow to assume that the existing problems are driven by John's ego.........real or imagined.

[DocJohn]

What is clear is that apparently the community's technical needs were dependent upon one person, which is never a good thing if that person isn't as available as he or she once was. (I know this from personal experience, as I've been down that road myself.)

It's also a matter of priorities, as well as the technical complexity of how the forums were setup. It's easy (it took about an hour to setup these forums) to setup forums for a small group (10,000 or less members). But when you hit numbers like 50,000+ members, well, you definitely have to plan for additional technical resources (2 well-configured, hardy servers at about $300/month total would easily handle that). We have 1/5th the size of the community but have never been down for more than a day in 7 years.

I am happy to lend a hand (or technical hand, if need be) to help in any way possible in getting BT back up and running. JL knows me and my background, and he knows where/how to reach me if needs anything (he lives down the road from me!).

DocJohn

[KTM5665]

If it's to be a success, he also needs to reavaluate his moderators. Too many good people were banned, unwarrented for alot of them. No explanations were given by DH, just **Boom, your banned**. that isnt fair.

[BobbyB]

Originally Posted by KTM5665

If it's to be a success, he also needs to reavaluate his moderators. Too many good people were banned, unwarrented for alot of them. No explanations were given by DH, just **Boom, your banned**. that isnt fair.

you got that right

[Cherie]

MSWorld seems to be funded in large part by Berlex so certainly approaching the Big 4 would seem to be the order of the day.

To whomever started this place while the regular forums are down...Thank you.
Cherie

[LizaJane]

I don't know anything about how John was running the site, but I do know how much I missed having it, even though I had not been posting much in recent months.

If John's "moved on" to other interests in his life, does anyone have the ability to get the database?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sure has a lot of money they HAVE to give away, and soon. This is one really good cause for them---if there was someone to run the thing.

[ZombieSlayer]

Mr. Lester HAS NOT moved on from BrainTalk. There is a new update at the BT site that gives a little more detail as to what happened.

The timing of the crash is why it's taken so long to get BT back up and running.

While I personally think BT needs a "mirror server" desperately, that is something that Mr. Lester has to realize.

I also think that he needs at least 1 person he can share the responsibility with. Only Mr. Lester can make this decision however.