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I deplore change . . . and more so the older I get, it seems.

Nevertheless,

These times are challenging enough and likely to get more so.

IF . . . IF . . . IF . . .

Ads for lurkers say or for lurkers and non-donors . . . helped decrease the hassles and just the time and energy spent on fund raising . . . time and energy that could be better used on FR’s otherwise higher priorities—that might be a good change.

ATS made the transition to ad functioning fairly painlessly. They already had a strict excerpt policy.

I WOULD want there to be a bit looser policy here—that where we had written permissions filed with a mod etc. for whole posts, it would be OK.

It would be a hard and painful judgment call if I had to make such a decision. Part of me thinks that the hassles are going to increase such that the extra cash for more robust hardware and less time and energy spent on fund raising—might be a bigger blessing down the road than we can anticipate at present.

Sometimes at election time and even fundraising time . . . FR can take on far too much of the spirit of a cult.

I know you don’t like rear kissers/ing.

However, sometimes it doesn’t seem like anyone with less than a glowing supplicant attitude is tolerated much at all or long at all.

FR 10-12 years ago was much more robust with a wider diversity of ideas freely—even vigorously exchanged—often with great fiestiness—and we all survived and FR was a great almost free-for-all that was great fun for most of us, IIRC.

Some churches also transition from early years into being a clique of mostly old biddies gossiping about the “OUT-GROUP HAGS OVER THERE” and losing the healthy reasons for being a group.

To whatever degree FR gives into such an attitude or spirit, we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Any Organizational Development PhD can tell you that the healthiest organizations that are the most productive and the most successful—all handle negative feedback constructively, robustly and without punitive retaliation.

IF . . . IF . . . we go to some variation of a business model, I think it might be very needful to return to our more robust and resilient years on such scores.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to hold up even fairly narrow Conservative Constitutional and even Christian ideals as our standard and to not tolerate those who tear them down.

But I’m reminded about the two men who meet on the bridge . . . the check each other out—oh, both are Christian . . . ahhh . . . Trinitarian? Yes. . . . Wonderful . . . Evangelical? Yes. Great! . . . Baptist . . . Super! then finally after winnowing it down several more layers to a very minor splinter issue, one man realizes the other fellow is not IDENTICAL and so pushes him off the bridge.

FR shoots itself in the foot and decreases donations and pleasure in being here when it behaves in that fashion.

Were it to go to a business model and behave that way, it would hurt the viability of the business model significantly, imho.