I dipped out on this comment series some time back, when it first showed signs of deterioration. Checking back to see if anything was happening, I find it in total degeneration. How sad. Boring egotistical meaningless stream-of-consciousness space-wasting and semi-abusive nastiness ('pimply youth' 'arthritic claws') and smart-a*se verbiage. Could the editor please pluck from this mess the one or two useful ideas that have arisen. It would be nice to have the last ten pages condensed into one or two paragraphs.

As a salve to the mild irritation confessed to by OLO userID 'veritas' in her post of Thursday, 14 October 2010 at 1:31:35 AM, caused by departure of discussion from the topic of the article, I bring to her attention by way of assurance that articles do reach the wider shores of the OLO readership, that despite its discussion thread having been derailed six days ago, and remained unposted to for the last four days, the contemporary article 'The coming liquid fuel crisis' was this morning displaying as this week's most popular article. Proof: http://bit.ly/caJP3L

Returning to Article 1. of the Memorandum .....

An inhibiting factor to the making of donations in support of OLO is, IMO, the fear in a would-be donor that any donation (and particularly small ones) may not be matched to any significant extent by others, and may therefore, if made, be effectively ineffective, and thus wasted.

A sticky, or otherwise likely long-standing-upon-the-default-index-display, topic might become the site of a brainstorm or motivational think-tank through which ideas as to how such reluctance to financially support the site might be overcome may emerge. Perhaps the existing software might permit a categorization of topics in the index to the General Discussion area of the Forum as 'Forum Financial Support', analogously to the existing category 'Technical Support' (a category not presently on display due to no topics having been proposed/approved within the last month within that category).

Well, that's my gem of an idea for the day, and whilst it may not be a diamond, perhaps it might be an amethyst rather than just a stone. With that I shall make my escape.




Off Topic. BTW, veritas, you did get one reply to your April, 2007, article 'Hot stuff on little kids - Dr Mustard adds spice to the reading wars'. See: http://bit.ly/bEqKQk