How do you feel about a membership fee for A2K?

i never understand the need for an ignore button, have some self control, ignore

Hawkeye has explained that he has NO information
that it is closing down. He was addressing the theoretical concept
of such a possibility, not disseminating news.

On another thread, it's been mentioned that the A2K "ignore" button could be removed and the posters will be allowed to fight it out, till they all drop dead.

Recall some of the threads on A2K that have gone on for years, like the Israel
fight for land(?) or the murders in Florida, or the non- ending thread of whether or not women want to be raped.

Do you know how many A2K members have dropped dead at their computers, while on A2K? Do you know/or remember how many members died as a result of suicide?

like any vice, one has a choice to walk away

Not totally true. Hawkeye may have been speculating and this speculation may from derived from his statement concerning Craven, for which no citation was given.

And you want to hurry this along?

Maybe I'm dense, but what does this have to do this anything.

Side note: There has been at least 1 suicide.

it means if it wasn't for the ignore button, half the population of A2K would be dead of apoplexy or suicide

that would really hurt the revenue stream

ah...gotcha.

the very best thing I can suggest to you is to ignore (or even better thumb down) Hawkeye when he gets on one of his 'the A2k sky is falling' freakouts. He's been having them for years.

Bad idea.For what purpose?

As you can see bob, that was the 2nd post in the thread, from me.
At first all I got was a snarky answer.
When pushed, all it seems Miller is concerned with is the moderators getting paid (btw, using the old Dale Carnegie trick of "wouldn't you agree.....?"

Miller hasn't come up with anything else, so I guess she just want to be a moderator and get paid a "stipend" of $15/hr.

Yeah, hawkeye is way high up on my list of people I listen to......not.

One might start with a voluntary contribute button. I really do feel that Robert deserves something for all of his work.

agreed, other forums i've seen have them

That shud be: other fora.

I think it's an issue of paywall/red velvet rope politics. Keeping the spammers and louses away.


That said, $100 is an insane price to pay for a forum that doesn't let you change the font and colors of the site.

It'd be forum suicide. Activity will drop 90% and too many people (including myself) don't have that kind of money to throw randomly away).

How is $15 an hour a small fee? That's more then double most state's minimum wage law requirements. Not saying that our beloved moderators don't deserve such lofty salary (because they do).

As for Robert/Craven? Where do you think most of the ad money goes to? Save the Chia Pet Foundation?

That would be quite fair and accessible to those who desire to give a little back to the site.

I think it would be a mistake.

Other than providing the owner(s) of the site with revenue, I can't see an up-side.

It won't serve as a means to filter some of the more inane or ugly contributions. In order to post comments on articles at the Washington Post site, one needs to subscribe. It's not cheap. Subscriptions do not, at all, prevent inane or ugly comments from being made. Nor does WaPo's use of word filters. Commenters have shown ingenuity in finding ways to get words like "****" and "****" through the filters.

(As a side note, just the other day I saw a post at WaPo from our old friend kuvaz. He uses the same picture of one of one of his dogs as his icon)

I hate the idea of monitors. All of them will have some sort of bias or we'll get the silly absolutism found in "zero-tolerance" policies in schools.

Craven has provided us with two very effective tools to filter what we don't want to see.

We can argue all day as to what it means to use the "ignore" feature, but if one finds another member to be reliably obnoxious or absurd, it's a simple thing to remove them from one's sight.

The thumb feature has, I think, been distorted into a way of scoring "points" for or against other members, but if used, as it was intended, one can eliminate the sight, at least, of the same comments being posted and re-posted in slightly different ways.

There are often times when it appears that a thread has been dominated by a discussion in which I have no interest, however if it's a discussion (which is to say a give and take between at least two members) there's nothing to object to, and, again, I can rid my screen of it by using the thumb feature.

One person's passionate argument may be someone else's boring dreck, but how would it enhance this forum to have someone with the power to make the decision as to which it actually is? Some may be pleased, but others will be offended.

I also really have no idea why anyone would pay anything just to read these discussions and never post a comment. Is there really anyone out there who does this? I guess we'll never know.