This board only has value because of the people who come here, who provide support, who bare their souls. The 'newbies' and the 'old timers'.
Without these people, it's just a computer program, an empty shell. I've been in the Internet business for 15 years. I ran an ISP for many of those years. The case law as far as liability has been long established. You put a disclaimer that says people use the board at their own risk, and forbid links to other competing websites and that's it.
Having someone to call when you're desperate and hurting is an incredible lifeline. I've been there for several other men and one woman. And they've been there for me.
We're all smart enough to create 'yahoo' e-mails and keep our anonymity until we feel secure enough to share a phone number, and make a new friend we can support.
Tell me, is the goal of this 'community' to keep people from communicating, to only allow communication in the form of paragraphs of ideas, or is it real give and take? Sometimes someone is in real crisis and needs a person to talk to NOW. Sometimes they have NOBODY they can turn to and there are people on the board who know their pain.
If you are truly fearful of the 'liability' then I would be happy to set up a board on one of my servers for you and direct people to go there to exchange e-mails or phone numbers.
Or better yet, I'll offer to set up a board that doesn't have all these database problems we keep seeing because of limitations in the search function of the poorly written UBB software.
This board serves a great purpose. But I have to ask the question: WHOSE purpose is it serving? The community? Or the 'owners'?
Sometimes when you create something, you have to let it evolve. And that means relinquishing some of your control.
With only 3 moderators who, while they may try their best to help as many people as possible, they cannot hope to achieve that goal. This community needs to thrive, not be held hostage to rules based on fear, or control.
That goes against the concepts we've learned in "Divorce Busting". Let go.
