[John Riley]

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

[Julie Steiner]

John, if we're applying Ecclesiastes 1 to this situation, I think Verse 9 is more apropos than Verse 2.

Which might be paraphrased as Inertia, inertia, all is inertia.

[John Riley]

Julie, point granted. I'm always having to bow to people's superior knowledge.

[Mark McDonnell]

Quick answer: no. Seems beyond obvious.

[Jayne Osborn]

You're entitled to your opinion, but I find some of the comments rather disrespectful to Alex. If he was going to take any notice of them at all he would have done by now, given the number of times the same question has been asked in recent years.

The Fiction and the Art boards get extremely little traffic, yet nobody clamours for them to go!

Jayne

[Aaron Novick]

I re-read the entire thread. Who has been disrespectful to Alex? I am genuinely flummoxed. The only people who have even mentioned Alex (excepting this post) are you and Roger.

[Jayne Osborn]

You don't have to mention Alex by name to be disrespectful, Aaron. This is HIS site, his design, what he spends a lot of his life (and his money) on...

The Deep End has been slagged off more times than I care to recall. It's there, it's going to stay, and no one has to use it if they don't want to. I'm not going to say which comments I think are disrespectful; suffice it to say that I think Alex deserves the support of us all, not regular calls to dispense with TDE.

Jayne

[Aaron Novick]

I do not agree that having ideas for how to improve one's community is "disrespectful" to that community's absent leadership.

[Michael Cantor]

When Alan Sullivan was alive (he died about ten years ago, but had given up the Deep End well before that)) and running the Deep End it was an immensely demanding and very special workshop. There was a reason we had people like Alicia Stallings participating. After Alan's illness and death, the Deep End went into a decline. At this stage - failing an massively opinionated and talented leader - and failing participants willing to be bluntly told their poem stinks and shouldn't be posted in the Deep End - and considering the lack of attention the Deep End gets - I don't see what it contributes. But it's Alex's Board, and if Alex wants to keep the Deep End, it is entirely his choice. It does no harm - and, who knows - maybe someday somebody who mirrors Alan's unique talents and chutzpah will emerge.

[John Riley]

Discussing the usefulness of a board, including the background of its existence and how that has changed, is not disrepectful. I don't know Alex as well as you do Jayne, but I certainly appreciate all that he has done. I don't think someone who has gone through what Alex has gone through on this board over the years is going to find a discussion of the applicability of one of its boards to be disrespectful. Are you saying changes, or perhaps improvements, can never be made because that is disrespectful? I simply don't think Alex would agree with that point-of-view, but may be wrong.