Hi Bill,

Lately I've been so busy with my own business and my forums that I don't have much time to post to others unless I think I can add something interesting.  I do check in and read lots of them but I don't always make a post.   Even when it looks like I'm here for many hours, my name is online just because I don't want to log out and then have to log in again so I keep an Adlandpro window open while I'm doing other things online. 

We need to remember that this community is just a small part of the entire Adlandpro site, the classified area and other ad resources get tons of traffic every day.  My profile says I've been in the community since Feb 2004 but I didn't become active until last year, I was inactive for 2 years until I realized that this is a great place to network.  BUT I was very active in the advertising areas, Adlandpro pulls in a great deal of traffic and has a very high ranking. 

I'm not worried about people criticizing my posts, I spent awhile in AOL chatrooms way back when, and those people are beasts.  Here we're trying to network for the most part and the little behind-the-scenes stuff isn't even comparable to what is said in non-money-making communities.

Hello Again Everybody

    I just couldn't help myself. I had to jump in here again.LOL

    It just amazes me that some of my forum topics don't get more traffic. For example. There is a war going on and I advocate for our soldiers and veterans. I tell things that I have learned and try to get people involved but it just seems to go right by most people. How many of you knew that on any given night there are over a half a million homeless veterans living on the streets of America.

   In my Autism forums I try to get people interested in helping kids and families who suffer with this terrible disorder. Did you know that right now, In the U.S., one out of every 150 children is diagnosed with autism. A year ago it was 1 out of 166 and 30 years ago it was 1 out of 10,000. Did you know that there is mercury in childhood immunization shots and our kids get roughly 28 shots before they even start school. Mercury is the 2nd most dangerous neurotoxin known to man. Eight countries have completely banned the use of thimerosal, the mercury based preservative used in these shots.

   There are 300,000,000 people in the U.S. and 50,000,000 of them have a diagnosable mental illness. Less than 10% of those are receivng treatment. In the U.S. the single largest provider of mental health care is ,,,,,,,,,,,the penal system. Thats right. There are more mentally ill people behind bars than there are in treatment. The cost of housing a prisoner is around $30,000 per year. The cost of mental health care on an outpatient basis is about $7,000 per year.

   Now I realize that these are not the easiest things to talk about but, aren't they all a part of our daily lives. Hey, I love a good joke now and then too and I'll carry on with the best of them but, this is the world that we are living in. I just don't understand why more people don't get involved with trying to make it a better world. Actually, there are more people in Adlandpro who really care about other people than in other networks that I belong to. It's like the cyberworld is where people go to get away from the real world. I truly wish it was just that easy.

Sincerly, Bill

Hello Everybody

   The following is a post that was made by a good friend of mine in another network. I just thought I would share it with you all.

Tend Them Well

I sat next to the bed of old man, a friend for over twenty years, and held his hand. Hal was dying. We both knew these next few days would be his last.

We spent time reminiscing about his long and fruitful career as a church pastor. We talked about old friends. We chatted about his family. And I listened as he offered sage wisdom and advice to a member of a "younger generation."

At a lull in the conversation, Hal seemed to carefully consider what he was about to say next. Then he squeezed my hand, gazed intently into my eyes and whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, "Nothing is more important than relationships."

I knew that this was somehow near the pinnacle of his life's learnings. As he considered all of his experiences -- personal, professional, spiritual and family, this one ultimate observation surfaced above the rest: "Nothing is more important than relationships."

"Don't get overly caught up in your career," he seemed to be saying to me. "Likewise, don't use people in order to achieve your goals, then throw them away. No project, no program, no task should be pursued at the expense of friends and family.

"Remember," I heard him saying, as clearly as if he were speaking the words, "that in the end, only your relationships will truly matter. Tend them well."

Writer Og Mandino puts it this way: "Beginning today," he said, "treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again."

At the end of a long life, my friend Hal would have agreed.

Author Unknown

• there is an enormous amount of duplication in forum threads in categories all over the place! Including by people who should know better   Although the haphazard structure of the  Forum Categories has also some responsibility for this.
  
• and  lets face it - some people start an indiscriminate number of  forum threads every week  when one or two would do just as well.

• the vast number of advertising forums in non-advertising categories which have flooded the community.

My solution?  And here I am about to commit Adland heresy. To cut out  the "numbers game" and stop giving merit to the number of forum threads or posts that people make, and let the merit show itself in the quality of the forums started.  Like many people, I would rather see fewer, but better quality forum thread topics  which last longer.

The present completely overwhelming situation of dozens of new forum thread  invitations and thousands of post notifications a week, as people  try to "get their numbers up" is, in my humble opinion, one of the reasons that response to some forums is poorer than previously.  People just cant keep up.  The rush to join the numbers game is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Well, you did ask! lol

Love
Jenny

p.s. a spell checker and an obligatory preview before posting might help too.