Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group "THE" KA Book Project

To all of you, surely what Dragonslayer owns is merely a domain name. A name in fact that he has kept going at his own expense. He has not trumpetted this to the world at large but rather has kept his own counsel. Some may think this disguises some kind of nefarious activity. I chose to believe that he cares to keep the site going, he should be appreciated, not vilified.

As to ownership of KA, that is ours,the members, the ones just like you that toss in a thought or an opinion, an idea and even have an argumet about something. KA would not exist but for the membership, Johns ownership is a techicality probably because whoever sold the domain needs a specific name to put on errrr. is it 'WHoSIS' anyway the register of domain owners.

Lets give this stuff arest and get back to battling John on AS matters and not spend our time chasing phantom villainy, it doesn't exist.

Hello there.

Nice to meet you.

I hope you don't think I am being disrespectful when I say this. It is certainly not my intention.

When I was at school I was taught in English lessons how to use quotations in an argument (I have looked this up to make sure I am not making this up!)

I have noticed a lot lately, that people are taking a little piece of what someone has said to use in an argument against them.

There is no problem with this if the quotation is representative of the essence of what someone is trying to say.

The problem arises, when you take it out of the context it was written in. I think if you re-read the post you quoted from and think about what is being said as a whole, what circumstances the post has been made in, and what it is in response to - perhaps you might see that your quotations distort what the writer was saying and why. I hope I have explained that properly.

It is often difficult to stay objective when one is reading or discussing something that provokes an emotional response. But when one is quoting a person directly it is very important to do so in context, unless of course you are asking for clarification on a point or something like that.

I hope I have not offended you by saying this, and say again that I have noticed lots of people doing this lately.

I am a new member and I know that you have a long history with this site. I hope that I have not overstepped the mark here.

Take care,
Tink

Like Alan said please lets give it a rest now and get on with helping each other.Which is what we do best.

Kevin

Well, Johnny:



Yes, the people here are still worth trusting to step up to the plate--it was a gamble that I thought I had lost.

But if KA goes out of business, it will not be because we have not tried, but only because there was not enough CARING from the members. If that were the case, why should I also CARE?

Well, we once stated the purpose of KA was to go out of business eventually. Hopefully we can put ourselves out of business someday even if we have to do it by ourselves.

I was a member of Brian's "ASweb," and visited Brian several times when he lived in Las Vegas, the first time with a group, as we had a meeting there. At that time we asked Brian if he minded whether we took over the site and he said "GO FOR IT--I hope there can be hundreds of sites about AS!"
Regret that Brian was unable to continue in any capacity, but it is his legacy to bring us together to start KA.

Pete came up with "KickAS" and the logo, which is now tattooed permanently upon his shoulder. He worked myriad hours to get content into and format KA, along with Tony Browneller, and a few others. Eventually, Pete did not want to be involved anymore, and I volunteered to become owner and to keep KA going.

Although I have some bias on behalf of what has been successful for me, I do recognize that NSD is a very small portion of KA and it was not nor never will be my intention to change the basic nature of KA--but that also means that KA will keep the Ebringer material and NSD, and I'm not ready to be shy about this or disguise the facts.

To be yet again mis-characterized by You only adds to the level of angst here.

I do not own KA for profit, ego, or for any reason other than with the goal of helping people who have AS: And this includes people who either will not or cannot approach this disease as I have.

If people come here for comfort and friendship, that is wonderful, but that is not my contribution--I'm not here to make friends, although I have, and I'm not here to coddle people and tell them what they want to hear, although apparently we need more pabulum--how about just installing a gumball machine: Put a nickel in and get exactly what you expect! No chance of ever getting a pearl of great price, just gumballs or a lump of coal. Maybe we should only have doctors comment on treatments--just tell people to go to the doctor and get what you expect.

Although I want KA to continue as it has, we have to have an involved membership, willing to provide the means necessary for our survival.



Ok, You called me into Your posting and I will try and help dispel some of the problems You have highlighted, if "run out of caring" was a poor choice of words or You have misunderstood this within the context offered. Again it is tedious to do this and again, if NOBODY ELSE cares, I will also run out of caring.

But people DO care, and we have already had enough donations to keep KA going for well beyond 3 years, even with some proposed upgrades. I just never wanted to come out and ask for donations directly--the gamble was that our members might NOTICE the changed-into red, white, and blue DONATE TO KICKAS.ORG button and actually use it; perhaps I have lost that gamble, or cashed in too early. mig spent her time redesigning the button after we got our PayPal back up and bank accounts linked. Some people come here EVERYDAY and even more often--they did not notice that change?

No, it does not take very much money to run the KA site, but along with filing fees and annual State corporation fees, it can (depending upon revenue) get prohibitively expensive to begin or continue a non-profit organization.

Again, our revenue was ZERO until we made an issue of it.

As a member of KA, I have my own views about AS and I post these for people who are interested.

As the owner of KA, I am aware that there are people here who are not interested in my views. The only way I can keep this conflict in check is to have others make decisions about how the site is run, generally--these are the Administrators and the Moderators and they get their input from our members, who also have a say in this site.

I do not want to lose the focus of KA and I do not want KA to lose any member of the admin/mod team. There will certainly be a time when I will no longer own KA, and become an ordinary member once again.

But OWNERSHIP is now and will be then irrelevant with regards to the management of KA. If we need more transparency for our members we will become more open about every aspect: Although KA is a private site, basic decisions will always be made by our members--not just PAYING members because there are plenty of people here who do not have the resources, and not just admin/mods, but we share the common goal of creating and maintaining a caring place for interaction and discussion.

THANK YOU, each member who has donated, and THANKS to all the dedicated mods, admins, and webmaster(s) who donate their inestimable skills and sometimes lose too much sleep or are taken away from their families too much,

John

Nice to meet you as well, and I also hope that what I am about to say doesn't offend you in anyway.

I happen to have a BA in English and an MLIS (Master of Library and Information Services), so I do know all the rules for quotations and completely understand things being taken out of context.

It was not my intention to mislead. I only posted the parts of the quotation that were the most disheartening to me. The entire part about no donations leading to the idea of scrapping the nonprofit organization idea was also upsetting, and I suppose is pertinent background information. Still, I think the quotations I posted were very telling completely on their own merits.

I understand the owner saying that he feels let down by the membership not donating enough, but using words like "so what?" What kind of context could ever support saying that about letting this support group fail?

And as you see, if some of us had known that funds were so dreadfully needed, then we would have probably been more giving in the first place.

Again, nice to meet you, and I'm sorry to seem so upset, but I have known John for a long time and have probably had as many arguments with him as anyone in the history of this site. Still, I know how much he used to care about people who suffer from this disease, and I still just cannot fathom him saying "who cares?" about the future of KickAS.

Johnny

Didn't know you were posting as I was writing my last reply. Thank you for addressing my concerns. I don't use paypal, but I will be sending a check. Is the address still correct? I may not be back for another year, who knows. But I owe far more to this place already than I could ever repay with money. It's been a pretty good gumball machine for me, I guess.

JM

(Ever wondered if we could be alter-egos? When I first joined, I actually wrote my story as Johnny's story, because yours was already there. There was already a John and a John M., so I called mine Johnny's. Now everybody here knows me as Johnny, and like so many other things, I guess you would say, I'm blaming it on you. I never told anybody this before.)

John

I hope I'll be the first to answer your post. One of the problems you have with us not knowing that you are the owner (and that has caused a lot of difficulty with several of us) is we don't know the good you have done. We see only what appears as the negative side.

All of us at KickAS are deeply in your debt for continuing this site. If, in fact, KickAS would have stopped several years ago, I, for one, would not have been in the shape I'm in now. Who knows if I would have had my CES surgery without the support from all my new friends here at KickAS. For that I say THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Now, I have to disagree with you, of course. You cannot expect people to give just because you put up a different color "Donate to KickAS" button. I have run fund raisers every year for longer that I can remember, and have found over the years that if asked people are very generous, But if not asked, the money tends to stay in the wallet. You can't expect people to contribute when they don't know there is a reason. I believe that is precisely what has happened these last few days. You didn't lose the gamble, John, you won it. KickAS has grown to a point that we can support ourselves. For that, you should be proud, because with out your foresight those many years ago, many of us would be far worse off than we are now.

Again, John, Thank you.

Dean

I was just going to say that........Dean did you read my mind??/ lol

So beautifully put and so so true.

How is the world of breadknives?

LOL!

Yeah, although we always had our back-and-forth, I admit a genuine fondness for You. Altercation ego, sometimes!

The address is still valid and it is important to include the account number so they will credit us.

But don't stay away for so long--and we are certain to get Old George's story up--I think it was just the loss of his kind voice that paralyzed us for a while. He sent me many emails of encouragement, and he was a great friend. This is a project that has languished too long, and Pete was very upset that we had not done anything about this, too.

Best to You, Johnny
John (I HATE being called "Johnny" so glad You took that one!)

Alan,

Thanks for the complement.

All of us from the under side of KickAS are still alive and changing our Associations.. or is it associating our changes. Any way, Alan, drop in once in a while.