[dognheat]

My personal thoughts:

I "lurked" for a year before I made my first post. It took some time for me to get comfortable with uploading photos. I was posting on a couple of different forums before this became my favorite website. Here's why I love this forum:

1. The forum treats it's material (read: women and member's comments) with respect. The atmosphere remains positive because derogatory or inflammatory comments are not tolerated. Where else can you find that on the web?

2. There's an enormous depth of high quality posts. Most everything here has been built and maintained by volunteers (moderators, contributors, viewers, and the forum's owner).

That said, consider:

3. There's a cost to host, maintain, and deliver some 4 million photo, video, and ZIP files to 750,000 members.

4. There are no pop-up ads, banners, or other revenue generating gimmicks here.

5. Other websites exist. You are not required to come here.

In close:

6. I think this is a fantastic website. I am thankful for Alex's dedication, along with the other moderators who keep the servers humming. I am thankful for the contributors (whether they've made monumental contributions, or just a half-dozen original posts).

Bottom line (as a moderator):

7. There's an on-going need balance allocation of finite resources here. Instead of an abrupt closure or change, you are witnessing a thoughtful evaluation of how to manage resources to keep this forum strong and available for years to come.