Jon:

I would suggest if you mean to recommend positive changes that you communicate them to those who can and do work the development and policy issues of the Mudcat.

The reason you might appear to be more of a troublemaker than a helper sometimes is because you are broadcasting your complaints to be those who cannot do anything about the issues except add to the noise factor, really. This takes on the flavor of agent provocateur. It may not be anything at all like what you intend, but you should know that it does come across that way sometimes and perhaps think of a way to address that.

It is possible, being raised in a socialist country, that the ancient tradition of ownership has become a bit obscure to you. The ownershiip of the Mudcat is not in its members -- they simply provide the beauty and the power of their viewpoints in exchange for the opportunity to hear those of others; but the medium -- the service structure, name, code, hardware, design and control of the Mudcat belongs to someone. If you want him to change it, you have to communicate to him, or those he delegates his authority to. Stirring up populist sentiment on complaints is not productive. In fact it is, dare i say it, quite the opposite.

Providing voluntary donations is a free choice; once it is done, those donations are applied to the maintenance and operation of the Mudcat by its owner. We who come here are visitors, not owners, not workers, not members of a society in any legal sense, and we really (IMHO) should not whine about the decisions of our host. It makes us look like flaming assholes when we do. If you want a penny-list of your funds, keep them in your own bank account and let well enough alone. If you don't trust Max, don't send him money -- that's rudimentary.

That said, it may be that some kind of organized fundraising group or resource-acquisition group for hardware might help, but this is a discussion you should have with him, not with some nebulous population of visitors like yourself. You want to build a hardware supply line, go ahead and do so. I am sure Max can speak articulately about what is needed.

The fact that you yourself do not know what happened to Shorty doesn't mean anything wrong was done. You answered your own question, I think, when you said you see insuifficient money coming in and some contraction in the 'Cat's service level. The two seem to be the complete story as far as I cansee -- why would you be inclined to assume otherwise?

A

Do you really think a creature with twenty legs and no eyes (the committee you suggest) would achieve anything? If so I can only suggest you study the history of decisive management, innovation, discovery, and I suggest you will discover, no matter how hidden, that no good thing has ever entered this world except by the act of an able individual.