[SeaGypsy]

We gained a bunch of talent here from TOD's collapse, roughly doubled our active posters and brought in some fresh and some brilliant folks to the fold. Many lessons were learned in TOD's demise (we hope). Probably the biggest is to steer away from drastic editorial intervention on the boards.

Peak oil is the key issue of our times, it's been said before and we here will keep saying it until the lights go out or something equally drastic changes. In the peak oil journey there are social and economic troughs and upheavals. The core group of posters here is sharing this quite incredible and complex journey to we don't know where- but unusually- it's not the blind leading the blind. Just as individuals and real world collectives grow and wane, mature yet delve at times back to their more youthful positions- so it is here.

Several posters here have made life long friendships here. Some have gone great distances to meet in real life, some have hooked up on more open social forums.

Peakoil.com is not just about facts, it's about people, community micro to macro, it's about life as we have known it, as we know it now and as we wonder and think and hope and dread for the future.

No small thing, that peak oil.

[Pops]

Great comments all!

Like Ibon I've always seen PO.com as the place for the regular Joe to ask a question, pose a theoretical or contribute experience and receive a useful response without being taken down too badly for not knowing the abbreviations and jargon or having someones' version of the perfect curriculum vitae. I was that Joe when I first came here. As such we are the alternate to a site dedicated to the wisdom of a specific guru selling a book, or a professional with a theory to protect - we were kinda going that way for a while and luckily shook it off in favor of a more "open source" frame. We post up and review lots of gurus and none is above reproach, as it should be!

I think we are accomplishing that goal now better than ever. The site itself is functioning well, no staff drama, no terrible spam pressure, a low level of eye-poking, all things that distracted us in the past.

But 10 years is an eternity on the internet and the adage of evolve or die is just as valid here as in the meat world. Which is why I intentionally left the thread open ended to see what ideas might pop up. What might we do beyond what we are doing? What structural changes might we make to the site? What effort as individuals or a group (or groups) might we undertake? What could the contributors here (the regular posters are the gurus here after all) do to improve our content or even move beyond opinionating and blogivation?

Or is that enough?
.

[TheAntiDoomer]

I would like to See a "OilFinder's Financial Corner" Section.

[Paulo1]

Pops and others,

Peak Oil.com has been just fine as far as I am concerned. I was surprised how close my own story mirrored Pops and was pleased he shared it. One purpose of PO.com is education and the editorial picks are pretty well rounded and promote reflection and discussion. The purpose is also fellowship, for lack of a better word. It is a gathering place and sometimes that is good enough on its own. The reader posts and comments reflect a wide range or personal situations and beliefs. Sometimes, I read what someone says and I try and understand why they have come to different conclusions than I have. Sometimes I object and feel compelled to chime in. (later)

I would be really interested in participating in the prep forum but seldom think about it because it isn't in the list of what I see on the page load. I see current and changing articles and reader posts. Going through them all takes quite awhile. If a prep link was on the first page I would head there as part of the trapline. That is one suggestion that I have...load a few links above the reader post section without having to go through the forum topics.

re: PStarr comment on debt..."What good does debt-free do. So you don't "owe" money? Big deal. At this point it makes sense to buy stuff on credit, go broke and head for bankruptcy. The hard decision is the credit-run; do you buy bugout stuff, last-hurrah fun stuff, or liquor, which combines the best of of both worlds."

My ex father-in-law, who was a steam engineer and fisherman, retired to his beachfront home when he was 45. He is now 80 and is still living 1/2 the year where it is warm and 1/2 the year on the BC coast. He and his wife have always lived simply and learned to live with what they had because they were brought up poorer than church mice in northern Canada. In fact, if the freight train engineer didn't kick out a crate of frozen fresh water commercial fish when they passed the cabin in northern Sask, 'papa' and siblings would have starved. Sometimes the rabbits didn't cooperate and there was no moose to be found. Anyway, when I was 24 with my first mortgage and a new born he gave me some advice. "Pay off your house as soon as you can. When you do this it will seem like you just got a $1,000.00/month pay raise. You will actually have some cash. You won't believe it. " So I did. I paid for my old shack by the time I was 30, and that was with a wife who stayed home with the kids and spotty employment. We moved away and to a better house and then I paid that off by 40. It allowed me to go back to university. Selling out in 2007, at the peak, allowed me to relocate, buy land, and later retire when I turned 57. Retiring debt equals freedom, pure and simple. Debt=servitude.......no debt=freedom. My father-in-law who never graduated high school told me about 'economic servitude when I was in my twenties. I have never forgotten it. Call me old fashioned, perhaps, but for me running up debt and declaring bankruptcy is failure and dishonest. It is stealing from those who are solvent. It is stealing from our children and grandchildren. It is why all of our different countries are as f'''ed up as they are. I can't condone it as a deliberate action and strategy.

If one does go bankrupt due to misfortune or circumstance, so be it. There are laws and process to help you get back on your feet. I have known some great folks who went bankrupt, recovered, and got on with it. It was very hard on them for many years, but they became stronger and wiser for it. You may or may not agree with me, but I mean no disrespect with my comment. If my father-in-law, with no dad in the house, could rise up from Big River Sask, get his GED, become a 1st class steam engineer and a successful fisherman, all by watching debt and remaining focused...there is hope for all of us. He is the first to say he was 'lucky', and he was, but he did it on his own by working smart.

regards....Paulo

[Pops]

Before this inevitably becomes derailed let me try to restate my question:

My point here is we are doing exactly what we were doing 10 years ago. Good as that is (and i'll say I get very defensive about the effort expended here over the years) if our purpose is to inform then perhaps we should take advantage of technology and move from simply re-posting articles from self-appointed experts elsewhere and swatting them around, to producing some original material from our own unique perspectives.

So for example once upon a time we had a chat feature, it was unstructured for the most part but for a while I think we had a weekly chat. How about Thursday night chats? Pick a platform, there are lots to choose from now. It might have different hosts each week who volunteer to pick a topic and come up with points to discuss or maybe acts like a book club.

Or maybe someone might give a little talk about whatever topic - a la Mr Energy Czar and we would link it. No one is a peak oil expert but each of us are expert at something and since everything is sure to be affected that makes us each an expert in our particular corner of the PO world.

Maybe it is a Kahn Academy type bit on, say: xeriscaping or shoestring PV. The host does a video or slides using whatever media; a vid of his yard, pics of different plants, a sketch of his rain harvesting, some narration and bragging, etc. He uploads it to youTube a week before the chat for viewing at member's leisure and then at the appointed hour everyone gets on a Google Hangout (or wherever) and tears him a new one- er - congratulates him on a great presentation and asks questions, offers suggestions and whatnot.

See what I mean? What other ways could we move beyond copy and paste kibitzing and get our message across more effectively?

[Pops]

Simply put, different people learn and probably teach in different ways. My thought is there might be more and better ways for folks here to share their particular insight.

[radon1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '.').to producing some original material from our own unique perspectives.

[Pops]

Thanks Radon, exactly what I was looking for.

[Newfie]

Not sure how it would work out but you could try to do an occasional conference call, net meeting kind of thing, moderated. One of those services where the moderator can share controll of the screen with other participants. My company does this a lot to have meetings without traveling.

Can you do videoconference via Skype?

If it works, you could perhaps have a weekly conference call meeting on a evolving topic.

Maybe some of us could share our preps. New chicken coop, solar array, battery set up. I dunno, just thinking out loud.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'S')o you blame the elites for stimulating demand that increases oil production, which would come to a halt if we only freed ourselves from the oppressor? Is that you argument? I tend to believe that continued population growth/demand, education and automation makes more stuff available. That takes oil.

[kublikhan]

@ Ibon, I found this site the most accessible for peak oil newbies.

@ Loki, I agree many of the planning threads were geared to those planning for a fast and hard crash. Since that didn't happen, it's not surprising that section of the forum lost some steam.

@ Simon_R, I agree with you about credit being a tool. It's not good to abuse. But used wisely can give you some nice things you might not have been able to get otherwise. I think I made a mistake prepaying all of my student loans. It was nice to be free of debt. But later when I needed to borrow money I ended up borrowing on margin from my broker account at nearly triple the interest rate of my low interest student loans. I still came out ahead. But it would have been better to just kept the low interest student loan debt.

@ Paulo, have you tried the active topics link? There are 3 threads on the first page alone for the Planning for the Future forum. When that link was down briefly, I wrote a simple web page that would load the 4 or so peakoil.com forums I check most frequently. Not sure if I still have it but I can probably write it again if you need it.

[radon1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', '.').. increasing credit.

[Subjectivist]

I watch several health/nutrition shows on YouTube, most of them do either 30 or 60 minute shows once a week, usually in an interview format where the host talks too someone with a grounding in health/nutrition/excercise though sometimes they jusy talk to a regular person who has done well following one of the popular systems out there.

I also try and watch the PeakMoment channel, at first I thought it was associated with peakoil.com but I soon figured out it is a separate organization.

If Davep or Pops or one of he other tech savvy types were to do a weekly YouTube show like that I would watch it and recomend it too my friends. I used to listed to a podcast show called oilcast but it dissapeared a long time ago. If you want to be part of he next wave I think a youtube channel would be one way to get the word around for people searching for information.

[Pops]

FWIW, the "active topics" link (on the forums page) is the same as "Forum Posts Guest View" in the sidebar, it doesn't return "Members Only" forums because, well, you have to be a member to see them.

So if you are a member, click "Member View" from any page on the site to see all new posts and of course Guest View if you aren't.

[Quinny]

There are a couple of Facebook pages already, but a Facebook page can open up new communication channels pretty easy.

If anyone is interested in working collaboratively on producing 'new' stuff. I can provide a private sharepoint based site with full corporate style calendaring and emails. Limited numbers initially, but maybe it could be useful for core team.

Any sort of 'campaigning' group although it needn't necessarily agree about everything would at least have to share some core beliefs/values!