Chevalier brought up a very solid point and I concur.
Much of what I recall fondly from ASPD was from when I first joined and that happened in another city where the "civility" was already on the downhill side and where I first learned that a client jealous of a provider seeing and actually liking another client way more than he could lead to the jealous client outing him to his employee. YIKES!
But the names of the providers I met and some I grew to know a bit always brings a nice smile to my face.
As mentioned, as the Internet became the place to try and be safer when seeing providers and the providers tried to escape the streets and hard copy Observer type papers, many factors went into the growth and the ensuing troubles.
A website of the size of ASPD and now ECCIE that depends strictly on volunteer staff to keep things in check is unheard of. Staff typically chooses to try and help by giving up some of their spare hours in a given week but at the same time they have their own real lives and their own hobbies here and other places and so the total time any given volunteer can devote instead of paid workers pales in comparison.
Would ASPD having paid staff members with scheduled hours and accountability to the owner (IF Amber would have been able to pay attention?) made a difference?
I'm guessing yes.
The complaint made above about the inmates running the asylum could have been addressed if the volunteers had been paid workers who did the mod tasks as a job and even if done on a basis where certain types of work paid differently, an incentive system surely would have helped slow down and maybe stop the collapse of ASPD.
I'm going to go and relax and have a cold one before bed. Hope everyone sleeps well and has great plans for this coming weekend!