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Another one glad to hear he's ok.

Tax havens

Well I'll be damned! I've never pressed that button before. Huh. So BE's not just a place to keep us occupied and off the streets!

That's good to know.
I miss Siouxie too. She was a great person to have around. She sent me a couple of lovely private messages a while back. Unfortunately, the old black dog was hanging around and I didn't reply. I regret that so much.

Siouxie had a 'homepage linked to her BE - https://www.facebook.com/SukarmaProductions/

Not sure if she checks it but you may be able to message her there.

She may also have a general FB page - others may know.

Me too, good to hear

No matter what changed our experience with this BB, I really enjoyed all of you and all of your contributions. I loved living Canada but I have to go back to the US. I'll miss it. Thanks!

Do they have the internet there?

Dial up has reached a few areas and that is as good as it gets.

You won't miss Canada.

Boats cost a fortune.

You were close with Alan and Butch?? Keep close!

Many thanks OS. Taking a break from Fb for a while but I'll keep it in mind for the future.

Well I'm a little surprised not to see an obvious explanation raised -- CoVID knocked legal immigration from and to nearly all countries on its head, for two years solid. And it has only partially recovered since.

***

BE has always been a combination of posts on:

- How to emigrate from one country to another (mostly high-quality, highly technical posts, about visas, banking issues, quarantine, etc.)
- What to expect on arrival in new country X... (mostly of Anglosphere expats and emigrants)
- More general/longer term experiences of new country X
- "Lounge-type" discussions of politics

It's a user-driven forum without an obvious revenue model to sustain its operation, or market itself to regenerate previous levels of interest. Its potential longterm -- true -- value lies in preserving the first two categories of posts, and fostering community participation leading to further posts of those types.

In contrast, during the CoVID lockdown, the divisiness and rancour of posts in the last category has squelched a lot of ongoing participation. (And yes, I've sometimes been guilty of the mud-wrestling involved...)

But there is little else going on. And it's not clear to me how to rescucitate BE from there.

That is a perfectly reasonable explanation but things had dropped off considerably some time before covid.
I used to be a regular in the Canada section, only ever venturing anywhere else to the lab.

For some time it was too busy to keep up. I could compose a reply and by the time I posted there might be half a dozen new posts on that thread just in the time I was typing. It was hard to keep up.

But 2 or 3 years before covid, things got so quiet that I wandered off to the lounge and tio and became a regular there.

18 months ago, I started a thread on the Australian Barbie forum called "Why so few shrimps on the barbie?" - seeking a reason for the low turnout there. Sadly, my eventual conclusion ran afoul of BE's Rule 15, and was not published. However, the thread was re-named, and has become reasonably active again as a place to discuss the wide variety of topics that arise at weekend barbecues throughout Australia.

Nevertheless, this Maple Leaf forum is a hive of activity, compared with its Australian cousin!