Wow.. great topic this turned out to be.....

Heres my opinion from another topic to save me writing a afresh one. Its slightly out of context as it was dealing with "Gra"'s idea of a permanent fund to cover financial help for members who had disasters. Its relevant as i gave my view as to "Why" Folk want to help out occasionally as with Jim and more recently, Maria.

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My opinion for what its worth.

Funds setup for the sole reason of helping out folks in unfortunate circumstances would simply cause trouble amongst existing users with topics such as "Well he got a gearbox and ive more posts than him" and also have folk joining for the sole reason of ripping us off and earning themselves a fast buck.

I think it should be left alone and leave it to operate as it is now, a "Community"

Simple example to prove thats what we have developed:
Q). If Maria was a newbie user with 5 posts, would anyone really care about her plight?
A). NO.

So why do we care about Maria?
We do because shes a part of the community and we see her as a friend, a familiar face in our day to day lives whos fell on hard times due to her car/passion, just like a neighbour / workmate.

Did the fact she is good looking help? Easy to say yes, because she is, but im going to say NO. Why? Because Jim had a similar amount of help when he fell unlucky and his car burnt out and most the peeps offering to help were heterosexual males.

Leave the PF community as it is and let it grow further, its come a long way in a short time and the only financial things i want to worry about is how Petrucci and myself pay for its existence... its far too soon for a PF benevolent fund...

Great idea though in concept, and my opinion is not necessarily correct, but its there all the same

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And yes, my offer of setting her all up and checking her flat out fuelling etc still stands, just ask Sean & Brom to drive her up and have a night on the beer with us (Long Overdue guys ) when hes sorted the engine and il do it for em ready to drive home in... job done.