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moxiei agree its difficult to arrive at a balanced solution... however i also think that because things did not happen in the right way in the past that there should be able to be a system in place that suggests a recognition of participation... my suggestion of drivel pertains to the fact that often serious questions were asked and replied to and then bickering started...often malicious... and that's what i refer to as drivel... it often put anyone off ever posting again... i do not regard humorous, non essential postings or any other sort of conversational interaction without malice as drivel...i guess i wasn't clear

to try and avoid the problems of the past by negating good ideas to my mind is not the right way forward... the system was not wrong... it was other problems and if you out it all down to people being allowed to abuse that system or genuinely wanting to then you have the answer to a lot of what went wrong...hopefully this place will allow a tighter element of control... already by making it more difficult to join... and less size... most importantly everyone that has joined has made a commitment... this goes beyond moderator control or other excuses as to why things get out of hand...we are all moderators... this is a fresh place and its up to us to keep it that way.. free of self destruction as regards the options i think reputation is important ... however a person posting something useful once out of a hundred posts say... will have to be compared to someone posting five useful/good posts out of five... a simple alogorithym should take care of it.. it would then make a poster more aware maybe that their count will go down if they write drivel continuouslyi also think that to maybe get on top of the simple grazie/star merit award system it should have to have a comment attached.. making it more of an effort..rather than a simple clickpost count as a form of promotion seems to be a bit silly... merit count as a form of promotion seems to me to be something that would be a point of reference when checking on a poster...however i see problems... say for those that prefer chat rather than info postings... so that merit does not get lost say... because two chattier members want to post socially and or joke... then maybe a section of the community could be set up without any post count being active... so that when the chat is finished and maybe they happen to be a genius as regards bridge building they can get onto that part of the community to help people in need of the latest bridge... maybe one day Ronald you might be able to drive to Italyhowever i am happy to go with the flow... its just such a relief to be talking normally again... its like a weight off my shoulders

there was a report i think in il centro... regarding people with second homes in the L'aquila area... whats is important is that the house is in one of the designated primary damaged comunes... the list used to be 49 or so but that might have changed... in that area even second home owners will be entitled to a sum of 80,000 if there home has suffered considerable damage and lesser sums assigned depending on each case... the first step even if you are not in the primary area is to get your friend or his neighbour to report the damage to the comune and have a technician visit and asses damage and register it ... in that case whatever is done will then have a record of damage and the government is giving people the option to use there own contractors ... so its not a question of waiting fro the comune to do the work... sorry its not a clear reply... the other point that might make the neighbour a bit worried is that if they say the place is too unstable ...he might not be allowed back in the house...the comune could stick a prohibition notice on it...anyway il centro has a good search system online... maybe try and find the article i read that way...as trying to wade through all the earthquake news would be a bit muchthe other thing is i posted something the other day on the other place...its to do with public administration help...its a new site...well to me anyway but it will be worth a look as its covering earthquake issues too...as for responsibilities over roofs this is often shared out on a divided property... but that would have to be answered after reading the property details... ie the final act and if that contains any conditions about shared responsibility for the roof and or maintenance of the buildingsorry not a clear reply ... but maybe a place to start looking

i got the email notification and logged in with no problemthanks Ronald for seeing it was time for a change, am sure that a fresh start it what we all need, echo most of the sentiments above although living here full time for us it is also a contact without being part of a sort of insular ex pat community to see what people outside Italy are thinkingOK we can get the news... but its nice to see well for me anyway how many of the members that do not live here see not only life in Italy from the outside but also how events in their home countries are shaping their views... having not been back to the UK for near enough seven years now it sometimes feels that the only real contact we have with the place is via this site...