The audio ads have been blocked from the site so you won’t be audibly assaulted anymore.

Check out his web page http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/ as his annual donation drive is going on now. He’s a great guy, and I expect he would be willing to discuss how he arrived at his figures.

I understand the site was in financial peril, but I do think these hasty choices made have been unwise, and do cheapen the site to a large degree. It now seems that ‘doing your bit’ to support the site means putting your computer on mute to make it navigable, instead of simply not coming back.

Must go- apparently I’m the 1,000,000th visitor to this page, and I’ve won some kind of massive prize!!! Oh joy.

I’d be more than willing to pay $50 for a paperback signed by you, knowing that my money is going directly to you and this blog, rather than Amazon.

I wondered why the format changed. I figured that Loren had his hands full with the Museum. But it nagged at me, because I really love this site. It is one of only 2 blogs I visit regularly. So I dug around in the fine print and noticed Loren was a ‘Contributing Writer’ (I forget the except wording).

Then I thought, well it is the right of the owner to change his contributing authors if he wants. Who am I to complain? From daily my visits trickled down eventually to once every week or so.

I happened to come on the Mr. Mike thing at the tail end. I honestly didn’t feel like going back and reading it, because a lot of the posters had already expressed displeasure, I saw it as not worth my time.

I do have a point, just bear with me please.

1. I noticed another comment that said “Ms. Lee has taken down her post”, and it sorta hit me, that my main irk about Cryptomundo is that I found it hard to put posts together. If I read a post, and something in it triggered my memory and I wanted to re-read a previous post, it was hard for me to find it.

2. Then I noticed ‘comments’ closed. Done I am sure so things did not escalate and become an insulting match. But it reminded me of where else I had seen “comments closed”; it was on a forum on proboards.

So my suggestion, would be to add a forum to Cryptomundo. Forums have a way of making regular readers and posters become a community or family, if you will. I believe Dave mentioned a forum as well, but I am unfamiliar with Apug.

With a forum you can have sections dedicated to particular subjects “Newly Discovered Cryptids”, “Mythical Cryptids”, “Discussion on Cryptids”, etc. But you also get a profile of all the members who join and post. Which I would find extremely informative. There are several authors on here that post. their profiles could list the different books or articles they wrote, their particular field of crypto interest, and so on.

P.S. I liked the idea someone had of merchandise too

It has been mentioned to feature the art work of artist participating on the forum. A gallery would be a nice idea. Percentage of sales could go to site management and the major contributors who keep Cryptomundo alive.

Crypto Collectibles for sale or trade or discussion forum with gallery.

A system enabling forum members to more easily communicate with each other.

The best model of this type of forum that I am familiar with is APUG.

On Cryptomundo I especially appreciate the substantial contributions of Loren Coleman. He writes not only with a good sense of humor but displays the knowledge, skills and ability to put the subject matter in the perspective light of verifiable academic research.

I did include the skeptical reviews of Meldrum as examples of the kind of discussion I’m talking about. In fact, it probably doesn’t matter which way you start; we always seem to have the whole spectrum of opinion show up, whether we’re analyzing skeptic or proponent. And every opinion stated here is prima facie subject to critical response.

That said, I think that the main reason we haven’t confirmed, say, the sasquatch and the yeti is that skeptical takes on their existence go largely unchallenged; and most of those I’ve read are more than ripe for challenge, simply by presenting the evidence.

Really, it’s difficult to challenge a true skeptic, other than by presenting the evidence. Because a true skeptic questions with an open mind. The things that need to be challenged – and parsed by critical thinkers – are the screeds of scoftics on the one hand and true believers on the other, neither of which have a true place in the debate because neither is truly debating.

(And both of which seem to come all too often from folks who should know better.)

I didn’t include in my previous post the discussions of bigfoot-habituation accounts. They are, perusal suggests, excellent places to develop critical thinking habits.

Can’t find the original post from Craig about funding issues with Cryptomundo – I understand some responses were negative about some of the more recent changes to Cryptomundo (movie monsters / reviews / T-shirts etc.). Similar views are also expressed above, and I agree with this feedback.

It is clear from the above that many view this site as Loren’s, but recently that has become less true (if it ever was).

I have to say it is the ‘critical thinking’ (to quote a recent post) that Loren brought, along with a lack of sensationalism / drum beating, which first hooked me to this site.

Recently some of the guest blogging has been the opposite of the above approach, and it is worrying – I can almost see a spat developing between Loren and some of the guest bloggers in question.

I should say, however, that the archive pieces courtesy of Jerome Clarke are excellent and should perhaps be introduced as a weekly / bi-weekly treat if possible.

My view is premium content would have turned me off when I first came across Cryptomundo, and we need to grow awareness, not hide the best stuff in a shiny box.

I think that there are lots of merchandising opportunities that could close the funding gap, and sell through may also be very lucrative (the Cryptomundo / Loren seal of approval on a model / footcast etc. would certainly reassure me of quality).

A yearly funding drive would also raise funds; from postings on the topic I believe the ICM received reasonable results from a similar drive.

All in all Cryptomundo is currently best in class, and therefore extremely well positioned for, what seems to me, to be a burgeoning interest in the Cryptozoological.

To give fair due, Loren has done a lot of this–throwing pictures at us and letting the populace debate and take things apart. I appreciate that, because it shows us how to be discerning in what we’re looking at, and in the past, it has shown how many ways people can interpret data (I was thinking of the supposed “thunderbird” over the Wal-mart parking lot pic in particular).

However, I think we can take that another step and take apart the process of coming to a conclusion and spelling out the proper methods to examine and “See” what’s really there.