Thank you for your invaluable service, Simon!! Your work is very much along the lines of the dedicated work of many in the Bob Dylan community, which I first discovered in 1994 in the first ever Usenet music group, Rec.Music.Dylan. Tim Berners-Lee had invented the web already, but its eventual commercialization had not yet happened. On RMD if anyone breathed any idea about using the Internet to make money in those days, they could find themselves banned immediately. Instead the most active participants started compiling useful information about Dylan’s art and dozens of free, open, and useful websites sprang up. I took on the area of books, with my bibliography. We were all working to document and preserve the important contributions to our culture we knew Dylan was making. And we all know how things have recently gone from bad to worse because of the commercialization that was permitted to develop on the web.

The work you do in what I gather is an unoffical way has helped me on at least two occasions very recently. It scares me a bit that there is no comprehensive user manual for micro.blog. Manton does a great job of technical support for the activity, but a few people can only do so much. On Friday, you and Stephen (@DrOct) sorted out what was preventing me (for around one month) from linking to my pre-October 2018 postings in current postings. As far as I know, you both did this on your own, not at the urgings of anyone else. THIS is the spirit of help and cooperation that we had in the Dylan community 25 years ago.

I’m sure Manton had much more important things to attend to than trying to sort out why I couldn’t get a working URL for my old postings. You and Stephen took on the problem and in about an hour found at least a temporary solution, which I’m sure Mamton will eventually resolve more permanently when he has the time. But in the meantime, I will be able to proceed with my blogging. I appreciate this VERY much, Simon and Stephen!!!