Dear friends,

To my never-ending amazement, our community is still growing, and I don’t mean the number of pages served by this blog (which peaked at over 3 million and is now tapering off at somewhere over 2) since that kind of numbers really don’t mean much.  And neither do I mean the other six Saker blogs.  This time around, something new happened: a website created by a member of our community and for our community.  Let me explain how this happened.

As you know, I have never accepted any advertisements, commercials or obnoxious pop-ups.  On principle.  Could have.  I get offers from various vendors and organizations on a weekly basis, but I never accepted them just because commercial goals simply do not fit into my values (this is also why I never had paywalls or any other “subscription only” features).  However, there was something which kept bothering me – there were some good people inside our community who sometimes had something to offer: be it goods (such as books) or services.  But there was no good place to put those kinds  of offers.  For a while we tossed around the idea of a separate page for such offers, but that did not work out, and neither did I have the energy to deal with it.  The good thing is that I did not have to – just like the other six Saker blogs, a community website spontaneously self-organized without me having anything at all to do with it!

So here it is, the “official” Saker Community website: https://saker.community/

The person who is in charge of it is Amarynth, to whom I want to express my deepest thanks!  Not only did she create a space for members of our community who want to make something known to the rest of our community, she went much further than that and created a full website, including even a forum!  I won’t describe it all here, she has done so herself in the official announcement in the “Community Cooperative” section below.  Check it out for yourself :-)

What I will repeat once more this that, just like all the other Saker blogs, the “Saker Community” is a fully independent entity.  It has full editorial freedom and I have no say in what it does or how it operates.  Neither do I want to because experience has taught me that control and micro-management is stifling whereas spontaneous self-organization is the most viable and successful way to built a community.

The “Movable Feast Cafe” is an integral part of this blog, and it stays here.  The Saker Community website is not destined to replace it, but to offer something new and very different. In our community, we don’t compete, we diversify.  The “Community Cooperative” section, however, will soon disappear from this page and be replaced by links to the Saker Community website.

I hope that you will check out the new website, play around with it, see what you like (or not!) and help it grow.  Essentially, it is here for you.  Please use it.

As always, hugs and cheers to all,

The Saker