The term "true believer" is not a pejorative one for me.  It denotes people who genuinely believe in something (e.g. the EU, Democracy, peer-to-peer finance, state technocratic competence/excellence) or whatever and who argue passionately for whatever it is they believe in.  I would contrast that with cynics or pragmatists who either don't believe in anything or for whom everything has a price.  I would consider myself a true believer on some issues and would prefer to argue with people who actually believe in the case they are making - acknowledging that those arguments are almost impossible to win and are more about understanding other positions better.

I did appeal to you to retract a personalised comment you directed at another member, but as that is an emotive issue which has nearly torn this community apart I think it is better for us to discuss that matter privately by email if you wish.  If you felt that any comment I made was unfair or hurtful, I apologise.  I was trying to assist in resolving a dispute which had arisen between others, not to make matters worse.  You had previously challenged me and others not to leave all the moderation to front pagers. Obviously I didn't succeed.

Yes I have tried to get some collective enterprises on ET going - e.g. a wind turbine; LTEs to Irish papers on Lisbon by Europeans who don't want Libertas/Sinn Fein to speak/act on their behalf when it comes to any claimed democratic deficit in the EU; EU grant application for funding ET 2.0 multilingual capabilities - and have been disappointed but not surprised when they didn't get anywhere but I didn't blame anyone, least of all you, for that.  I think it is worth while exercise to float concrete action proposals sometimes to see if any of them might fly.  ET can be a useful sounding board or launching pad for initiatives without them ever necessarily become "official" ET projects.  I hope you don't object to that.

notes from no w here