Well, mine is not going to be a popular post but I am going to make it anyway.
I find the contention that we all have to 'get along nicely' as one enormous community, regardless of very differing views on many matters, and often through gritted teeth, to be somewhat naive and unrealistic.
For example, personally, I *would* like to see a community without McCleary and Vernon because I do not believe that they have delivered any significant 'game changers' for patients in return for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they earn each year. I find their inclusion in a 'thank you' list alongside Judy an insult to Judy.
I am also irritated by the fact that this note ignores the many hundreds of 'silent workers' who operate outside of the public domain and away from the forums, who seek no thank yous, and who, very often, have more success in influencing change than those who shout about what they are doing. You will never know about them, nor their achievements, because they are too busy to broadcast what they are doing.
We are a disparate community. We have different views and opinions. We have different ways of going about things. This is life. This is human nature. The sooner we learn to accept this and the fact that we will never get along as one big happy family, the sooner we will be able to focus on what really matters: pushing a common agenda and not a common means of delivering that.