MISSING: Mavsluvr (his last picture)

[mavsluvr]

Two folks talking past each other might be you and me. My bad for not being more clear. I'm here, trying to listen better. 

I shared with Kam where I thought he made mistakes (as Kam has alluded to). Kam and mods have in fact said where we thought Kam made a mistake. We haven't defended those mistakes, instead, we've just asked in this specific thread for folks to stop the over the top pile on. 

And just as I shared with Kam where I thought he made a mistake I've also shared with you about your part. I even sent you a friendly PM weeks before the blow up about your interactions with Kam. If you can't see that you had at least some part in the blow up, then I don't know how to help you on that front. I'm listening, and your reaction to this makes more sense if in fact you don't think you played some part in it. 

IF you want to be heard, I'm listening. But please pal, listen to me as well.

I have been listening carefully to everything you have said, buddy. That's why I'm still engaging, somewhat against my better judgment. 


As to my part, I believe I have said numerous times that I wish I had not responded to Kam's post. Your prior friendly message expressed concern about whether he was getting to me. I interpreted that as asking me (in the nicest of ways) not to keep responding to him. Upon receiving that, I gritted my teeth and complied, at least as far as I noticed who I was talking to. Upon Kamm's latest explosion, I decided to just take myself out of the firing line. I did not expect or intend to incite World War III. I thought that, if anything, you as a person would probably feel a little relieved to have one less problem to manage. If I had thought it was any big deal to you, or that I might be blindsiding you, I would at least have given you a private heads up. 

All that is beside the point now. My comments in my last post don't have anything to do with apportioning blame between Kamm and me. They were addressed to what I hope won't be another sad miscommunication in a sad affair. In this case, the seeming disconnect between the "regular posters" ("RPs") and the mods. 

It seems to me that the RPs keep saying that, regardless of anyone else's actions or inactions,  they found Kamm's unarguably offensive language especially disturbing, and that they feared that letting it go heralded an undesirable change in the board culture. Possibly involving having to walk on eggshells around certain posters at the peril of subjecting themselves to abuse, and/or of instituting an atmosphere where they might no longer feel free to express themselves in the humorous and casual ways they were accustomed to, or enjoy others' expressing themselves similarly. This is not a complaint on my own behalf, it's something I perceived from trying to distill the essence of their unanswered concerns.

It seemed to me that the whole "RP-v-mods" thing that developed was due partly to Kamm's and the other mods trying to address this as an issue about who was right or wrong respecting the particulars of a "spat," and not acknowledging the bigger question. For example, Kamm dodging responsibility by insisting on strained interpretations of his clearly inappropriate language in a couple of posts. And the mods variously taking positions that they were satisfied with letting the matter go based on those legalistic interpretations, or that I had it coming for irritating him, or that they weren't going to dirty their hands with addressing it, etc. It's not that I think their determinations were necessarily objectively right or wrong, more that they seemed to miss the larger point. 

It seemed like the RPs were worried about whether they were now going to have to avoid disagreeing with certain people, or were going to have to keep track of which posters were willing to be responded to in certain ways and which weren't, or whether the board was turning into a "heavier" place where they always had to watch their p's and q's, or whether people were even going to stay here in the new regime. They weren't asking for an adjudication of who was right or wrong. 

It seemed to me that the refusal to respond to the bigger question was a de facto statement that, since Kamm did so much work here, even if he indulged his temper and ran people off, the mods were really pretty okay with it. I eventually attempted to intercede (on the mods' behalf, as I saw it) by saying that I understood the RPs' concern and acknowledged that it might be well-founded, but suggested that even if that were the case, it wasn't likely to affect many people individually, no one should assume that things were going to get worse, and that people should feel encouraged to stay here. You took exception to that, so whatever, I thought I was helping, and I'm not asking for anything now. 

This is just a reflection on why I perceive that people seemed unsatisfied and kept "piling on," even to the point that Kamm ultimately felt like the injured party, despite the fact that I already had conceded the entire field to him. Anyway, I just thought listening to the deeper concerns and offering a simple statement that the board was not endorsing the language used, but rather that everyone, including the mods, was expected to do better, might have gone a long way toward nipping this in the bud. (You could also have announced that I was mostly to blame, and that you would have fired me if I hadn't quit, or whatever else helped anyone get through the night, if you wanted. But I don't think that was relevant to this concern. The RPs were worried about "official" behavior.) It's water under the bridge as far as this particular conflict, but maybe it's a seed to plant in the case of the next issue. 

I'm not expecting you to agree with me. I just felt like there is still a continuing disconnect and didn't want to leave it dangling.