I think Rafmun has made some excellent points, and I commend him for having the courage to make them and taking the heat.

As Hec noted, we established the voting procedure to make decision making more fair. At one time, I naively believed voting would solve the problem. I thought voting on every little thing would be the right thing to do. It's not. Voting causes other problems, such as increasing stress levels. Now, I don't have any solutions to offer, only that we made the effort to fix these problems, only to find a new set of problems.

For my part, I've accepted that the "small group" is going to make some of the decisions. For the most part, they make the right decisions. I'm still here and this is a good place. I don't agree with everything, and sometimes I get really pissed off. Still, I'm very thankful for all the people who make this place work, and make it a place worth participating in.

I'm sorry that some good people left. I miss Jen K. She was the first Buffista that I had any off-board contact with. After I disappeared for a long while, then delurked again, she remembered me and informed others that I wasn't new. Someone say hi to her from me, OK?

I also don't appreciate the cheekiness.

You say we need more compassion (actually, you say we need compassion, implying we have none at all currently), then when somebody tries to say, "um, yes we do have compassion," you accuse us of perfidy and deliberate obfuscation.

We're trying to talk about your issues. Telling us that any post that isn't in 100% agreement with you is ignoring the issue really raises my hackles, and it is currently very difficult for me to be polite on this subject for this very reason.

Yet again, Rafmun, your argument is based on information that you could only have based on the amount of time you've lurked. Whether or not you have rights is irrelevant. Whether or not your observations have the authority of knowledge of what you're talking about is critical.

Didn't do that.

Yes you did, through the structure of your assertion, as I plainly explained in the section of my post you chose to ignore.

Capital I to start a paragraph, Robin :)

Someone say hi to her from me, OK?

I'm supposed to see her this weekend; I'll try to remember.

ok, we are ignoring it?

hmm. Elena can post Deathmatch notices in Press whenever she wants. The board as a collective never ever took action on the requests of Steph, Ple, Kat, and others, Elena took action.

More than three people posted that the announcements did not bother them, I was one of them it was more than three.

That takes care of background, I think.

Today, I think I can count on my hand the number of posts that took a hostile tone towards you (perhaps your reading would make that number higher though). In contrast, there have been, I think over a hundred posts in here today mostly discussing your points. People have asked for clarification, people have agreed, people have disagreed, people have suggested that we look at ourselves and take your posts into our thougts.

I do not understand how that is being ignored.

t hearts msbelle, despite personal loathing for pink *g*

you were lurking during the Great Voting Arguments, and the Constitutional Convention

John Hancock was a lurker! The lurkers support me in the Pony Express!

(Yeah, I know...historically inaccurate. You make a mail joke.)

For example, there was a period (and still occasionally) when folks on the board addressed each other as "fucko".

Good times, dammit. Good fuckin' times.

It's interesting to me that Rafmun is saying that he "heard about" gentler Buffista days, not that he "read" them. To me, that suggests that he's going by megan's comments about her participation in the board rather than by posts he's read himself. (Please correct me if this is a wrong impression, Rafmun.)

If that's the case, I might respectfully point out that there's a big difference between something someone tells you about and something you've experienced yourself. Plenty of things are all golden-colored and fuzzy when seen through the eyes of someone who loves them, and much uglier and harsher when experienced first-hand.

Edit: Which is not meant to discredit Rafmun or discount his points, but I do think that the issues he's complaining about are ones where board experience matters.

Asking for compassion and a little less harshness translates to 'descending deeper into hyperbole'?

I started this discussion by raising this very point. And what I was trying to do was to push this notion closer to the center. That's really all that can be done.

One reason the voting causes friction is because any extended talk in Bureaucracy about tone or direction becomes a lightning rod for general crankiness. People address their long held grievances. Which is what is happening now. And that's okay - they need to be addressed. But sometimes those aren't board problems. They're not issues that can be resolved by the community - they're issues that the individual has because they're feeling out of sync with the ever-migrating center.