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Hello I am Melissa, mod’s partner. We were mistaken in thinking that my fictionsuit had been banned. When mod attempted to see if I had been locked out with him, he used my screen name for a login name. At the time it wasn’t the same (I have since returned it to my own name) and he apologizes for any confusion his error has caused.
First, in response to Bio K9’s earlier post, I would like to say that I have been a registered user of this community since May 2002. Although I rarely post, and thus few would remember having “met” me, I read Barbelith faithfully. I know of your joys and sorrows, have laughed with and learned from many of you, and have spoken of your stories as though they were the stories of friends. In this respect, I feel that I, and others who are also primarily lurkers, are very much members of this community.
Secondly, my partner had initially written what follows as a PM to Nick, but after a long discussion we decided we would try to put it up here instead. Not only does it address Nick’s points and concerns, but I believe that it brings forth insights that may have been previously overlooked in the aftermath of last Monday. Please know that posting this was a carefully thought out choice which I believe rightly allows a member of this community to respond on his own behalf to statements made about him and conclusions drawn about his actions. Unquestionably, I am biased in this instance, for he is the love of my life. Regardless, the principle remains the same.
Hello Nick,
I know you asked me not to PM you, but since I cannot respond to defend or explain myself, I figured this was going to have to do…I hope you can find it in you to give me the courtesy of a read.
“Essentially, whatever you believe to be the case about this situation - however much you don't like Haus - essentially however justified you feel in your actions, your current actions are not justified.”
You quote Tom here, and let’s have a look:
Tom appears to be telling me that I do not have any right to choose. Because we all—whether consciously, unconsciously, or otherwise—choose our own beliefs. We are each a “choose your own adventure” narrative which interweaves with other “choose your own adventure” narratives to create the tapestry of narrative that is our tiny little world.
Yes, I don’t like Huas (sic.). I don’t like the way he treats me, and I do not like the way he treats others. I am tired of seeing him apparently able to get away with abuse after abuse of people, of topics, of narratives. He is not a friendly, nor self-aware, nor open-minded individual here in Litherland (as to who and how he is IRL I cannot say, but I do hope he’s a GOOD MAN, perhaps as some hope I might be regardless of my “online here in Litherland” personality).
In order to address my most recent concern with him I initially started a thread in the Policy called “A Public Message for Mr. Haus.” I did this not to publicly shame him, but because he had asked me awhile go to not PM him, and I wanted to respect that request—as one user for another. In this thread I take up an issue with Huas’ (sic.) comment from another thread where he:
1) Accuses me of using two suits in the same thread. He does so on a whim & with fancy, but certainly without any evidence.
Since using 2 suits is currently looked on as a serious threat to Barbelith, and since Huas (sic.) is, to paraphrase Tom, “a respected, trusted, and highly visible” member of the board, it seems to me that he would do well to be even more careful about the things he says about other people, esp. when making accusations about the behaviour of another member that reflect “serious Barbelith crimes.”
2) Huas (sic.) follows this accusation with a reference to how such behaviour reflects poorly on my position as a moderator.
Which, granted, it might; however, clearly I was in no way (like is subtly and underhandedly implied –Huas (sic.) tactics to be sure) abusing my “privileges” (and oh! the privileges) of my moderator status.
So, as I said, I started a thread in the Policy (after giving Huas (sic.) a 36 hr. window within the original thread where his post—now deleted—with the accusation occurred to respond, apologize or whatever) about it where the thread started to rot (perhaps having the seeds from the beginning—but when one is trying to complain about ongoing and offensive conduct of another towards one, well, it can be hard to be entirely reasonable and “cool”) almost immediately.
I was not taken seriously by anyone at all. Moreover, the people busy rotting the thread told me that this sort of thing belongs over in the Conversation. So, after that thread was promptly locked, I started a thread about Huas (sic.) in The Conversation to reply to a comment he made in that first thread that I could no longer post to.
Well, that thread was immediately rotted by the same people from the Policy. During the course of that thread (I think) Huas’ (sic.) status as a moderator/admin came up. Anna wanted proof of his possible abuses in this role. Thus, I started a thread n the Conversation seeking to inspire those with legitimate complaints against Huas (sic.) in this direction to post and supply the evidence that Anna & others wanted.
So how do these people respond? Well, they start to rot that thread right away. Then suddenly both threads are deleted.
Being a little miffed after an eight to ten hour bout with these same people, I make another thread (and here is where I likely stepped over the line a little too far) called “Fascists.” In the abstract it talks about things that are commonly associated with fascist behaviours, including censorship. The main text said merely, “You know who you are.” So, contrary to exploded popular opinion, I only called these people who I had been arguing with for the better part of a day—the same people who helped get my initial thread locked, and then after telling me to take it to the Conversation deleted my threads—fascists. And I know now I could have phrased it better:
“You, engaged in this fascist behaviour, know who you are.”
is likely what would have been better. I know these people aren’t “fascists” all the time. They are not marching around in jackboots. They were not being “fascist” the day before, and are not likely to get swept into a future of fascism either; however, at the time they v. much appeared to me to be showing signs of fascist behaviour & I wanted to let them know I wasn’t happy with such heavy-handed tactics.
And it goes on from there…
So, do I believe that I was justified—after further fascist behaviour (deleting my “Fascists!” thread, deleting the first, and relatively better written “Time to Strike” thread—no flippant and irresponsible abstract in the first one)? Well, justified or not, I’d personally lost any reason or interest to bother following any etiquette and switched into “WAR” mode (and here I find myself thinking of that scene in the movie Judge Dredd where the villain gets the robot from the pawn shop and tells it they are going to war). Something that, for me, takes an awful lot to get me into a place where I might even think about switching to WAR mode. So my vision became quite tainted by boiling blood—but it was a calm boiling, if you know what I mean—and I “pulled out all the stops,” as some would say.
Was I justified?
Well, this is clearly a difficult question that I cannot even hope to answer—let alone anyone else.
Was the FLQ “justified”? How about the 9-11 terrorists? How about USA invading Iraq? How about China invading Tibet? How about America using the bomb twice near the end of WW2?
How to justify war-like behaviours and decisions is not at all clear, but neither is how to condemn them (other than obvious abuses like “ethnic cleansing,” crimes against civilians, and the like). Like any system of morality, the percieved justification or lack thereof is typically relative to a whole set of beliefs, emotions, creeds & codes, and so on.
Is Tom, regardless of his wonderful and typically kind, generous, & fair hand of God wrt the maintenance of this board, in a position that is morally defensible to make the true claim that what I’ve done I’ve no “justification” for?
Well if he is, then he’d best be applying for the position of Secretary General of the UN when it comes up, because believe me, if he’s able to figure out & assess when people, nations, and such are justified in their War-like behaviours, and also be able to show how these assessments are indeed “true on all interpretations,” then the UN needs him more than anyone else in the world.
Now, a small error on your part. You said that Tom said all that to me “…over a week ago.” But it is only exactly a week today. But this is mere pedantry and I will not bore you with it further than this.
To move on to another comment of yours, and one that has some meat on the bones, you said:
“Since then, as you will note, your friend has broken a simple promise to avoid stirring things up for three days.”
And this is pretty much false. Mod did not post at all for those days. However, I was in constant and steady communication with others—people who had contacted me & not I them—and these others were asked, if they so desired, to do me a favour and post some of my stuff. No one held a gun to their head, and no one but themselves are responsible for taking any actions that they took. I have not made anyone do anything. Each took it into hir own hands once they’d received a PM from me not only with a request to post whatever from it onto the public bored (sic.), but with my blessings to do so.
Thus, I did no stirring up other than behind the scenes (not posting!) communication with people. From there, it was all out of my hands.
Perhaps much like Huas’ (sic.) behaviour has nothing to do with Tom or how Tom manages, maintains, and oversees this wonderful Litherland. My complaint has never been with Tom’s abilities or person, it has always stemmed from Huas’ (sic.) unrepentant and seemingly regular misbehaviour and abuse of other members. Please, if you can, let Tom know this: I’ve no dispute with him—although I am a little miffed at having my voice taken away; however, I can see where Tom is coming from: if you got a pack full of bratty kids, you single out the loudest and punish that one as an example to the rest.
Now, you also said, “…his actions were more obnoxious than the offence he wanted to investigate.”
And to this I agree. I thought it was pretty obvious I was not only on “asshole” mode, but on super-extra-jacked up asshole mode. I wasn’t merely obnoxious, I was, I figure anyway, potent poison and blazing fire and soot and ash: much like Old Nick Himself, perhaps (my full name, for those inclined this way, adds to 15—the Devil, and of course this is the companion and partner of 6—the Lovers…). Like I had said earlier—before the real rampage began, “I have become Death: the destroyer of worlds,” but of course, no one seemed to want to take me seriously…
Anyway, I was ready & willing (read: with willful intent) to take on anyone who wanted to step up, and I actually felt kinda’ bad for these brave souls who saw the foul (so terribly foul) mood I was in, and yet, still gathered the courage and gumption to try to step up and put me in my place. Unfortunately for them, and the readers of the board, I was exactly in my place (Tao is not value based: peace and war are One—and No-thing—wrt the Way), and so they had no where to move me to. Let me repeat: I know I was a terrible asshole to several people. I am sorry for this insofar as it likely made for a v. unpleasant Barbelith experience for those not involved in the conflict, but watching from the side lines.
And to note, I am pretty darn sure that was the first time I had ever-ever written (or otherwise uttered) the words ‘anal’ & ‘cunts’ together as a unit of sense, and I hope that I do not have to repeat such a terrible and hideous linguistic formulation again.
“I'm sorry, Mayfly, but your friend is in the wrong.”
This is too vague (to me anyway) to be a carrier of sensible communication. What was I “in the wrong about,” exactly? Hard to say (other than willfully over-the-top caustic responses post-thread deleting run to those who figured they could shut me down with words: mere words), and likely, to use old Lothar’s favorite, YMMV.
On an aside, I wanted to note that Illmatic said:
“…the closed membership will probably be to kept in place for the time being”
And personally, I didn’t see it was coming to an end anytime soon, so I do not take much responsibility (but I will take a smidgen) for this fact.
“I think it's a question of trust and consequence - an almost ubiquitous (ker-ching!) problem in free societies.”
Yes, I entirely agree. From my side, I trusted that I could register a serious complaint about Huas (sic.), but the consequence was that I was told off, had my thread rotted and locked, and after doing what I was told to do (take it the Conversation), also had my threads rotted and deleted. These tactics do not seem to me to represent the milieu of a “free society.”
And nice use of “ker-ching!” btw.
Sincerely,
b.e. hxxxxxxx
PS: when you say that you and Tom were together over the weekend and that Tom agonized over his decision to shut me out, I believe you. Tom, it seems to me, likely agonizes over many decisions he makes—esp. with respect to the possible discipline of any member of this board. I believe this strongly. On the other hand, I agonized over much of my actions that faithful “first day of combat,” and I would appreciate the benefit of the doubt (i.e., that you will believe me) when I say that during that caustic and obnoxious rampage there were several times I had tears in my eyes when I went to hit that send button: not so much for what “they” had said to me, but much more for what I was about to say to them.
Thank-you for your time. Feel free to quote (in public forum or otherwise) from any of this PM.
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