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Ach, and now that little bit of turny-heel drama means that I have to do this now. Fine, fine.
The thing is, you totally misunderstood, as far as I can tell, the tone of my comment, and then took that to be a sign of how able you were to predict what I was going to say. I've covered a couple of times now where it seems that you are not so interested in what people actually say rather than what you think they might or should have said - going back to wifegate, I suppose, and ringgate, and so on - and I imagine that you wanted me to be dismissive so much that you read it that way. Sadly, though - and we've wasted a lot of energy on this, now - that wasn't the case. Likewise freektemple, as it happens, who quoted the wiki on why frivolous picture posts might be frowned on, in the face of which you are still insisting that it was his disproportionate fear of me that made him apologise. I'm not Jack Palance in Shane, you know. And, rather more importantly, so does everyone else. I'm one of two people who have some sway in who gets banned, to a limited degree. I have some control over admissions, or did until Life Critic tipped me over the edge of despair. Beyond that, nothing, really. Whatever respect or lack thereof comes from how I am acting. As you said not so long ago:
I'm only interested in what somebody is saying now, not what they have said in the past. I'm just as likely to agree with something dark horse has said if I perceive it to have value than I am with something said by anyone else.
So, yes. The idea of Morrison buying the domain name. It seems that you thought that that was some sort of sarcastic dismissal (although you have upbraided me before for responding to what you have said, rather than what you meant but did not actually say, so I guess that might happen again shortly). Sadly for your Hauscognitive powers, it was no such thing. It's a very good idea, which I'm amazed I hadn't thought of before.
Think it through. Tom Coates is clearly not in a position to manage the forum as it stands. The technology base is knackered. The equity it has lies in the quality of the archives. However, many of those who wish to join have no real investment in that equity. They have googled, they want a fan community and this is the closest they can get, and they are then surprised and upset when it turns out not to be a fan community. So, why not _make_ it a fan community? The old stuff gets archived. A new board is set up on the same URL. The google presence of barbelith.com ceases to be an issue. It can become whatever a Grant Morrison fan forum ought to look like, and can be moderated by people who are eager to moderate the site and have power to do so.
Tom is no longer saddled with a decaying community he doesn't have any time to care about, but also gets to hand it over in a kind of tiny IPO. The moderators are no longer saddled with performing first aid with a trowel, because there are new moderators in a new community with a functional code base (a) and none of the stuff about higher standards of discussion that causes angst here at present (b). The archives may or may not stlll be online, but ether way are not immediately accessible - Google links route through to the home page. And, yes, I get to rest and maybe take a nice holiday. I've outlined my four change states for the future of Barbelith recently, but this would be an optimal fifth, and would allow a decent chunk of the current membership just to reenlist in a shiny and functional new forum more suited to their aims and its own name.
It's a shame that you read that as you did, but it's really not my fault; it sounds like you had a lot invested in reading things a certain way (and, you know, it's great that you've experienced great change in your life, but this investment in me having done what you wanted me to have done rather than what I actually did is straight out of 2005, and I don't really know how one goes about fixing it).
So, I don't know if the questions were part of the plan, but:
Why
See above, really.
Why that idea?
See above.
Why it is you think that it might be a viable alternative?
See above.
What do you think Grant's opinions on the site are? What is the image in your head of who he is and who his fans are that make that either likely or possible or relevant or even funny in any way?
And this is where the questions become empty rather than just a bit repetitive. I'm not trying to climb into Grant Morrison's head. I am thinking about Barbelith, the community. I'm not trying to horn in on your personal acquaintance; it just wouldn't be exciting in the same way for me, or I suppose for GM, so there's not a lot of point.
Who is trying to give the impression that it's where the grown-ups are?
Who are the grown-ups and how do they act?
How is it that grown-ups solve issues of board policy?
These are also a bit empty. Freektemple himself quoted the wiki on posting etiquette in the Policy, and I think that deals pretty well with these. However, since then Quantum's post has got me thinking about the utility of trying to make any sort of serious attempt to maintain standards. Quantum's post was actually pretty awesome, and certainly worth more than a picture. It didn't try for a big pay-off down the line, or to ment out a reaction, but it stated clearly and comprehensibly a position with which I might not currently agree, but which I can certainly understand (I've seen good people go some variety of feral before, after all).
So, yeah. I think the entire menting thing is a bit of a failure, but on the plus side this means that my actions and your expectations did indeed diverge wildly - you just didn't notice it. Hopefully this can be retroactively productive. |
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