board77

Almost Prim! 5pm Texas time.

I'll go ahead with the editing then just in case I forget.

Remember daylight time!

Oregon is GMT -8 except daylight time, when we're GMT -7. GMT isn't daylight time. Assuming Texas does daylight time, you're GMT -6 except during daylight time, when you're -5.

Saturday, June 25th, 11pm GMT is when the poll officially closes (in case 35 more people suddenly come out of the woodwords and vote for deleting the threads ). The thread will be closed and moved soon after that, and the TORC-related threads will then be locked with a disclaimer added at the beginning, and a note about the locking at the end.

IdylleSeethes wrote:

You don't know me. I've been around long enough to have been banned just for standing too close to Lidless.

I know you're well thought of, and I enthusiastically supported your invitation here.

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The consequence of your current perspective on this is to assign someone else control over the image you project of yourself and how you react.

I think I understand what you're saying here. Perhaps I may be giving them control, but I'm really only thinking of myself if there's any image I try to project, and not how others would think of it.

This isn't a case of me wanting to be thought of a certain way and fighting to protect that image. I can't control what others think of me, which is why I don't try to impress them, and just carry on doing my own little thing. Have since high school. But I'm not going to draw attention to myself and hope they'll just be kind, when I know darn well they will not.

I'm not embarrassed by board77, and I worry that people think I'm saying all our previous threads are an abomination. I was in there through it all: whining, debating, laughing, crying, supporting people, needing support, trying to move on. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't need to.

I also don't need to be reminded of values when I came here being told it was a private board, and now it's going to be free for anyone to see. It's not that I was lying then, or lying now, it's that I wrote for a certain audience, and now that audience is changing. My posts need to as well.

But it's not me that I'm worried about. I believe that the only people interested in those old threads are the ones who aren't going to have as good intentions as you guys have, and I don't understand why you want to make it so easy for them.

I love our old threads and I do want to keep them around, just not for anyone besides whoever is here now, really. I don't want people changing or deleting their posts - it was so amazing what it brought out in them, be it humour, intelligence, insanity, etc. They were crazy, fantastic, frustrating, sad, giddy, amusing days, and I enjoy revisiting them, but I don't care for others to. I can only imagine they'll focus on the bad, and we'll have to see it every single day, or every time someone new comes along.

I was one of those people in the threads encouraging people to ignore the trolls, so I definitely encourage everyone but the admins to do that again next week, but I also don't see the point in feeding them and then hoping for good results. Yes, if someone's going to be a tool, it is simple to write them off as one and carry on. But is it? Seeing that person face to face isn't going to be easy in any way, and having them spam the boards isn't going to make me enjoy it. It doesn't take much (and sometimes nothing at all) for people to get offended. I just lost a friend of 8 years because she found out I wrote "I wish Courtney had stayed to watch the end of the movie." Sure, I guess you could say it is easy to chalk it up to her being a goose, but in the end, that's 8 years and a great friend down the drain, and I don't think you can tell me it was worth it. I did wish she'd stayed for the end of the movie, but if I'd known she was going to react that way, I woulda kept that comment far out of reach, not shoved it in her face and hoped for the best, satisfied in knowing that if it didn't turn out that way, I could just say, "oh well, who cares what she thinks?"

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I'm not sure why you would care about their reaction

I hate the prospect of anyone dumping on my for being honest. Especially if they themselves are not going to be.

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or provide them a willing audience for their misguided views.

Well, they're going to have an audience for their views, being able to post here and all, but I've no qualms with that. I know B77 will see the good along with the bad, and that's how it's always been (in life, not B77). But what I'm against is willingly providing them ammunition for their little agendas. This is what will happen. I can try ignoring it, but I know there are going to be situations where I will just not be able to, and that's where it gets my goat.

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No one owes them a response.

But you're giving them one by keeping these threads viewable because you feel you owe them transparency. I don't think anything I said on TORC or in e-mail differed greatly from what I said here, but it's not about that. It's about moving forward, and keeping our past here for the trouble-makers who are still stuck in it is gonna be a problem, and I see no need of aiding them. I owe them no explanation of what went on back then. I tried numerous times to do so, but they won't listen, so I hardly see why it would sink in now.

Yep, stuff got out thanks to a mole or whatever. But one person betraying our trust and telling one or two others isn't exactly the same as all of us telling dozens of people, "here.... take it all.... Do with it what you will". I couldn't help the one, but I can try to do something about the other, especially since it's on a much larger scale than the first.

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Let's be honest about who we are

Have always tried to.

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be proud of it

Always have been.

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show a little tolerance for the immature

Um... to reverse roles a bit: "The dead do not suffer the living to pass." "You will suffer me." I don't wanna suffer.

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and keep moving forward.

*I* will, but I see the site getting bogged down with those back-pedallers I mentioned before.




*E*

Primula_Baggins wrote:

Remember daylight time!

Oregon is GMT -8 except daylight time, when we're GMT -7. GMT isn't daylight time. Assuming Texas does daylight time, you're GMT -6 except during daylight time, when you're -5.

Hmmm...the UK is in GMT time zone right? Maybe that's where I'm going wrong. I'm always 6 hours behind the UK except for one funky week when the US and UK don't change times at the same time. One time I was 7 hours behind if I remember correctly back to when I chatted with Iavas all the time.

Yeah, the UK goes on summer time, but that's not the "GMT" everyone figures against. Or so I understand it.

Anyway, an hour one way or the other. . . . LP

Ah, I see.

*E* the arguments that you are making are not for keeping the threads hidden; they are for keeping the board a closed private club. There is no way that we could open to the public, saying that "we aspire to maintain a culture of respect, equality and openness" and at the same time hide those threads.

You are thinking of the very small group of people that may be offended by what they read in these threads. I am thinking of the entire universe of potential board77 members. Hiding these threads from people from TORC who had no idea what was going on earlier this year would be highly disrespectful to them. It would set up unequal classes of members (i.e., those who were here before we opened, and those who arrived afterwards). And it would create an atmosphere that is the very opposite of openness.

If people come here with a genuine desire to become a respectful, productive member of this community, then they should have a right to read what was said before and to comment if they wish. For the board77 experiment to work, members will need to learn to deal with each other respectfully and courteously, as well as openly and honestly.

If people come here with a desire to cause problems and refuse to be respectful or courteous, then we have procedures in place to deal with that. And of course, that works both ways. New members will need to abide by the responsibilities of membership in order to enjoy the rights of membership. But old members will also have to abide by those responsibilities in relation to new members, if this transition to a new phase is going to have any hope of success. In my opinion, hiding these threads would be completely counter to that goal, and would set us up to fail from the start.

Sorry to speak out at length once again.

Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:

It would set up unequal classes of members (i.e., those who were here before we opened, and those who arrived afterwards).

They're not unequal but we kind of already have the class thing going: original members and then those invited in though we don't focus on it of course. We're going to have those that were here before the board opened and then everyone else....not much we can do about it. The fact that the new people had nothing to do with those old threads, won't be able to post in them and also did not take part in creating and ratifying the charter creates two groups to me....though of course, they will be equal.

It's the same thing as TORC, oldbies, midbies, and newbies.

Yes, but the newest members will be able to find out what happened Back Then if they want to.

Us midbies never could. (I hasten to add that it's not important to me, never bothered me, etc.—but there's that gap of knowledge that can't be filled because the threads are gone, and that's a simple fact.)

My post really had nothing to do with finding out what had happened...just wanted to point out that there will be "classes" just as there is on any other message board. It's just the way humans work.

As long as I don't have to fan you and bring you cooling sherbets, O denizen of October, I'm fine with that.

*E* wrote:

But it's not me that I'm worried about. I believe that the only people interested in those old threads are the ones who aren't going to have as good intentions as you guys have, and I don't understand why you want to make it so easy for them.

I just want to respond briefly to this comment. *E*, I was pretty much in the dark about the events leading up to Feb. I knew nothing about any petition and had never heard of b77 until after the bannings of Feb. I had an idea whose “side” I was on, but there was no way to be sure, and there was a point, just before I came here, when I hesitated, when I had my doubts about the people who were portrayed as troublemakers on TORC. It took coming here and reading those threads to straighten me out, and I can tell you that my opinion of everyone here increased exponentially after reading them. I never knew you on TORC, but I learned what an incredible person you are by reading those threads when I first got here.

I think there are many people like me still out there who want to know the truth. Yes, there are most likely a few people who only have bad intentions, but I think there are many more who just want to know what really happened. I think they deserve the same chance that I had.

Darnit! She discovered our plan!

Where's my sherbert!


:D:P

*E*, I get your concern about troublemakers, but I don't think it's going to be as much of a problem as you foresee. There are a lot of people out there who may want to read those threads out of pure curiosity. Almost nothing was said about it on TORC. Unless somene was in contact with one of the b77ers, they probably had no clue what was going on. I mean, Ted's idea of explanation was a parable about a Vineyard. Do you remember all of those locked question threads? So yeah, there will be a few people looking to cause troule. But they wouldn't be able to do much. I think (hope) that everyone else will be reading them just for information.

So essentially, I second what Tinwe said.

I too agree with Tinwe. All I knew of the TORC quakes were what I could see on the surface so when I got here I read the 130 pages of POTD and the other threads pretty quickly. It was those threads that made me appreciate you in particular *E* for your passion, lucidity, constructiveness and common sense. I hadn't really got a sense of your posting on TORC. I don't think you have anything to fear.

What tinwe said.

When I came on board, my focus at first was on reading all the TORC-related threads. I was curious to see what had gone on here and what was really being said. Was this simply a haven for TORC-bashing scoundrels or was there something real and positive growing here? Obviously I liked what I saw. Just wish I'd seen all the threads that had already been deleted ...

Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:

*E* the arguments that you are making are not for keeping the threads hidden; they are for keeping the board a closed private club.

Um, no.

Where did I say that? Was it when I pointed out how I wanted the board open, or when I said I looked forward to posting with vynaca and bramblerose?

I want B77 open, I just don't want those threads available to everyone else.

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You are thinking of the very small group of people that may be offended by what they read in these threads.

They are foremost in my mind, but I don't believe it is such a small group. When I mentioned the public reaction to Lidless' banning and how the admins and some moderators handled it, that's what I was talking about: passers-by only need to see one comment to wake them and get them riled up. Crispy creme wrote something that clued in a lot of people, and irregardless of how upset he may have been when he wrote it, people saw this authority figure speaking very much out of place and so they spoke up about it and probably a few of them gravitated over here. Were people thinking that Crispy may have been so stressed he spoke out of line? Could be, but I bet many of them were thinking that this was supposed to be a high & mighty admin, and for him to seemingly go against a lot of what he's been professing over the years, then yes, it put him in a very bad light. The same will happen to us because despite all the respect we do have for one another, there were times that we didn't come across very well and I think for even passers-by, it could put us in a bad light, even if we were upset as hell and perfectly right to feel as such. The same opinions that brought a number of people here, could just as easily keep others away. It may already have kept some people away, as I think about a few posters I haven't seen in several months. *shrugs* And those are people I think very highly of and am somewhat, if not very, familiar with, whereas new registrees I will probably not know near as well.

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would be highly disrespectful to them.

Speaking of disrespect, did you guys decide to keep these threads around before or after the mole? I mean, I remember a lot of people freaking out about that. Is this decision due in part to you having had time to get used to the fact that the things that were said in confidence here were being sent along to someone outside of the boards? I think it sucked that this person did that, but it never really bothered me like this is, because as I said before, I can learn to handle one person being sneaky enough to fight their way in, but five or ten or twenty? And handing the threads to them? Nah.

I'm uncomfortable with trying to prove some larger point by sharing everything I thought was in relative confidence.

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It would set up unequal classes of members (i.e., those who were here before we opened, and those who arrived afterwards).

I understand, but considering we come from a site where we judged and were judged by which forum we posted in and what month we joined, seperation is natural, and not always ill-intended. When I think about all the circumstances under which the current board77 members joined, I have to admit it doesn't make much difference to me when it happened. Remember how satch was like our first non-petition signer? And that at the time, we even kept her invitation thread around once she joined? I don't even make that distinction now. We brought Yovargas in after he was banned from TORC. I possibly never even saw his name over there, but I feel like I've know him for years over here. We're going to know who was here before and who joined after (and probably even mix it up occassionally, since some folks have been registered for months and couldn't post yet), but it's not really going to matter once we're all on the go.

The people it may matter to are the ones who are all-too-interested in what went on back then, and I gotta say it is them I'm not worried about helping 'em out. I don't want to accomodate the bottom-feeders who are only here for gossip and a fight.

Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:

For the board77 experiment to work, members will need to learn to deal with each other respectfully and courteously, as well as openly and honestly.

Absolutely. And I don't intend to lie, now or then, but the thing is that there are different ways of saying the same thing, and because of that, they can come off sounding like completely different things to some people. That's why I try to keep in mind who my audience is when I do write anything. I never talk to everyone all the same. I got different sides to me, and different ways I try to come off at different times. Whenever I try to be "honest Nikki", somebody gets all pissy about it and I get in trouble. So yeah, I definitely soften things up now and then, because I don't feel like defending myself all the time to someone who'd rather jump off the handle then think about what I actually said. Much of what was said in the old threads was not soft, and if I knew I was putting myself in a position to be read by everybody I didn't trust in the first place, I wouldn't have said it at all. I'm so sick of people making things up, or misinterpreting what I say and not giving me a chance to explain, but that's how it usually happens, so that's why I usually try to stay out of it. It is NOT easy to chalk people up to being assholes because they will make their problems your problems, and that's when I get defensive about giving them ammunition.

Primula_Baggins wrote:

The threads are going to be locked the day before we open. They're going to stay right where they are, on back pages, gradually sinking. They can't be bumped. Nothing links to them. I don't see how that constitutes "waving them around for all to see."

But it also doesn't constitute pretending none of this ever happened.

I know they'll be locked and everything, but if someone wants to reply to it, all it takes is a new thread to get their points across. If they had nothing to reply to, problem solved. Think about how people here reacted when Jon or Ted kept spoke up about anything - seemed like a practiced snowjob, and it was rarely satisfying. When they were quiet, we had to use our imaginations. If people were out for my blood, I wouldn't want them to see everything I had to offer, which is what our old discussions were. Let 'em use their imaginations, since it's gonna go into overtime no matter what we say.

It's only "waving them around for all to see" because they are there, and they do clearly involve TORC, so it's gonna be like a magnet for some.

I never wanted to pretend none of this ever happened, I just don't want to go over it every day for the rest of my life. B77 is an actual messageboard right now, and not just a place to vent about TORC, so I'd like to keep going in that direction. It's just not anybody's business how everything went down back then, and if they're only here to see what happened, then I'd highly question their motives.





*E*

Reading these post by post...

I did end up repeating what Eruname said regarding "classes" on this board. Same as how I was there to tell people their votes in the Invitation threads were just as important as anyone else's, I'll be there to drive home the point that it don't matter when someone joined the site. If they ever start thinking is does, then hopefully I can make them see otherwise.

Prim, I believe Alandriel copied all those threads on to disc. I don't even remember what was on them, but I should ask if she still has them around to mail.

Tinwe, Mossy, Tosh, and Wampus - I hear you guys loud and clear. I myself would not want to keep bramblerose from reading that material because I trust her completely. People like Ari-Anna, I wanted in here so that they weren't alone in the dark. I know how that feels. I've also always been aware of the fact that some people were reading it who weren't even members (this is before it showed up on Fandom Wank). There are good, trustworthy people out there, but I just don't generally trust people and I know that in this case, there are many to distrust.

It's a conundrum.

In most cases, I tend to just "let go", because I figure it's better to get things out there, and if there's trouble, I'll play it by ear. Yes, I do that despite all the bad experiences that prove to me people won't give me the chance I wish they would, but oh well. When I know the outcome can't be good, or that the bad will outweigh it, I choose to keep it inside. No doubt there are some nice people who may have read it, but I can't risk the problems that'll come from all the jerks. Jerks who I once thought were friends, in some cases.

Don't take this to mean I would gladly live in a world without tinwe_linto, MaidenOfTheShieldarm, ToshoftheWuffingas, and Wampuscat(of Khazad-dum!). It's one of those situations where there's no right answer, you just have to come up with what seems like the best one for your group. I sure don't like making decisions, so all I can do is click on "reply" and eventually come up with some sort of opinion.

From my point of view:
My friend and I were around for all of the Snowdog/Grey Havens stuff, and even when we were looking at TORC with a little less reverence than we had been, we were also looking at the accusers the same way. They didn't necessarily have the best methods for going about things, and I did lose some respect for them, even though I understood why they were doing it and have learned more about the situation over the years.

I think our old threads reveal more strengths about us than weaknesses (again, I am not embarrassed nor ashamed of them - rather, I'm proud and gushing about you guys), but it only takes a small weakness to ruin everything sometimes.

(Thanks for the kind words, Tinwe, and Tosh. I had a couple of good days, I guess, which I'm glad for because they were trying times and TORC occassionally needed a whuppin'.)

Maiden, I definitely remember all those locked threads in TOR. What a weird event it was.




*E*

*E * Geez, you're an impressive lass!

While I still believe what I believe, I admit your arguments are cogent, have merit, and are so intelligently argued. I think, though, we each just stand on a different patch of ground and I don't see it that way.

You may well be proven right, though.