Seamus Haley

I really hate having to agree with Jim about anything but as I was reading that last line- the words "And what was the common denominator in all those situations to which this applies-

I am absolutely not calling all of those bad blood situations "your fault" Rich, but looking at it from the outside, there are definitely *some* where your actions fostered that negative attitude. And plenty where you were just burned for no understandable reason- but to seem to color them all as "everyone else's fault, why do they keep doing this to poor blameless me?" is inaccurate. I understand that you've been kicked in the head repeatedly as a direct result of your ownership of this site and there are certainly *some* examples of people deciding to simply try to hurt your efforts. It's not correct to label every problem situation as ridgidly adhereing to that label though; some of the conflicts you have had with individuals were escalated and by them and some were not.

Oh and... since I have been waiting for it for two years now-

Told you so. Although again you're mischaracterizing the intent and attitude behind the objections which were raised against that plan. As you seem to mischaracterize the intent of most people who hold an opinion in opposition to your own. It seems nobody can ever disagree simply because they came to a different conclusion based on the avaliable information- they all have to be insidious plotters who gleefully revel in causing you misery and grief. No shades of gray at all for awhile now- there's people who agree with you and people who are somehow evil.

It wasn't a group of evil villains who were opposed to credibility or professionalism; it was (mostly) a group of concerned members who believed that a fee to post invalidated the underlying concept of a free exchange of information which had been touted as a BOI friendly ideal for so long before the change.

There's an old sort of twenty questions mystery riddle deal... An express train is rolling across the plains at midnight and there's a man walking through a sleepercar. He sees a hand hanging out of one of the curtained alcoves, pulls out a revolver and fires through the curtain, killing the occupant. He's detailed and handed over to the authorities at the next station. They hold him for half an hour and then he is released with no charges.

The game is to ask a bunch of questions such as "Were there distinguishing marks on the arm" or "Did the assailant know the victim" to try and figure out what had happened- with the answer being that the man who fired the shot had gotten into an argument with his wife thirty years earlier and attacked her with an axe, cutting off several of her fingers. She escaped, the police came, found the blood and fingers, charged him with murder and he was found guilty- sentances and served his time. When he got out, he reccognized her hand because of the missing fingers and shot her. He couldn't be tried for the same crime twice and had already served his sentance.

Rich, *sometimes* you take a person who disagrees with you and treat them as if they were an enemy, out to destroy you or damage your site just because they offered a different opinion. And you keep treating them that way until they break and actually act upon the attitude you've behaved as if they already held. You seem to be manufacturing disgruntled members out of people who were once staunch supporters. You've got a massive pile of great members to go through before you're left with nothing but the bad element and for awhile after each one of these conflicts that led to a good person leaving or being banned or just not making the positive contributions they used to, I figured it was a fluke or an unfortunate miscommunication... but you're rapidly driving people off and the only constant in each case is that they disagreed with something and explained their position to you. Disagreement with you is the apparant catalyst; I hope you can see why I think that's wrong.