Laura Werner resignation
Laura Werner (la...@goodkitty.com) wrote:
- "Well, it's time."
About two months ago, that was how I began the email in which I convinced the other moderators that the time had come to ban a blackmailer from the newsgroup. Now it's time for something else for me to resign as a moderator of this group.
I was ready to resign a month ago, but the other moderators convinced me to stay at least until we had voted on a procedure for modifying the charter. In my opinion, that vote was at least in part a vote of confidence for the moderation team. I and the other moderators felt very strongly that the charter needed to be changed and that the proposed procedures were a good way to do it. Most of you apparently didn't agree, at least not enough to overcome your apathy and vote on the proposal. Although there was a 2/3 majority of Yes votes, the turnout was underwhelming, with only 50 votes total.
I shouldn't have been surprised by this, but I was. I expected at least a moderate show of support. I should have known better. Almost since the very beginning of this newsgroup, on May 12th of this year, there has been an atmosphere of mistrust and hostility towards the moderators.
People whose posts get lost often accuse us of censoring them. Folks who don't like a post or a thread demand that we "do something" about it. Then there are the creeps who get hostile when we warn them about posting personals or commercial ads. The people who interpret every personal opinion we post as an official statement of the moderators' policy. The people who blame us for all of the glitches in their news servers. And on and on and on.
Add to the negative atmosphere the fact that the five of us have been working our asses off, and you end up with some very unhappy moderators. In the weeks before this group was started, I spent quite a few weekends and late nights writing and debugging the software robot that keeps the group going. I skipped play parties and munches because I felt an obligation to the newsgroup. I essentially gave up all of my free time to write a piece of software that the group needed. And I did it all for free, and without complaining (well, not too much). In case you're wondering, my consulting rate starts at $80/hour; I'm damn good at what I do.
After the bot was written, I spent lots of time adding new features that we needed. Fine-tuning the spam filters. Figuring out the right way to deal with binaries and crossposts, and so on. And I'm not the only one who has worked hard. The other moderators have tried to welcome every newcomer to this group. They have written polite notes to everyone who has posted a personal ad. They have written warning letters to people who post commercial ads and have complained to the ISPs of spammers. This takes up a *lot* of their time and mine.
We've even dealt with the unpleasant task of banning someone from the group for 30 days for posting repeated commercial ads. (And no, I won't say who it was, because I don't want to embarrass the person here in public. S/he is perfectly free to talk about it if s/he wants to.) I don't think any of the five of us enjoyed that episode. I know that I didn't.
The environment of mistrust combined with the hours I've spent doing moderation has made the newsgroup a lot less fun for me than it was before. I've had to spend so much time fighting fires, dealing with spammers, and answering complaints that I haven't had very much time or energy to devote to devote to just *being* here, to being a member of the community. I used to write lots of long, emotional, introspective, posts.
Recently, an RL friend who looked at my website commented that I hadn't done any of that type of writing for a long time. And he was right. I haven't. I haven't had the time, and the hostility toward the moderators has made me unwilling to let my guard down and pour out my emotions on the group.
And that brings us almost up to the present. About two months ago, I decided that someone's attempts to blackmail members of this newsgroup into silence had gotten out of hand, and I felt that I had to do something about it. I had reached the point where his actions were simply intolerable, and I either had to act or resign. After a lot of email discussion and a tearful phone call with another moderator in which I talked about quitting, I decided to act, in part because I felt that I'd be letting the group down if I resigned.
Since then, I have received a lot of supportive emails, but I've also been the target of quite a few vicious attacks from people who I thought were my friends. I've been accused of betraying the group's trust in me. I've been accused of lying about my motives, of conspiring against the blackmailer, of manipulating the group, and of being swayed by *other* people who were conspiring against the blackmailer.
Well, I feel like I am the one who has been betrayed. After all of the time, effort, and emotional energy that I and the other moderators have devoted to this group, people won't even give us a minimal amount of trust, respect, or credit for having good intentions. Instead, there's all this talk about betrayal, violating the charter, and so on. People have accused us of all sorts of nasty things, from conspiring to take over the group to lying about what we're going to do in the future. This has hurt me a lot.
Well, I've had enough. I am resigning as a moderator of this newsgroup, effective immediately. I will continue to host the bot on my account until the other moderators can find a new home for it, but I am not going to put any more work into it. I will help move the thing to its new home, but that's more because I'm an R/L friend of the moderator who's likely to get stuck with the job than because I feel an obligation to the newsgroup.
I will give the other moderators a reasonable amount of time to find a replacement for me and a new home for the robot. I'll set up mail forwarding from old posting and admin addresses. I'll be a good girl. And when it's all over, I'll start trying to become a member of this community again, the way I was a year ago before I was stupid enough to volunteer for this thankless job. I'll try to start writing those long, emotional posts again. This one is a start.
~~ Laura
You never proved that CD was a threat. And now he's off the board. As I said before, if anyone posts on any internet venue, they run the risk of being "outed." So, some modicum of protection is called for...but not from a moderator!
--
Life is too short to belittle
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