Hi all. Let me just put some posts together over time about the last couple of days.
This is my first post on the public forum for three weeks. I wasn’t posting here because I didn’t like a lot of what I read, and didn’t feel comfortable posting or reading some threads. I felt that the forum was nothing like the “vision” (I know that you love that word) that the site founders had for it, or what I thought it should be. I reduced my visits, and thought about the future of the forum and my involvement with it. I thought it might just be me, and I’d get over it with time.
Unfortunately, things happened on Wednesday night, where I felt temporarily closing the forum was the best thing to do. I thought things might escalate further, and I wanted to avoid this, as well as use the opportunity to discuss with the moderation team what we wanted to do with the forum, and then implement whatever changes there might be. I closed it because I felt it was the right thing to do at the time, and would avoid greater consequences. I am sorry for this, because it has upset a lot of members. I’m sorry if I scared you into thinking that the forum may not come back at all; I could not show my face at a golf day, if I was to do that.
Moderating has been very hard for all of us, as we do not like the conflict and the criticism that goes with it, particularly with those we are close too. I am far from an exception in this. However, I wanted the forum to be a place that I would enjoy being involved with again. To that end, I used Robyn, who was not concerned about having conflict with people she did not know, to take action to get the forum heading in the direction that I wanted it to.
I felt rushed into a decision on the forum and drastic action was taken. I knew there would be some support for it, but also some backlash and was prepared for it, but I have been surprised and saddened by how much backlash and the places it has come from. I regret that the actions taken were so suddenly, but not necessarily the actions themselves.
I will post again later, as this post has already taken a lot of time.