caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- rant I will write some more about the aftermath of the custody decision, but right now I'm incredibly peeved about another issue. List business, of course. Recently a former member had rejoined us and has been a rather frequent poster. She is posting a lot, and I would probably choose, in her place, not to respond to every post and to let the thread develop a bit before I felt compelled to respond, but it is a discussion list, and we've never had rules like other lists have about the number of times someone can post. People post to the companion, off-topic list numerous times a day; someone once posted to it 44 times in a matter of 4 hours! But this person isn't one of the new "in crowd" that has developed, and most if not all of the complaints have, tellingly, come from that crowd. Now, apparently, people are threatening to leave the list if we don't tell her to cut back. I say apparently, because no one has actually emailed me about this. Poor Phelps was on vacation last week, while a lot of this built up, and instead of emailing me about it, everyone apparently decided to wait and yell at her the minute she returned. Now I understand that a lot of these people are used to Phelps being the sole moderator, but I did come back several months ago, and before Phelps left she specifically reminded posted to let everyone know that I would deal with any issues that came up while she was gone. That's one of the things that's pissing me off; I was the sole moderator for quite some time, and when I had to leave due to health issues, Phelps took over as a huge, huge favor and has done a wonderful wonderful job with the List. But others are making me feel like a nonentity who can't deal with these problems (not Phelps, she's always brought me in on everything and lets me know exactly how she's handling whatever issues have come up, and I always agree with her decisions and judgment). But by ignoring me while she was gone, and then dumping all this on her when she got back, the complaining listmembers are invalidating me and piling way too much on her. I don't blame her for considering quitting. That's the second, and bigger, issue. All this 5-year-old whiny shit has nearly driven Phelps to quit, which I would hate to see happen. Obviously, I don't want to run this list by myself (especially as members seem reluctant to bring their problems to me anyway), but more importantly because Phelps is a very good moderator. She handles problems much more diplomatically than I would. She is a wonderful sounding board and has become a wonderful friend. I feel bad she got saddled with this; when I left the List it was a group of mature, intelligent people, for the most part, and there were very few Issues. Now it's a bunch of cliquey old-timers who feel like they have some proprietary interest and get to decide how things should be done. It angers me to no end that all these people are on her back because we have someone actually posting pertinant, relevant, intelllectual arguments to the List. Yes, this person posts a lot, but I really think that's a factor of her enthusiasm at returning, and the fact that we are discussing _Gaudy Night_, which is a general favorite that generate a lot of discussion anyway. Lately there'd been a lot traffic on the off-topic list and very little participation in the subject we were all supposed to be there to discuss in the first place. Also tellingly, the people complaining are the people who aren't very active on the main list in the first place, but are part of the clique on the OT list and chat room regulars. Where they've also been whining about this, but I haven't been able to bring myseld to check that out all week; I just wasn't up to dealing with it. That's the end of my rant for now, because we haven't decided what to do about it yet. And I need to get back to work. 9:35 a.m. - 2001-07-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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