Do not censor me.

[darsynia]

Warning. Mostly TL;DR and related to something I hadn't yet had the chance to tell you guys about.

Most of you know I have a problem with anything I view as censorship. You all also know I'm an enthusiastic supporter of Sorting Communities, and am a member/have been a member of many of them.

One I was particularly excited about was dumbledoresarmy. Right about when I first was sorted, the maintainer and headmaster decided that it would be a good idea to go on hiatus for a while and get the current members more involved. I was disappointed because I wanted to make a post about the community to let the members of my friends list who are also interested in sorting communities to join, but I decided I'd just wait until the hiatus was lifted.

Meanwhile, I continued with my own process of membership. At that particular community, you become a full member by going through three processes--a sorting ceremony, a magical branch ceremony, and a private interview. I was so excited to share this with you guys because the sorting ceremony is completely blind--you don't see your votes until you're sorted, which I thought was really novel and interesting! The branch application helps members feel more connected by giving them a branch like Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, etc to belong to. Finally comes the personal interview. I got my first email about it on August 19, at 4:42 in the morning:



That screenshot is important, because it shows the extent of our correspondence via email. I don't have a separate spam box or folder (which is why I have the side of the email window showing); all of my emails go to my inbox. That is the email address I use for private correspondence, and I get perhaps 4 spam emails a week, if that. The previous email had been regarding my offer to send my application to him with the html already coded in--because dumbledoresarmy reposts applications under idol's name to prevent the applicant from seeing the votes until they are unscreened, he would have had to hand-code my application himself otherwise.

Note: you may need to paste /?style=mine to view the images under the cut, as they are too large to show up on my journal. My apologies.


Now, I fully admit I misread the post taking the community off of hiatus:


Reading the second line where he said 'I'll be taking the community off of hiatus soon' seemed to contradict the subject line, and made the post appear to not be the one I'd waited for. After seeing that, I decided to read the rest later and wait until an actual 'we are not on hiatus anymore' post was made, after which I would promote the community for you guys. That mistake is on me.

Meanwhile, I was waiting for the reply to my first interview question, which I never ultimately received. Whether I should have emailed idol again and asked what happened to it, I don't know, but my activities in the community led me to believe that doing so just might make me appear psychotically over-eager. While we were on hiatus as a community, I offered to alter the userinfo graphic that stated the names of the members of the DA (as it was out of date), and was told gently that it was being taken care of. I also took it on myself to post questions given to the Ravenclaw members in our common room for discussion, rather than waiting for the HoH to do so, which I regret even though no offense was taken by it. Lastly, though I wasn't yet a full member, I applied to be the head of Transfiguration (the branch I was sorted to). I also sorted the two (three?) applications that had been posted since my sorting had enabled me to do so. I guess I was worried that, again, I would appear over-eager if I whined about where the email was.

I should clarify that while the branches were inactive due to the community's size, sorting and some discussion merited points and removal of points. If students did not sort each application, they lost their House 10 points each. At one stage, an application was posted not long after two students were warned that they would be expelled for inactivity. Before the points were tallied, those students were indeed informed that they were removed from membership--yet the Houses to which they belonged still lost 10 points each for the fact that they didn't participate. This disturbed me, and I bring it up later, so I wanted to be clear about that.

This appeared on my friends list today (http://community.livejournal.com/dumbledoresarmy/53651.html?view=314003#t314003):



I felt hurt. My initial reaction was that the headmaster was essentially telling the students, 'I worked hard on this, and you chose to let it die. I even included measures to ensure that only active people would bother to go through the process of membership, and still you let it die. I'm disappointed, and as such am closing up.' Here is what I posted in response. Some of idol's response to me is included, the rest of which I will post shortly:



The material point behind my post was to state that I didn't feel comfortable sending you guys to a community that wasn't accepting applications, I felt as though I had tried to be more active and been denied the chance, and that it felt like a personal insult to see the statement about the interview when I had an inbox with no response after a full month (it is September 18th, the first email interview was sent on the 19th of August). He's right, if I'd fully read his hiatus post, I'd have seen that the day after his 'hiatus over' post, DA would be accepting new applicants.

From what you can see of his post so far, he says he had no intention of implying that any one person was the cause of the closure, that his wording didn't imply that, that he was certain he'd sent the email to me... and that my wording caused him to feel 'lashed out' against.

For what it's worth, he's right--even if I tried to be super hyper active, it wouldn't be enough if everyone else wasn't. Here's the rest of his post:



You can tell by my reaction that the following statement made me quite angry; 'This will be the last comment I reply to from you. If I were to continue, I'm sure it'd be along, drawn-out battle. If you decide to reply, I will read the comment, but it will be deleted. I want the D.A. to come back at some point, and I don't need any bashing on your part.'

First of all, it's my biggest pet peeve online to see people respond to criticism as a personal insult. Yes, I stated in my first post that I felt that some of the blame for his choice in closing the community rested on him, especially when it came to responding to my email. In my mind, my truth--in my own inbox--there is no email. In his mind, in his truth--in his 'sent mail' box--there may well be a mail sent to my email address three days after my initial response. That colors his judgment, and if he's telling the truth, it should. Furthermore, if he believes I'm willfully lying about getting that email, I in fact am lashing out without provocation to him. Unfortunately, I'm not lying.

A sidebar of note: Our domain name, 'treellama.org' was scheduled to be moved to a different server by our host about three weeks ago. During the move, one of the pieces of hardware (either a power supply or hard drive) shorted out, and the move had to be postponed while they fixed the problem. Our email service was interrupted sporadically for the next three days as they worked to fix it. I was under the impression that I got all of my emails, just later than I should have, during that time. It's possible idol's email to me was lost by the system.

Now, to my response. The very idea that he could imply that I did get the email and post that I hadn't was insulting. I wanted to defend myself, not only to him, but to anyone reading the post--but wait! Any response to this will be deleted.

The thing is, idol, you're not the only one reading that post. That's what you forgot. Anyone else reading it wouldn't be able to see if I responded with vitriol or good humor, with an apology or a polite statement for you to go to hell. Just because YOU would know what I said doesn't make it okay to say you'll delete it 'for the good of the community' because you're just thinking of yourself, and not the community. If you had wanted us to be so close, so active, so energetic, you should have thought about whether or not one member wanted to be seen as a liar to the rest of the group.

I decided at that point that if he wanted to delete my responses and make me look bad by doing so, I would do the same to him. I deleted both of my statements, the one where I listed my objections in the first place, and my angrier response to his promise of censorship. Then I posted again, hoping maybe someone might see my newer post before he went on his deletion rampage:



I reiterate, idol. DO NOT CENSOR ME. I recognize your intent of avoiding a flame war, but in implying I had no voice with which to defend myself, you incited one. I had every intention, initially--until I read the statement of yours that I bolded above--of apologizing for the misunderstanding, and trying to work out with you what exactly had happened to the email. Like I said before, however, you decided on your own that because I disagreed with your decision, I was going to start a battle with you, that because I stated that you shared some of the blame of an inactive community, I was 'lashing back' at you.

What gives you the right to decide I can only defend myself to YOU? Oh, yes, because you're the leader of the community. Well guess what, you don't like being shown in a bad light any more than I do, which is why you copied and pasted the email you got when I responded at first and posted it after I deleted it, even though it was MY comment that I rather than you chose to delete:



Topping your earlier attempts, you deleted this comment as you had the others, within mere minutes of my posting them.


Does it make you feel good, deleting any comments that disagree with you? Can you not handle the idea that someone might criticize something, and other people might read it? Rather than prevent a 'battle,' you've started one, standing behind a paper tiger defense of trying to stop conflict before it starts by censoring someone who had been implied to be a liar. I didn't get your email, sir. I can't prove that to any DA members that read your post, and I am hurt that you're okay with letting them believe whatever they want of ME, while censoring them of what I think of YOU.

The best part is, the other members of the community have no idea what you deleted, and I can't tell them. The best part is your removing me from membership, without allowing me to leave on my own.

Controlling much? Do you think my first statement is so horrible that people will dislike me for making it? Is that why you reposted? I didn't delete it because I thought it was poorly worded. I deleted it because I wanted you to know how it felt to have information hidden, to have your own comment turned against you and be made to look unreasonable for it. I stand behind EVERY statement I made, and the ONLY reason this is behind a cut is because of the size of the images. I left them at original size because I didn't want to give any implication of deception.

To think I was on the edge of my seat excited to recommend this community to everyone on my friends list.

ETA: I'm banned from that community. As such, I'm unable to support thehangedwoman or anyone else who comments at that journal. Here's what was going to be my final say:

Last time I will post here for you to delete, I promise. Link: http://darsynia.livejournal.com/36592.html if you want to discuss things reasonably without the drama of having to delete what I say each time.

I just want to clarify, the only negative thing I said about you in the post you cited was this: The final slap in my face is the whole: ' I thought it would be easy to filter out those not as enthusiastic by drawing out the application process with three steps (including an interview!), but I obviously misjudged.' I held up MY part of that bargain. You did not. So who is the more enthusiastic?

Please, PLEASE tell me how that is 'bashing' you. I never recieved your email. You claim that you sent it. I am telling you how I feel, and given my opinion based on the evidence that I have (no email) that you did not hold up your end of a bargain. Those are not insults, please stop saying that they are. You feel put-opon and insulted; you believe that I have attacked you personally. This is simply not true. It's very possible that your email program had an error. It's possible that due to my ip's server problems, I never got the email that appears in your sent box. These are things that adults can talk over reasonably, not personal attacks and insults.

I just want to point out something here. You have removed my statements and tried to clean up after them, thinking that will accurately show the situation. I, however, have shown every single thing that has been said, documented it, and let it speak for itself. So tell me, which one of us is leaving a sour note? If you had simply tried to speak with me reasonably instead of telling me in your first response that I would be denied a chance to have a conversation with you, there wouldn't be a 'sour note' to complain about.

((Added this and posted on his private journal, which I fully expect to see deleted and me banned from there as well. Bad decision? Maybe, but I felt he needed to read it.))Banning me? That's just LOW, dude. What a temper tantrum.

IDOL: I do NOT intend on banning you. If you want to talk like ADULTS about this instead of banning and hiding comments and deleting things and assuming I hurt your feelings by disagreeing with you, please do. I welcome it.

Comments

[lalaranel.livejournal.com]

ugh, what a jerk. :(