Posted by mair on January 10, 2004, at 10:43:32
In reply to Re: I apologize » mair, posted by Dinah on January 9, 2004, at 16:43:23
Dinah
It seems pretty strange to have you apologizing to me - I think the apology should be from me to you.
Of course I know that you expect Bob to treat you the same as any other poster and I would never think that you would appeal to him for special treatment. But I do think some posters get away with civility lapses (a crummy term but I can't think of a better one) more easily than others and I don't think that some of the examples of this are necessarily sinister on Bob's part. One of his jobs is to put out forest fires. I think when he's pressed for time and can't really go through all of the posts, he gets drawn to messages written by posters who've, in his mind, created problems before. Let's face it, if he needs to spot trouble quickly, he's probably not going to spend alot of time reading your posts, or Scott's, or Noa's or probably mine for that matter. So when some people feel they've been unfairly targeted for the types of statements which might be overlooked if made by you, they are probably right. I think once you've crossed Bob a time or two, your leash gets shorter because he's more apt to jump on something you've written much more quickly. So I guess that although there are time's when he's deliberately given preferential treatment to certain posters, more frequently the appearance of a double standard arises not from preferential treatment, but more from the way it seems he goes after people who've run afoul of him before. And because of his system of doubling up on block times, his sanctioning of someone like Larry or zen, seems way out of proportion to their civility breaches. I was particularly upset about zen not because I necessarily thought Bob should ignore her outburst, but more because a 6 month ban seems so harsh. I know there are people here who rely on her contributions and her most recent outburst notwithstanding, I think she had been making a sincere attempt to stick around for awhile after her last block ....and I know her well enough to know she's been having a difficult time lately and could benefit from being able to stay in contact with posters here.
As to the other stuff (whether I was accusing you of incivility), any comment I might make which could even remotely be construed as that (a criticism I mean) should have been made off the Board in an email. I'll try to send you one soon to explain what I meant.
I'm sorry you had a bad day yesterday. I hope things are looking up.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:296523
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20031120/msgs/298970.html