A Community Statement

[Nogrod]

I would say that Bêthberry goes straight to the point in her post.

We all know that speaking about sensitive topics is hard even face to face. So how do we manage without a physical contact? And when we have a global community, would even the physical contact help us to interpret each other?

And as Mith said, we have a varying degree of knowledge of or familiarity with each other. Some know each other personally from daily RL, some have PM'd, chatted etc. a lot and maybe even met, some have learned to know one another through lengthy discussions here at the Downs and some people are just "unknowns" to us.

And some people write with their mothertongue, with varying dialects, and others use their fluent second language, some their pretty unsure foreign one.

So there is a fertile ground for misunderstandings here.

We really should all remember that. Not only us from the non-English speaking countries (or the Yorkshireans ), but also the native-speakers.


But we should not infer from this that somekind of politically correct eg. crippled language of "clean information" (which is not possible) is the only allowed manner of speech either. The joy of language, the joy of speech and writing - and the deeper grace of communication - lies in the multiple ways the meaning can be conveyed and given birth to. We will always construct the meaning of the other differently as we can not share the "world" of the one who addressed us. The world of the sender is embedded in the culture and individual life-history of her/himself. But within limits it still is shareable with those outside: otherwise we could not communicate at all.

All this requires trust and mutual-effort to gain new views of the things discussed and sharing the points of the others (however well or badly they are interpreted concerning the initial meaning). In here I quess any of us (myself included) could learn more.


And here we come to one of the cores of this row. It feels to me that there has been some initial ill-will or frustration, or anger or disappointment or whatever that has lead to actions that have generated even more ill-will, frustration, anger, disappointment and whatever. That is most sad, both because of what actually happened to davem and to what may happen to the Downs as a community of good faith.

Gaining trust takes time, losing it takes a second.

I really agree with the few last remarks that this thread has been a good thing. Without this discussion that has been partaken by the mods and also those not overtly happy or compliant with the "community statement", I think I would have been left a lot more suspicious and less happy to hang around here. ("That would be a relief!", some of you may say... sorry )

Concerning the banning of davem I'm not yet assured that everything went correctly and in the smoothest and most reasonable way possible (reader warning: sarcasm involved). I still think it wasn't the right decision. Much could have been done better - and I believe some wounds that would not heal by themselves still could be healed to a degree with some carefully thought of actions. But nevertheless, this discussion has made me drop many of my darkest speculative ideas and because of that I'm somewhat relieved with regard to the BD as a community.

Originally Posted by Mith

We didn't do this frivolously, and believe me, having had been sneered at by people I had previously regarded as friends, I can see the attraction of turning a blind eye. Nevertheless I do not regret my choice

Even though I have not felt that so acutely as Mith seems to have, I must admit that I know what she's talking about. And I can only second her here. There's no regretting in things that have to be done for the common good. Just staying silent about this issue would have been like saying after a snake bite that: "it's only a toe, why should I bother the inconvenience" and thence letting the silent venom spread...