In Reply to: Re: Answers for you posted by Alan on July 18, 2004 at 20:46:20:
Dear Alan,
Your comments to WC, the General Coordinator of this site, told me that I should write to you openly. I have not conferred with anybody about writing this and if the Coordinators see it as creating more problems than solving them, I would have no objection. Your comments almost verge on character assassination, but that’s only my opinion. You’re free to read this or not but I had to write it in response to what you said. I am still assuming that you are acting on good faith even though you seem intent at reconstructing the facts and I have no idea what your intentions are.
“Have you not read the recent posts where Miguel flies off the handle, falsely accusing two other posters of telling him to go out the door, or claiming they had called him names? Even after those posters apologized to Miguel for things they weren't guilty of, he continued to rail against them.
You advise me to take it up with Miguel? Well after this kind of irrational behavior, I have no interest in trying to engage in reasonable debate with him. He doesn't play fair, and when he's loosing a debate, he gets angry.”
I understand you don't want to communicate with me but I see some responsibility on my part for your feelings. I will not make any apologies for the arrogance you mention if in fact I am arrogant, chances are you are right. However, I do apologize if my words made you feel inferior because that was and is further from my intention. We have all been abused too much and I am not interested in causing pain. We know that sometimes the truth is painful in itself but even then this site is a watering hole for many of us who want to avoid strife and yet want to continue on our journey of healing.
Even if some of my posts seem emotional to you, that has not been the case. Questions are, in my opinion, very important. For a person to point out that I don't have to post, is the same as telling me to leave, as if I needed such permission. I didn't see you picking up the aggressive tone in that note. In fact, you agreed with the comment. It may surprise to you but I also agreed with it, and probably everybody else who read it. It is plain common sense.
My answer was not to the statement but to the tone in which the post had been written. The poster quickly changed his tone in his reply and we left it at that. Things would have stopped there but you and another poster continued the original antagonistic tone. I was surprised to be engaged with that energy, more worthy of a different cause.
I felt accosted, crowded. I am sure that was not your intention but that was also the result of it. Obviously you had not noticed the tone of the post, which both I and its writer had recognized. Not only you didn’t recognize the tone but continued it, and still maintain it in your comments about me that I copied above. I am sorry that things went in that direction but I cannot apologize for that. It is your doing.
My questions had become a one-to-many conversation paralleling that same thing that happened on a political topic not too long ago. I am not a politician. I detest politics and consider it only a necessity in a few cases. That is why I ask questions, to get a clear picture of what is happening, to be informed. My questions to the Coordinator were to understand if there was a certain specific domain for those rules. I wanted to understand the reasons that prompted such additional guidelines when the existing guidelines already use the word "respect", which seems to me to be enough. That was my opinion and I may be wrong. I wanted to know if that addition was prompted by the discussions on politics. That was all.
At the same time, I was asking because those very same guidelines were implying that there may have been posts, of which I was not aware, intentionally written to cause pain on people. I do think that such posters should get out of here and have no business participating in the building of a healing place like exfamily.org has been trying to construct.
Take this post as it is, to make clear that my intentions in asking those questions and in my answers were not done with the idea of causing grief to you or to anybody else. I hoped to be wrong thinking I was answering provocations but now I am not sure.
I have to add that, contrary to what you may have been told, I don't have any involvement in this site, I don't know the composition of the group that is behind this site and, while I wholeheartedly support the mission of exfamily.org as I understand it, I have no participation whatsoever beyond my posts in these boards. I took part in some initial conversations about the technical components of the site but beyond that, I have been out of the loop for quite some time now.
Finally, I hope you accept my apologies but, in any case, this is my last word and I will stop posting on this subject. The Coordinators will decide to answer or ignore my questions to them, everybody knows it is their prerogative and I am only another user here. If you heard otherwise, as you seem to imply, that information is wrong and you suspect the source. Regardless of their decision or your opinion, I will continue exercising my free will as I see fit, thank you very much.