Posted by mair on July 5, 2002, at 17:48:28
In reply to Re: Sure wish you wouldn't leave., posted by Zo on July 5, 2002, at 6:43:44
Zo
I think in zeroing in on Shar's family analogy, you missed what I took to be the larger point of her post - namely that you need to take a broader view of the benefits of the site and not allow yourself to be overwelmed by the ocassional injustice.
I think Bob made a mistake and is now compounding it by refusing to own up to it. But I don't think that means that the site is all about sexual male control politics or that the Board is no longer worth joining. I sometimes think our personal expectations for Bob are too high, and doomed to be unmet. I'm sure, Bob has a much more "macro" view of the Board than we do - individual posters and their sensitivities are just not going to be important to him other than in the most general way, because there are just too many of us and individual posters, even the best of them, inevitably come and go and are forever joined and replaced by others. I think his goal is to make the site as valuable as possible to the largest number of people and to accomplish this, his decisions and responses are going to be/seem impersonal, and we are going to feel depersonalized by them to some degree. If you're looking to be on equal footing with the moderator and to be able to engage in a free flowing exchange of ideas, this is not the place to be. I think Lini is right in observing that it is maybe unfortunate that there even is an Admin Board because it gives the misimpression that the moderator is willing to engage with us on a level that is probably pretty unrealistic.
I don't want to speak for Shar who speaks for herself very ably, but I'm guessing she might be both insulted and flattered to be thought of as too young to understand that having a male control figure is a bad thing - insulted because I don't think she was advocating for that, and flattered because I'm pretty sure she passed 40 well before this Board ever got off the ground. She's been here for as long as almost anyone has; she is, from my observation, no shrinking violet; I don't think she's been reticient to express her disatisfaction to Bob when she thought it appropriate, and she has, in my view, perhaps made the determination that the irritants remain only just irritants if you can find a way not to obsess about them, and that they are, over the long haul, outweighed by the benefits.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:5947
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20020627/msgs/6020.html