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Lurker5

Gold Meritorious Patron
I will always appreciate what you have done here Emma, ESMB and YOU.

Have your life. A good life. You earned it, 1000 times over, doing a thankless job.

But ya know, I think people here really love you for what you have done, and always will.

You are awesome Emma.
But I get the blame thing - LOL -:hemademe::horse: I've seen it too.

:rose:
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
Hi Blue, that's a great post, but long so I won't reply to every point.

Re: Alanzo, yeah all I can do is allow or disallow the argument. I can't control how it's presented or the predictable outcome of an argument presented in a way that can only inflame. So there I get caught in the no-man's-land of "Is this argument legit or trolling? If this argument was coming from someone else without the history would it be received differently? Does the phrasing of the argument matter in my decisions, or is it just the argument that is important? Do I let the court of public opinion decide? What is bullying? If the OP is inflammatory are inflammatory replies ok? What is purposeful inflammation and what is pure emotion? Are social parahias allowed?" I have had to make those decisions in about 90% of the posts recently. It would be easier to just delete every post that wasn't fluffy, but even then, where is the line drawn?

I can see that I've been inconsistent in so many ways over the years, I have no excuse except that it's bloody hard to find a balance of free ideas and light moderation.

I wanted the last weeks to be a free exchange of ideas from anyone in the community that has ever been a part of ESMB over the last 12 years. That's really all I wanted when I unbanned everyone. It didn't work out that way.

Re: Anonymous moderation. I agree that the moderators can be, and were anonymous (at the time). But I could never be.
Hello Emma,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. As I understand it you decided to shut down the forum and in order to retain all posts for archiving you needed to remove all the bans. You have also become frustrated with moderating and didn’t want to deal with the conflict and the conflicts of interest that could potentially color moderation. That all makes sense.

When I left the Sea Org I considered that I had failed big time and struggled for many years to try and understand the events that lead up to that. How could that happen considering that my intentions were good, I busted my ass, made huge personal sacrifices, tolerated all kinds of neglect and deprivation…and had not just the best but the ONLY workable management technology in the universe AND the most dedicated team of co-workers. I had repeating nightmares about being back there, trying to help my old comrades, wandering the halls and elevators of Big Blue, explaining that I had left and had a new life and couldn’t stay and then wandering the streets of LA trying to find my way home but often ending up back at Big Blue. I still have Sea Org dreams but very very rarely and they are much more abstract and more like vague impressions. They used to be so vivid that I can remember some of them as though they were real experiences. Not long before starting to read ESMB I had dug out a number of my original green Scientology books to reread. I thought maybe I could make sense of them in a new unit of time. It didn’t work. I found them to be unreadable. I had tried applying the Management Series to my business. There were a few obvious things like it’s good to market and promote but on the whole it was pretty useless, especially the human resources and financial type policies. Of course now I know the financial policies were never intended to run an efficient organization - they were intended to run a skimming operation and the human resources policies were essentially human trafficking.

I’ve had employees and I’ve served on Boards of Directors. These things change your perspective because they force you to be pragmatic instead of just idealistic. ESMB helped me to resolve the things I couldn’t understand about my Sea Org experience and why Hubbard’s dreck had become unreadable. I don’t know that I could have the patience to do what you have done and I’m in constant awe of it. Please don’t think that I am unappreciative of what you have done or criticizing your decisions. My natural inclination is to try to problem solve and I find your situation to be uniquely difficult, complex and intriguing.

On Boards of Directors one becomes keenly aware how things can constitute conflict of interest and even if they aren’t they can still be perceived as conflict of interest and that kind of perception can be just as damaging as real conflict of interest. On a Board of Directors you can spend a lot of time with other directors and can have common interests and relationships outside of the board so making disclosures and abstaining and navigating these obligations can get very tricky. ESMB isn't a Board of Directors but the perceptions of conflict of interest and how this can erode trust are similar. I would also point out that that perception can also be used as the target of a campaign to deliberately create division and mistrust and to apply Scientology type guilt tripping. Even if you funded the forum with something like a fixed $5.00 a month subscription for everyone regardless of who they are they still become like customers and we naturally want to retain our customer bases and for that $5.00 the customers expect to be treated right. That’s all good for a normal business but this is anything but normal. You deal in the world of extremes. I think that is what we have been seeing lately. There are no simple solutions that will please everyone.

I can post extreme ideas and opinions but when those cumulatively try to use the forum as a platform to create conflict and division it will have become something else. The sensible solution for this with politics was to put it in it's own section and for members only. I think from an administrative position much of this can be understood as a matter of degree. The problem with degrees is once a given level of degree is acceptable it becomes easier to tolerate the next level of degree and so on. This conflict about Mike’s not disclosing enough of Miscavige’s and Scientology’s actionable crimes is probably for all practical purposes unresolvable between the various parties. I am thinking primarily of Gerry vs Mike but there are probably others. People like me recognize that both sides have valid grounds for their respective positions but I want to see the optimum outcome for both parties - I DO NOT want to exploit the unresolvable conflict in order to create perpetual conflict and division in the community that is trying to address the abuses of Scientology.

All things considered you are the real benevolent dictator of which Hubbard spoke so highly. (I love to point out Hubb's ironies but I digress.) At some point I think an administrator just has to decide if the forum is being used or exploited for purposes for which it is not intended and which conflict with it’s mission purpose. We can probably agree that the greatest priority is to help people who are newly trying to get their heads straight around Scientology so there will be a degree where the creation of conflict and division in the ex-community violates the primary mission purpose and as a dictator you just do what you need to do to bring it back under that degree threshold.

When Alonzo first started posting his approach was to establish the rational for why his “unpopular opinions” should be tolerated and why opposition to those opinions were unfounded. That was rhetorical manipulation and divisive identity politics as opposed to a reasoned argument. I don’t think he expected it to be recognized and identified for what it was so quickly. I think he expected that his false premises would be naturally accepted and he could proceed with supporting dogma under a relatively safe rhetorical fog. I can understand how that would be because this is how things have become in society. Schools don't teach how to think - they teach what to think. There's a whole lot of indoctrination going on. This was also the modus operandi of Hubbard and the ex-community is particularly sensitive to being manipulated by overly clever rhetoric instead of facts and common sense. But again, rhetoric is an old and recognized strategy in debate so at what point or degree does it in itself become unacceptable? That is a difficult thing to determine while trying to respect freedom of speech. I think this exchange has overall resulted in some very constructive analysis and in retrospect I think your decision to try it and to let it continue has been the correct decision. The question moving forward is if this approach reaches a point of diminishing return and a net negative influence for ex-Scientology forums? ESMB has been a grand experiment and things are still evolving so the answer to that may not yet be known.

Regards,

TOBB
 

Free to shine

Shiny & Free
Hi Blue, that's a great post, but long so I won't reply to every point.

Re: Alanzo, yeah all I can do is allow or disallow the argument. I can't control how it's presented or the predictable outcome of an argument presented in a way that can only inflame. So there I get caught in the no-man's-land of "Is this argument legit or trolling? If this argument was coming from someone else without the history would it be received differently? Does the phrasing of the argument matter in my decisions, or is it just the argument that is important? Do I let the court of public opinion decide? What is bullying? If the OP is inflammatory are inflammatory replies ok? What is purposeful inflammation and what is pure emotion? Are social parahias allowed?" I have had to make those decisions in about 90% of the posts recently. It would be easier to just delete every post that wasn't fluffy, but even then, where is the line drawn?
Exactly.

I think anyone who was around 2007/8 especially can appreciate what a trail blazing and awesome thing it is that ESMB even existed more than a few months. I remember you saying you didn't expect more than 500 posts or something. And then there were the dead kitties and body part pics, Anons who had their own agenda, pretty much anyone and everyone who had something to say and ancient grudges to trumpet being given a venue. It was wild, wild.

You set off into uncharted waters with the grit that brings changes. The evolution has been a fascinating journey, in hindsight. Maybe not so much in the midst of vicious flame wars and attacks, yet evolution comes through challenges and persistence in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles, in all parts of life. (And I can say that because I'm getting old now.)

So a chapter closes when it needs to and a new era begins and we have all learnt so much. Thankyou. :grouphug:

ps Just my opinion, but I don't like posts that are obviously aimed to make another feel bad on a personal level. We had enough of that shit in scientology.
 
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He-man

Hero extraordinary
Hi Blue, that's a great post, but long so I won't reply to every point.

Re: Alanzo, yeah all I can do is allow or disallow the argument. I can't control how it's presented or the predictable outcome of an argument presented in a way that can only inflame. So there I get caught in the no-man's-land of "Is this argument legit or trolling? If this argument was coming from someone else without the history would it be received differently? Does the phrasing of the argument matter in my decisions, or is it just the argument that is important? Do I let the court of public opinion decide? What is bullying? If the OP is inflammatory are inflammatory replies ok? What is purposeful inflammation and what is pure emotion? Are social parahias allowed?" I have had to make those decisions in about 90% of the posts recently. It would be easier to just delete every post that wasn't fluffy, but even then, where is the line drawn?

I can see that I've been inconsistent in so many ways over the years, I have no excuse except that it's bloody hard to find a balance of free ideas and light moderation.

I wanted the last weeks to be a free exchange of ideas from anyone in the community that has ever been a part of ESMB over the last 12 years. That's really all I wanted when I unbanned everyone. It didn't work out that way.
I think your intentions were good, and that is really the only thing anybody can ask for.

You're not responsible for my posts, nor are you responsible for any one elses posts either. :)

I'm really sorry you didn't get the free exchange of ideas you hoped for. I would have really wanted that too.

:rose:

Sorry! Wrong emoticon!

:vacuum:
 

Glenda

Crusader
Exactly.

I think anyone who was around 2007/8 especially can appreciate what a trail blazing and awesome thing it is that ESMB even existed more than a few months. I remember you saying you didn't expect more than 500 posts or something. And then there were the dead kitties and body part pics, Anons who had their own agenda, pretty much anyone and everyone who had something to say and ancient grudges to trumpet being given a venue. It was wild, wild.

You set off into uncharted waters with the grit that brings changes. The evolution has been a fascinating journey, in hindsight. Maybe not so much in the midst of vicious flame wars and attacks, yet evolution comes through challenges and persistence in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles, in all parts of life. (And I can say that because I'm getting old now.)

So a chapter closes when it needs to and a new era begins and we have all learnt so much, especially about the "free speech" concept we didn't have in scientology. Thankyou. :grouphug:
Thank you FTS. Please don't laugh at me (laugh with me?) but the above makes me want to cry. In a good way.

@Emma, I have a tonne of respect for all you have done with this thing called ESMB. So many of us found our voices again & learned so much about all sorts of stuff. The collective value of that - can't be measured. Thank you Emma.

Now about that wedding - I haven't received my invitation yet? Is the Aussie Postal Service on strike or something? :)
 

Emma

Con te partirò
Administrator
Thank you FTS. Please don't laugh at me (laugh with me?) but the above makes me want to cry. In a good way.

@Emma, I have a tonne of respect for all you have done with this thing called ESMB. So many of us found our voices again & learned so much about all sorts of stuff. The collective value of that - can't be measured. Thank you Emma.

Now about that wedding - I haven't received my invitation yet? Is the Aussie Postal Service on strike or something? :)
I sent it! I really did! God you can't trust the postal service anymore. :brow:
 
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