>so yeah dont expect
>me around much because the board owner decided to burn me for fun.

So... this puzzled me. From context, I assume this is about the New Tricks thread. I couldn't remember burning anyone for fun over there, but I know that there have been times when I've gotten frustrated and dropped quite a lot of sarcasm on some folks (particularly in the early days of the Symphony, which was--ye gods--nearly 20 years ago now, so I'd like to think I've mellowed a little since then).

Anyway, I was curious enough to go and re-read the thread, and... yeah, I'm still not sure where this is coming from. I certainly can't find any mockery in my initial response to the post that raised the issue, nor indeed the second, which was meant as a friendly invocation of an old sci-fi saying that has historical currency around here (Bellisario's Principle, by which TV producer Donald Bellisario used to deflect overly strict critiques of the "science" behind Quantum Leap).

In this post, where I did finally show some exasperation, I don't think I got particularly mocking or insulting; just frustrated that my earlier attempts to be collegial about the whole thing were falling on deaf ears, so that I felt I had to make an unequivocal ruling about the matter, Dungeon Master-style, in hopes of moving on. No personal aspersions were intended nor, I think, verbalized therein.

That leaves this one, the last post in the exchange, and even here I don't see anything that's intended to be mean. I'm just explaining my position, both in re the matter at hand and the way it was brought up. If anything, I think I was quite diplomatic. There's nothing ad hominem in there that I can see; just a still-fairly-patient attempt at addressing what seemed to be a mismatch of expectations.

Some of the other posters in that thread got a bit personally impatient, albeit mostly in the later stages of the discussion, when attempts at being less blunt had failed. If you want to characterize leaving those posts alone as a failure of moderation, that's... arguable, although this is not a strictly moderated board (I've been very lucky in that it has seldom needed to be moderated at all!), and being told "bless your heart" is a long way from a death threat. But I'm not inclined to sit here, 5+ years after the fact, and be accused of burning someone for fun when, so far as I can remember from the time or see upon re-reading my posts, I did no such damn thing.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.