25-03-2013, 04:08 AM
(This post was last modified: 25-03-2013, 06:18 AM by Matthew Poe.)
I have been reading DPF for around two years and have yet to post anything but I feel compelled to break this record of silence over this moderator dust-up. During a time when Charles Drago--who is responsible for establishing this forum, no?--needs the support and kindness of his erstwhile comrades more than ever, he has instead been subjected only to further criticism and chilly unconcern.
This lack of sympathy was especially evident in some of the responses to Mr. Drago's admission of his own shortcomings and pledge to do be more conciliatory (no doubt a difficult gambit for a man so stubborn) in the future. Such a heartfelt plea would have been the perfect opportunity for his fellow moderators to open their arms and give him another chance. Instead they doubled down on their efforts to provoke him into walking away, claiming in effect that he was beyond rehabilitation. I call BS. While I sense no conspiracy at work in Mr. Drago being pushed out, I do see evidence of a much more common phenomena: an elementary school playground style pile-on. Could some who are so knowledgeable when it comes to deep politics and such be so lacking in self-awareness when it comes to more mundane inter-personal matters?
Of course, I am a newbie, and could be doing the new ruling clique a disservice. (I too have cringed at the treatment Mr. Drago has subjected posters he feels are not up to his exacting standards on matters deep political; but it also seems clear that his zeal has been motivated not mainly by hauteur or grandiosity but rather by a fear that DPF will degenerate into a version of the EF "swamp"--where anything goes and hours are wasted on the most baroque, useless theories--we have all come here to avoid.)
I urge the moderators, and Mr. Drago, to consider rapprochement. If they do not, only time will tell whose respective visions are better suited to the growth of the forum.
This lack of sympathy was especially evident in some of the responses to Mr. Drago's admission of his own shortcomings and pledge to do be more conciliatory (no doubt a difficult gambit for a man so stubborn) in the future. Such a heartfelt plea would have been the perfect opportunity for his fellow moderators to open their arms and give him another chance. Instead they doubled down on their efforts to provoke him into walking away, claiming in effect that he was beyond rehabilitation. I call BS. While I sense no conspiracy at work in Mr. Drago being pushed out, I do see evidence of a much more common phenomena: an elementary school playground style pile-on. Could some who are so knowledgeable when it comes to deep politics and such be so lacking in self-awareness when it comes to more mundane inter-personal matters?
Of course, I am a newbie, and could be doing the new ruling clique a disservice. (I too have cringed at the treatment Mr. Drago has subjected posters he feels are not up to his exacting standards on matters deep political; but it also seems clear that his zeal has been motivated not mainly by hauteur or grandiosity but rather by a fear that DPF will degenerate into a version of the EF "swamp"--where anything goes and hours are wasted on the most baroque, useless theories--we have all come here to avoid.)
I urge the moderators, and Mr. Drago, to consider rapprochement. If they do not, only time will tell whose respective visions are better suited to the growth of the forum.