Dan74 wrote:
I do think it is good to let members know why major decisions are taken. After all this is a Dhamma discussion forum, not a private for-profit corporation.
I suppose this is written because of the analogy I wrote in the other thread:
To use an analogy, if you work for Ford Motor Company there might be a few managers and executives that you really get along with, great, wonderful people. And then one day they are gone or demoted or some other change. The workers wouldn't know the ins and outs of all the executive meetings behind closed doors. The company moves on and continues to operate with different managers, sometimes different executives. Of course the workers might be shocked, especially if they are great people, but again no one would expect all the workers to have all inside knowledge of executive meetings. One could be a great person, compassionate person, but not necessarily a good manager or executive. And I accept that this might include me too, which is why I delegate much of those powers to others.
As I mentioned in that other thread, this can be to any organization, not just a corporation. Go to any church, synagogue, mosque, or temple and there is organizational politics, conflicts, cliques, all kinds of disputes and issues. There are board of directors and other officers and there are staff changes. Rarely do members of these organizations, including religious ones get ex-communicated, physically removed from the community. No one was banned here. There was simply disagreements about the way the forum was run. There was never anything personal. It was all about the way moderation is done. There have been ongoing discussions from almost the beginnings of DW. There are over 22,000 posts in a private moderator forum that regular members do not see.
It is no surprise that some are coming to their defense. They are very likeable, knowledgeable people. As I mention this is nothing personal, it is just about forum management and moderation. They were asked to stay and participate. We cannot force them to stay, it is their choice if they want to stay and participate. There have been many previous times where there has been staff changes and where admins changed places, as Wind of Change post above shows and where Ben offered to give the admin position back to Paul when he was ready.
Most of the members here post as regular members. Only a few people have had the opportunity to serve as moderators or administrators. And the vast majority of posts are helpful, provide interesting insights and knowledge, and are helpful to members. Of course there are going to be some trouble-makers, but the vast majority are not like that. One can still post and be helpful, if one chooses to. Again, I say no one was banned.
There have been staff changes before and as Buddhists of all people we should understand impermanence. Some of my actual words were to "take a break from moderating" and who knows? of course there will be some changes in the future too. I am not a fan of burning bridges down as "you never know how many times you might have to cross back" as the saying goes.