Postby jwocky » Tue May 03, 2016 7:50 pm
Well, then I obviously didn't express myself clear enough, but it was not my intention to portrait you as "someone who gives everything away". I tried to warn about the dangers of this kind of negotiations while already giving up the long tooth in the rear. And, to make that point also perfectly clear, your idea about letting the peaceful ones sit together on neutral ground while keeping the dogs out, was the trigger, but you are hardly the only one who thinks along those lines. However, in reality, you get as your "peaceful partners" in such a neutral gremium exactly those, the other side sends you. Nobody else can negotiate. So only people who know, their own sides would stand behind them for whatever is negotiated there. Which is easy for Curtis' forum because well, they have a leader who says and a lot of people who follow. We on the other hand would have to determine for every detail where we stand. So if you think, you can go into such a neutral forum with a tactical disadvantage and good faith, I am afraid, you will end up with a bitter disappointment. Because what you get from the other side will be exactly the same ambassadors of Curtis' voice and nothing else.
So, here is how I see it. Negotiating, act by God, high water or any kind of miracle, it doesn't matter, the quastion we have to ask is what do we want? And here is the rub: We would have to insist that FGMEMBERS and TerraGit become parts of the official FlightGear world. No bans, no deleted wiki pages. We also can't go along with ideas like pull the plug on Multiplayer. And to make working together, we would need to see a change of culture over there. Lets word it frankly, Stuart and Bugman have to go as moderators. So, as much one can be positive about negotiating. I doubt, those demands would be even considered over there and thus in terms of reality, it is, alas, nothing but a naive dream. However, it is a dream with a real underlying component. Because it allows to split our community here. Hack on it enough, and the perception changes. Suddenly, given a false hope that everything can be good again and a big happy family, there is in the perception no difference anymore between the wolf and the sheep dog. You made in your post about a neutral forum no difference anymore between for example me and Thorsten or Bugman. The fact, that I never banned people, regardless how much their opinions went against my grain is suddenly forgotten. In your post, we all were just "dogs". Admittedly, that hurt a bit. See, before it came to be banned, we tried hard over there, to negotiate, to convince, we went already through the whole mill. Of course, many didn't want to take positions, many were silent, even they saw, something wrong was going on. Israel and me got the big fire, 24/7. We never flinched. And when others were threatened with bans, we had their backs wherever we could. Now, Israel is a man of a lot softer words than I am and far more diplomatic. I am just "grumpy old man". Means, I am old enough to know, all we invite here is that the same game gets played once more on us. So, since nobody listens to an old grumpy attack dog, I guess, we have to wait till the wolves are in the middle of the herd and then we are allowed to act. Because when it is all messed up, that is when you value your attack dogs. At any other time, you don't make differences between them's and your's, right? That would be in the way of negotiating, wouldn't it?
Free speech can never be achieved by dictatorial measures!
