…and if you want to quibble over “I thought I was supporting the message board, not helping pay someone’s rent or buy them school books or sending a wedding gift when two board members got married,” if you do, then I will return with “a board is never a server, never circuits and wires, it’s a community of people.” Supporting the board to me meant giving back to the people, the people who posted they needed help, or asked directly. My conscience is clear that giving to board members who needed help was the right thing to do, rather than sticking the money in my bank account. Which, FTR, the donations never even entered. Scotti wrote the checks, I didn’t have access to the money at all (barring what I contributed out of my own pocket) because I felt like having 1 level of separation was a more fiscally honorable way to do things. FUCKING ASK HER if she was the one who wrote the checks, if you think I’m lying.
And FTR because I don’t know what other skeleton will be marched out of the closet, absolutely no fucking donations went into the costs and time of publishing the fucking book. I donated hundreds of person-hours to assemble, edit, and publish that book (with lots of help from others who donated as well, such as Eye-Zee).
To the best of my knowledge you never let on that you were in serious trouble or tight straits, nor did I ever receive a request for assistance. If you had then the community we had, a community of good people who helped each other out, and yes that even includes me, would have been there to lend a hand. If I missed something you posted, a call for help, because I was blind or ignorant, I apologize.
What a fucking senseless tragedy this is. What a motherfucking waste. I may as well have spent the money on lottery tickets and beer for how you’ve made me look in public. I wouldn’t have posted what you did over something like this without first at least trying to contact the person and clearing the air, before choosing to try and publicly humiliate them and drag their name through the mud. And that’s not what the Duke I remember would have done, either.
FYI: There exists a satellite board of the SDMB where posters share their thoughts anonymously and exists to harass people here. Last I checked it was fairly active. CarnalK promoted it in his sig in the past, before he was instructed not to. He obeyed, under protest.
Before I visited it, I didn’t realize that a substantial minority of humanity was that petty.
Oh yeah, FWIW I’ll vouch for Una’s characterization of the preceding, based upon limited information about the board (I don’t visit MO) and moreover a passing familiarity with her character. What can I say? I trust her.
And this is why I hate the internet. People will make up shit that anybody with half a brain could see is blatantly false. And half the people will believe it
You know why I didn’t bring it up before, Una? Because you would have acted like this, and I would have been the bad guy, because it’s your word over mine and you’re the one with support here. Hell, I’m the one who gets called “the worst person breathing” and nobody pops up to say, “whoa, that was a little over the top.”
Frankly, I never asked for the money back at the time because I feared this reprisal. And honestly I knew, just as will happen now, anything I said would be seen as a campaign of hate. This isnt the only thing that ran me off your board, Una, and I’m sure you know what some of those things were, but I won’t dare say them.
Tell you what then. If you’re concerned about your reputation here, petition the miss to wish my post and anything related to it “into the cornfield” I.e to the mod forum. Leave Rand’s posts up, though. To be honest I do now feel like the worst human breathing. I had no idea about a lot of the other things you said–although I couldn’t have known because you never said them on board and I just wasn’t one of the people who heard the inside stories–but I’m sorry I had the wrong impression. I will support my posts being wiped, and any punishment due me. It was a foolis thing to post and I’m sorry I slandered you.
For the record, I don’t think either of you are bad people. I do think you are masters at making tempests in teapots, but I can’t say I haven’t gotten riled up over board matters before either.
Duke, FWIW my comment about your walking away from inconsequential pixels was in reference to Rand Rover’s sociopathic comment about you and your appropriate response in post #51.
The positive outcome is that you have found out that your contribution in fact does appear to have gone to some probably worthy causes, even if not in the manner that you had chosen. Perhaps best to think of it as you having made a roundabout donation to others in need as a way to honor your relationship that was initiated in that community. Perhaps that closure over something that had been digging at you is worth having to shrug off the likes of RR (whose comment to me seems way worse than any invocation of a wide variety banned words) and Una being so dramatically hurt and insulted.
I do want to expand on that last bit because it does bring back to the cause of this particular Pitting. I spend a fair amount of time here, admittedly not most of it in the Pit, and its that delusion of Una’s as being the victim, on this board, of “hobgoblins who have had fun throwing shit at me for years”, that bugs the shit out of me, especially but not exclusively when I am included in that list. Sure, I do look a bit hobgoblinish, but she doesn’t know that! From what I can witness Una dishes out lots of snark and receives remarkably little. She is not persecuted and overall is held in some respect.
Some people are just like that. They can say anything they want to anybody in any manner they please and it’s fine, but someone looks at them halfway cross-eyed, and they’re the most persecuted creature to ever draw breath. I have a cousin like that, though she’s slowly gotten better over the years. All you can do with people like that is roll your eyes and move on because 1) there is dick-all anybody can do or say to change them and 2) most people either already know or eventually see how they are and overlook their histrionics.
Although I do have to say that I’m having a little trouble reconciling her posts in the “what if” thread with her posts in this one. Maybe it’s an indicator of a lacking intellect, but I don’t really see how a person can be so incredibly educated and experienced and hardworking and generally awesome they have their pick of jobs in this shitstorm of an economy and yet be “terrified” at the prospect of losing their job in a much better economy. If you’re that awesome, it seems to me that getting another job should be a mere snap of your fingers.
I admit that I didn’t read every single post in this thread, but I thought we were still talking about a bunch of stupid Internet fights. Did a bus full of schoolchildren get hit by a train somewhere up-thread and I missed it?
Nothing prevented you over years from asking me in private via PM or mail. You can poison the well for that potential action by saying you know I would have “acted like this” and how can I respond? Furthermore, any of the Staff could have been asked. Scotti could have been asked - do you think she would have “acted like this?” Nothing was a secret about this, just not widely publicized in a sticky thread.
The only reason you have any so-called “reprisal” at all is because you chose to post in the most public place possible to drag my name and reputation through the mud, rather having simply asking a question directly, two people communicating to each other. And if you want to leave the thread with this dropping of a hint of other deadly secrets soon to come proving how bad I am and why you left, at some point in the future, then I guess that’s what you want to do and there’s nothing I can do about it. I had no idea you both were so ill-used on my board.
Several of these efforts were openly discussed on-board, such as Katsu’s laptop, which even had photos posted of it. Several people who received money posted thank-you notes in threads or posts. Many didn’t, for whatever reason. Some even took the money and left the board and never came back, no idea why. We didn’t make a big deal about things because the point of charity is not wear it like laurels. It’s understandable if you missed things, even all of them. It’s not understandable that to the best of my knowledge you never asked I or any of the Staff members a simple, straightforward question.
Actually, Una is a Type 1 diabetic, which actually IS a major acquired disorder in that it is invariably fatal without modern medicine and even when treated some of the side effects and/or adverse effects can be horrible. However, Una also exhibits considerable effort in properly treating and controlling that disorder.
End of nitpick.
Yes, **Una **has been successful. **Una **has worked her ass off for years, nay, probably a couple decades now. **Una **has also had a bit of luck along the way, and has the self-discipline to manage things in her life pretty well. Like the rest of us, Una is also imperfect, has flaws, baggage, issues, and occasionally sticks her foot in her mouth. She’s human. Somehow, I’ve never found that fact particularly surprising.
Context. They’re not stupid internet fights because for a very long time, many years, I considered Duke and tygre to be friends. Internet friends are real too - this is 2012, not 1998 where it’s still possible to handwave the online world away.
The waste and tragedy is that a friendship has to end and folks had years of regret and anger over something that wasn’t anything all, because no one asked a simple question. I could at least understand being flamed for something I did wrong, even if I didn’t like it. But this? We had a huge argument back in the day in my Staff forum, maybe about 2002 or so, where I initially put my foot down and said I refused to accept any donations because I never wanted to see someone get angry with something else I did and use that as a hammer to wallop me with. Well, it took 10 years, but it finally happened.
The original draft of Col. Kurtz’s iconic “horror” monologue described the soiling of someone’s snark board reputation. Brando himself convinced Francis Ford Coppola to change it to a pile of inoculated children’s arms. True story.
There was actually even a boilerplate message for a while in one of my FAQs which took a line from SNL referring to it like “dropping your car keys in a river of molten lava,” that the money may be used for anything or nothing, and that no refunds would ever be offered (I reneged on the last point and did offer them).
From all I knew, all Scotti was doing was passing the money on to you as an intermediary. I had no idea she knew what was happening to the money after that. You have to remember that a lot of people were privy to that information, but not us. As you said, you weren’t posting about that–so how was I supposed to know?
As for overreacting and “knowing” you would act like this: Una, you have to own up to the fact that happened in the DSeid thread and here is not an isolated incident. I’m sorry that I wrongly assumed that things would have been different in another context.
So it was OK to drag DSeid’s good name through the mud in public by falsely accusing him of having a vendetta against you, and going personal and sexual with that to boot, but when it happens to you…?
tygre told you exactly what her problem was. For whatever reason, you didn’t act on that. There is no secret there. If you want me to PM you about it, I’ll do that.
And that’s great. I love Katsu, he is an awesome guy, and if I’d had the money to buy him a laptop at the time I probably would have done it. But that’s irrelevant. I sent you money to keep the UnaBoard running, and I know I never got a question saying, “Hey Duke, is it OK if we use this money for something else?” from you or Scotti or anyone. I’m sorry if I have a problem with that. Thing is, I would have loved to know my money went to breast cancer research or helping out someone else. But until now I never did…and honestly, I still don’t really know.
Look, I work in fundraising, so I know what you’re talking about here. Maybe I should have asked…but why should I have asked, exactly? Up till now I did assume that my gift went to the upkeep of the board. Why would I have asked about it if I didn’t know that?
And I considered you and fierra to be friends too. Then tygre had her issue, and I had a minor disagreement with you on the board and you accused me of plotting against you. It wasn’t true in the slightest and I didn’t feel like I was going to be able to defend myself. So, I left.
As for this going on your permanent record…seriously? Your username is attached to tens of thousands of posts, dozens of reports, and many other things. Nobody’s going to find this thread unless they know about it (and, considering how much Google sucks these days, you probably wouldn’t be able to find it if you did know where to look). If they did find this thread, they’ll see this:
I was wrong to bring it up, I was wrong to complain, I was wrong to consider it a problem, and I apologize unreservedly for that. I know that doesn’t change what happened, but I can’t turn back time. If you want to ask Ed Zotti or any other mod to ban my ass (and my bringing off-board stuff here certainly merits it), then do it. They’re going to listen to you, and frankly if it happens I’ll feel it was deserved.
