Matters arising from a thread in the Online Main Forum

[EHM-0654 Murray]

For mostly personal reasons, I feel I need to apologise to the membership in general (along with Mike Keets, Phil Nutt and Conrad Oldcorn in particular) for what happened in the Online dept Main Forum earlier today.

A thread was started by Mike asking a seemingly innocuous question, replies were made by a couple of people (including myself), then something akin to Chinese Whispers took hold and a large number of "angry" posts were made, causing the thread to degenerate into madness, at which point Phil stepped in and locked it.

It seems clear to me, with some hindsight, that a misunderstanding was formed by the original wording of my first reply, and that subsequent replies were a result of this misunderstanding. I've now reworded that original reply and moderated the thread back to something approaching "normality".

Whilst I've apologised to Mike and Conrad within the thread, I feel that just re-iterating it here would help with understanding amongst all the parties involved.

Sorry.

[EHM-1883 Matt]

I think that what I posted in the Main Online Forum should be here aswell. Here is what I said:


Well, I may be immature sometimes, but I'm sorry I was not here to try to help sort things out. I like to help people with these sort of things like I showed in the UNHCR event page when some ranting went on.

I would just like to put in my input (I just want to make it clear I am not siding with anyone on this matter). I did not see Murray's initial post, but it must have said something wrong to cause this. Sometimes, people say things by accident, because of their strong opinion, or do things they regret. Murray is apologizing for what he said, which is the right and good thing to do, however, if someone says something wrong, the worst thing to do is make it worse, with saying something else that is offensive, but wasn't meant to be.
What I mean is, Murray said something bad, he apologized for his remarks. Conrad said something that he did not think sounded offensive, but is offensive to some people. Therefore, the least thing he could do is apologize, and say he didn't mean it that way, but he said he didn't feel he needed to apologize, which I find unpolite.

I feel the best solution to this is for everyone involved to say sorry for their misunderstanding, as Murray did, and if the person continues to flame other members for their view, some action is needed.

I am not trying to start an argument again, I'm merely trying to fix this one, as it seems to me not everyone is too happy with the outcome, I just want everyone to feel good, and I am NOT flaming particular members.

Finally, respect eatchothers opinions. People have different opinions, and it is not a good idea to challenge members about their opinions. Best of all, when you state your own opinion, don't try to make it seem like the best opinion, and think before you post. I made some bad mistakes like misinterpreting what Murray said about the training thingy, but that sorted itself out in the end.

I am sorry if I have misinterpreted anything that has happened, as I was not present at the time of the argument.