[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Memnoch: Timber, starting an open debate on a closed thread was unwise. The last one was locked for a good reason. As I said in the last one, I'm not interested in listening to your - or anyone else's - justifications, apportioning of blame/fault, excuses, fingerpointing, etc. in this particular case. The bottom line is we had another thread closed because of a bunch of people acting like pork chops - you, Chewy and Cerek in that particular thread. Whether or not you were less or more to blame, I don't care - you contributed to the deterioration as far as I am concerned. Sadly, in your indignation at being named, you appear to have missed the entire point of my post - all of you are COLLECTIVELY contributing to the deterioration in standards of this forum with your behaviour, and I've had enough of the fingerpointing and the lack of acceptance of shared responsibility for this.

I did accept shared responsibility for the deteriotion of this forum in the previous thread. I admitted that I was just as guilty as anybody else for that state of affairs here - and I was ashamed I had allowed myself to reach such a level in comparison to how "calm" I use to be when I first joined IW.

It was difficult to admit that but I felt I had to be honost with myself and the other members. The thing that really hurts me is that I had publicly stated I was going to be making a conscious effort to return to my former, CALMER self and try not to get so upset at posts here anymore. An example of that renewed effort occurred yesterday when a post that would have angered me in the past led to no hurt feelings by me or the other poster, but we both apologized to the other anyway just to make sure there were no hard feeling. In the previous thread, Chewbacca and I weren't really even arguing. He pointed out a position he has stated often on something he found offensive, and I pointed out that certain comments he had made in the past could also be considered offensive - even though I knew they weren't meant to be. Still, I was going to make a conciliatory post to him before emotions DID get heated - but Larry closed the thread before I had a chance to do that.

I just read your final comments after his closing of the thread today. That post, coupled with this one, is a spit in the face to me after I have acknowledged I was guilty of contributing to the "deteriotion of this forum" and made a public commitment to change. I've had some ugly things said to me by members during my 2 years at IW, but this is the deepest I've actually been hurt by anything said here.