Whoa.
Well said.
Post by ***@yahoo.com [hercules-390]I have long since stopped making a habit of contributing or even reading
the Hercules forum. It has become increasingly fractured, divisive and
consumed with minutia at the expense of the average user. Today, I
(ill-advisedly) chose to check it out again and happened upon this
thread. I was reminded (again) why I stay away.
The initial entry from Jeroen Baten I did not find offensive, though a
little peculiar. I do feel that if Jeroen wanted to "survey" people,
and "publish the findings" no less, the specifics of how this publishing
would have been carried out should have been spelled out first. People
are gun-shy and nervous about online privacy - and THIS is Yahoo, with a
horrible record in that regard. But, I also felt the proper tone was
set by stating if people didn't want to respond there was no need. Not
there was any need to state this anyway, since people will do what they
wish.&nb sp; As controversies go, that is a pretty tame one - or should
have been.
Then there is the reaction from John P. Hartmann, which was
extraordinarily (and needlessly) rude. It is not clear whether Jeroen
Baten is being compared to a "village idiot" or to a "savage" but the
comparison is clearly unflattering and dismissive. I am sorry, but the
"please" does nothing to temper this insulting remark; not even close.
As Ivan Warren correctly observed, John P. Hartmann is not a group owner
nor a moderator. I am not sure if *anyone* is "in charge" any more,
given the slow, painful disintegration of the Hercules group and now its
acquisition by Verizon, but if anyone was in charge, it's not John.
Finally, we have the tirade from Fish. Seriously, David, if I had been
asked, cold, who of all people associated with Hercules I thought were
haughty, snobbish and disrespectful to the group and to me personally,
it would be *you*, not John. You gratuitously made matters worse by
publicly condemning John with needless vulgarity. I am inclined to tell
*you* to take your vulgarity elsewhere, but I know you well enough to
know with certainty that you don't listen to anyone - much less me - so
there would be no point in asking. I can't speak for others, but I find
vulgarity in print to be extremely offensive, and no matter how much you
may believe your objections and indignation might be, in my eyes your
profanity invalidates anything further you have to say.
What a disappointment you people are.
Here you have Hercules - this amazing accomplishment - slowly fading
away because you children can't stop bickering long enough to put your
personal differences aside and act like mature grown-ups. Instead of
resolving your personal and technical disagreements, you are like a
bunch of grade-scho ol children whining to each other, "that's not your
toy, it's MY toy" all day long, until the teacher has to come along and
smack the both of you for being so mouthy and snotty.
Your group faces an uncertain future with the change of forum
management. You don't even know if they will take the Hercules forums
and archives and throw them out the window to save money. I seriously
doubt that any recovery or re-hosting plan even exists. That would
require the coordinated efforts of disciplined adults who sincerely care
about the best interests of the members, instead of selfishly inflating
their egos at the expense of others.
You know, people like you are labeled as "geeks" and "nerds". Rest
assured, those are not compliments. People get to be geeks and nerds by
obsessing over and dedicating their lives to *things* instead of
*people*. If you were concerned about people instead of things, these
rude, childish, vulgar outbursts would not be seen. Instead, you would
be dedicating your efforts to ending the forks and splintering of the
Hercules base code, creating a single unified platform, and doing
everything in your power to help new members become proficient in its
use, instead of dismissively abandoning them with an "every man for
himself" attitude. Hey, go read some the replies to this survey. The
average Hercules user is (very) old. Without drawing in and SUPPORTING
new users, the user base is going to die of old age - if it doesn't
self-destruct first.
Is THIS the best you can do? SERIOUSLY ?