Just wanted to follow up my original post and perhaps clear the air a bit more...

I notice there are some negative posts on the site today, but there's always the problem of wanting to point them out and being unable to after deleting them, etc., etc. Had I posted this message yesterday, I would delete Corvus' post, but at this point I want it to be the last negative reminder of how delicate our community is on Oasis. And how precious...

I guess what I want to say today is that there is no one that is right in this debate and no one that is wrong. That can't exist here because there are no sides. The Oasis community is one thing, so there are no sides, ever. If it is damaged, we all suffer.

I've said this before, but I guess we are always getting new people so I should reiterate. There need to be basic rules of conduct on Oasis, which haven't been showing up a lot lately.

Mainly, respecting other users on here. For example, when posting a reply to any message anywhere, the reply should always be about the issue at hand, not the person who posted it. Start a message with "I think..." instead of "You are..." and you're more likely to start on the right tone. And yes, I am aware you can start many negative sentences with "I think, " so let's not prove me wrong here.

So, if Corvus thinks JB did something wrong, and he posts about it, all we have done is deepen the damage to the community. I want everyone to take the high road.

If someone takes your post the wrong way, say you're sorry they got offended, but explain what you meant. If they read it properly, apologize anyway. It's really liberating to not need the upper hand in life. Learning it here will just help you further down the road. And my comments are directed at everyone. Again, there are no sides here. i think my first post was read by some as picking sides, when in fact, my goal was to try and defuse the situation as quickly as possible.

I do think there will be more freedom when we institute sites on Oasis, which Adrian would love to do, but there is a technical issue being worked out in that regard. Because if you go to someone's site and don't like what they have to say, it is much easier to tell people not to go there. But now, it is all just one big blogroll of users, so everyone reads a lot more of everything.

So, basically, I don't care who said what, who is PMing what, IMing what, anything of this nature. I expect every single user on Oasis to be treated fairly. If you don't like another user, which is bound to happen in a community of our size, deal with it.

And, when you post something on Oasis, it is public, and you are opening yourself up to comments you may not like. And this is also how things work on a public website. So, even when we do have sites, you don't gain any more control over who reads stuff, and (depending on how we implement things), we'll see how much choice you get as far as how people can comment on your writings.

Basically, if you have nothing nice to say, or anything constructive to add to a post, just let it go. Start a post that interests you instead of saying why someone's post doesn't interest you.

I'm entirely disinterested in whatever posts I may have missed in this debate. I don't care who said what to whom, whose words were misinterpreted. If i wanted to deal with online drama, I would still have an IRC client installed on my machine.

So, after the time-stamp on this message, I will be a little more strict with people who speak negatively of other users (after i ask Adrian what I can actually do to be strict, since it isn't any feature I really had any interest in learning, and still don't).

Everyone is starting with a clean slate. And if you can't let the past go, you can certainly not hit reply on threads where that would be an issue for you. When it becomes an issue for you, I'll possibly help by deleting the reply you couldn't yet bring yourself to avoid.

But let's hope it doesn't come to that...

Jeff