[Lord Wilmore]

First things first, I'm not looking for a mea culpa, not from you at least; but you need to understand that bearing the title that you bear (and take pride in), you will need to act as a representative. We cannot sort anything out by talking to Wilmore, the friendly guy. The only way we can sort something out here is by talking to either President or VP of your FES. I'm not looking for personal responsibility (and this is a sentiment that I explained before the split). As far as I'm concerned, the people responsible are the power structure of your FES, and as part of that, you take a share of my (and everyone else's, as it's become apparent in this thread and on IRC) anger.

I am open to all kinds of solutions, and you're kind of assuming a lot there, without much basis. In fact without any basis, given what I've tried to make happen in the past. That other people didn't agree, and that I could not persuade them, is not solely and exclusively my fault. I'm (yet again) trying here. [...]

I'm not looking for a scapegoat, but you cannot just isolate yourself from the society's decisions, even if you personally disagree with them. The issue at hand is: we suggested multiple changes to the society and the society's response (through its representative) was an impolite "go away, we don't need you, we are the only people who do something here" (this is just an example. There was more, including threatening Thork with a ban, filing out GitHub suggestion¹ under "not a snowball's chance in hell" only to change it to "Soon" after the split, and then never accomplishing it anyway, etc.). The society, as a whole, needs to get its story straight. This isn't about what each person thought, or who put what efforts to get things going. I both believe and appreciate that you tried, but from a political standpoint, it doesn't mean that much. In fact, it only further exemplifies the urgent need of sorting out and formalising the FES's power structure.

Also, I think you just made it clear why closed-door discussions are terrible. You cannot expect people to magically know who tried doing what if a lot of it happens in secret.

I don't disagree with any of this so stated. In some ways this is as much a question of approach/attitude/tone, something you and I usually have issues with in public discussions. To be clear, I am in no way trying to brush away the problems with how the other forum is run, and to be absolutely explicit: the other forum is badly run, and has been for a long time.


I feel I've acknowledged that sufficiently, and there's not really much more I can say. What I want to do is work towards some sort of reconciliation. I fully expect people to vent at me, and I've been dealing with that for a long time and don't really have a problem with it. All I'll say is that I don't think it's constructive in discussions between us, but let's leave that there.

Let me state this as clearly as I possibly can (I really thought I had made this clear, but perhaps not): I do not think the two problems should be treated as one. That is why I said "...when that work [i.e. regarding trust] is done, we can discuss how to proceed in terms of consultation/mediation/negotiation...". Maybe you're annoyed, maybe you're angry, and maybe there's a touch of 'rage-post' going on here, but you're not really giving what I've said fair consideration or representation. I just think one necessarily has to happen before the other, and that it should be handled in private. When it comes to actually discussing practical matters, I'm happy to see that done in public. I've already said as much.

Then all we're in disagreement about is the order of events. I'm of the opinion that we should establish our goals before working on their implemenation. If the people of tfes.org want us to be involved with the administration of the hypothetically-reunified site (this is something that you seem to assume, while I do not), then we need to sort our differences out. If they do not want us involved, then we have one problem less to deal with.

Well, to be honest that's an initial decision you guys have to make, and not something I can initiate or really participate in, so I guess that's a process you'll need to begin. Beyond that, there will need to be some trust-building, and then a separate process of actually thrashing things out. So I think it's more that we were talking about different things, I suppose.

Keep in mind, however, that you ask the members of this forum to stop complaining about your administration here, arguing that "I would like to see the forum reunited, and I will do what I can to try and make that happen, but I think that's a conversation best handled privately, as in many ways this dispute is partly about personalities as well as policies." I am happy that we cleared the air around this.

As for Daniel: I am not treating you as a messenger (In fact, I specifically rejected you as such by asking if Daniel couldn't speak about his own views himself, instead of you posting them here). I am telling you that the only way this split can end is if Daniel starts talking to us, and starts taking his userbase seriously². I don't know whether this is something you can influence or not, but that's what currently stands in the way. I'm not saying you should or shouldn't do anything about it, I'm just saying that nothing can really happen until Daniel has a change of heart.

¹ - n.b. I know and understand that you did your best there, but again, if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. Ultimately, that's what matters, not who tried and how.
² - either that or he'd have to lose a lot of his powers and delegate them to people who can do the job

I broadly agree, but I think it also needs to be acknowledged that Daniel's lack of trust is something that both you and Parsifal may need to engage with and help resolve, for reasons that I think are obvious.


Anyway, I am going to leave this here for now (though I'll happily respond if people want to throw verbal tomatoes etc). I guess you guys need to make the above decision and get back to me. I'm going to send you and Parsifal an email in a purely personal capacity.

[Thork]

I think there has to be compromise on both sides.

If we are to give up our forum and return, Daniel has to give up the presidency and give control of the society back to the flat earthers. No one voted for him, he's had a very good run (10 years), its time.

He won't because he is vain. As are you. You just told us how proud you are of being vice president. Many of us have been part of the flat earth society for many years. We have contributed 100 times what Daniel has. Not only in posts and interaction, but research, materials and the things we made over the years.

Daniel sees this as about Daniel. His society, his followers, his rules. We just got sick of him. He's the problem. There can be no reconciliation without him abdicating because he won't change.

Frankly, we view him as a domain squatter at this stage. He has control over our website and its an irritation to our society.

So ask him how he feels about abdicating. If you get the belligerent no compromise crap he usually dishes out, you can consider negotiations over. 

[rooster]

I see no reason why Pizza and Parsifal should reach out to Daniel about trust issues since as Pizza said, he's tried and received no response. Does Daniel even care if we reconcile our differences?

I don't care to go back under Daniel's reign unless he tries making an effort to get the ball rolling. We shouldn't go out of our way to mend things when he's the reason we left in the first place.

[juner]

If we are to give up our forum and return...

I don't see any reason to do this at all.  The other site runs like garbage.  It is slow, unresponsive, and borderline unusable.  Not to mention all of the other technical problems that don't get fixed, that has been covered ad nauseam.

I agree with rooster as well, there is no reason to reach out anymore than PP/Parsifal already have.  Ball is in Daniel's court, where it will sit untouched for years and become deflated.

[Thork]

If we are to give up our forum and return...

I don't see any reason to do this at all.  The other site runs like garbage.  It is slow, unresponsive, and borderline unusable.  Not to mention all of the other technical problems that don't get fixed, that has been covered ad nauseam.

I agree with rooster as well, there is no reason to reach out anymore than PP/Parsifal already have.  Ball is in Daniel's court, where it will sit untouched for years and become deflated.

Oh, they'd have to let the FErs fix it. But that's something that can only happen without Daniel land-grabbing.

[Lord Wilmore]

I'm going to respond to Thork's post because it's kind of directed toward me, but as I said I don't really want to interfere too much in the community discussion, because I'm obviously not a part of it and feel it's a conversation that needs to be had without me. If people want me involved, I'll contribute, but I clearly 'have a stake' so to speak, so I don't know that that's for the best.


Perhaps that discussion should be held in a different thread, so that if people want to talk to/shout at me, they can do it here, separate from the community discussion? I don't know, it's up to you guys.

I think there has to be compromise on both sides.

If we are to give up our forum and return, Daniel has to give up the presidency and give control of the society back to the flat earthers. No one voted for him, he's had a very good run (10 years), its time.

He won't because he is vain. As are you. You just told us how proud you are of being vice president. Many of us have been part of the flat earth society for many years. We have contributed 100 times what Daniel has. Not only in posts and interaction, but research, materials and the things we made over the years.

Daniel sees this as about Daniel. His society, his followers, his rules. We just got sick of him. He's the problem. There can be no reconciliation without him abdicating because he won't change.

Frankly, we view him as a domain squatter at this stage. He has control over our website and its an irritation to our society.

So ask him how he feels about abdicating. If you get the belligerent no compromise crap he usually dishes out, you can consider negotiations over.

I agree with the first line of your post, but I don't really see any actual compromise in the rest of it. Maybe I've misunderstood something?

[Thork]

I agree with the first line of your post, but I don't really see any actual compromise in the rest of it. Maybe I've misunderstood something?

I'll re-quote because I guess you didn't read it properly the first time.

I think there has to be compromise on both sides.

If we are to give up our forum and return, Daniel has to give up the presidency and give control of the society back to the flat earthers.

The blue bit is what we give up, the red bit is the bit Daniel gives up.

[Lord Wilmore]

I agree with the first line of your post, but I don't really see any actual compromise in the rest of it. Maybe I've misunderstood something?

I'll re-quote because I guess you didn't read it properly the first time.

I think there has to be compromise on both sides.

If we are to give up our forum and return, Daniel has to give up the presidency and give control of the society back to the flat earthers.

The blue bit is what we give up, the red bit is the bit Daniel gives up.

Ah, you're right, I didn't, sorry. All I'll say is that I think there are other options which don't involve blue (at least not in the way I think you mean it), but I should stress that I am very much speaking hypothetically and personally. I'll leave it at that for now unless anyone addresses me directly.

[Thork]

Can I ask, why has it taken you 8 months to come to speak to us?

Either no one was around to notice we'd left from your administration in that time, or there is a thread in a super secret forum somewhere that says something along the lines of "They'll come crawling back".

I'm just curious which one.

[markjo]

As for Daniel: I am not his spokesperson, his representative, or his mother. I am here as me, on my behalf, in the hope that I can end what I see as a damaging split in a community I care about.

Wilmore, I think that your intentions are admirable, but since most of the grievances seem to be with Daniel and the way he runs things, I don't see how much you, or anyone else, can really do to heal this rift without Daniel being directly involved with the discussion.

[Lord Wilmore]

Can I ask, why has it taken you 8 months to come to speak to us?

Either no one was around to notice we'd left from your administration in that time, or there is a thread in a super secret forum somewhere that says something along the lines of "They'll come crawling back".

I'm just curious which one.

To be blunt and not beat around the bush: I have had a really, really rough 7-8 months. My six-and-a-half year relationship came to an end about 8 weeks ago. Speaking personally, I have been distracted. I can't really speak for anyone else.

Wilmore, I think that your intentions are admirable, but since most of the grievances seem to be with Daniel and the way he runs things, I don't see how much you, or anyone else, can really do to heal this rift without Daniel being directly involved with the discussion.

I entirely agree, and I want to try and help to open that dialogue. Clearly, it has not been going on (or at least has been one-way). I'm here because i want to try and bridge that gap.

[Thork]

To be blunt and not beat around the bush: I have had a really, really rough 7-8 months. My six-and-a-half year relationship came to an end about 8 weeks ago. Speaking personally, I have been distracted. I can't really speak for anyone else.

Sorry about that. I hope you are over it now. You're a good-looking chap. Get some built up shoes and you'll be fine.

I hope that there isn't anything else wrong. I lost my long-term girlfriend who walked out on me when I lost my job and my home. That led to a nervous breakdown. It probably took me 3 years to sort my life out. Unfortunately for you, a lot of that frustration played itself out on your forum. I'm better now though. I don't think I've had a single hissy fit since I've been here.

[Blanko]

If we are to give up our forum and return...

I don't see any reason to do this at all.  The other site runs like garbage.  It is slow, unresponsive, and borderline unusable.  Not to mention all of the other technical problems that don't get fixed, that has been covered ad nauseam.

I agree with rooster as well, there is no reason to reach out anymore than PP/Parsifal already have.  Ball is in Daniel's court, where it will sit untouched for years and become deflated.

Oh, they'd have to let the FErs fix it. But that's something that can only happen without Daniel land-grabbing.

Why would we go fix up another site when we already have a perfectly functional one?

This compromise makes no sense and I don't see how it's in anyone's best interest that we return to a worse platform than we're on now.

[Thork]

I think you'd just port this site to that domain and merge the databases, but meh. These are technical problems I wouldn't be dealing with.

[Blanko]

I think what you're suggesting is the opposite, i.e. transferring Daniel's domain to our site.

[Thork]

Whatever.

[Lord Dave]

I think you'd just port this site to that domain and merge the databases, but meh. These are technical problems I wouldn't be dealing with.

Barring the impracticality of that I don't see why we can't have this forum be the "official" one and if Daniel really doesn't trust Steve and PP on their own server then he can keep the other forum as backup for whatever betrayal he thinks will happen.

But honestly I just like to post on a forum that has a dedicated,skilled, and quick to act staff.  Everything else is irrelevant to me.

[xasop]

I think you'd just port this site to that domain and merge the databases, but meh. These are technical problems I wouldn't be dealing with.

Technical solutions are the easy part. If we end up deciding on such a compromise, I can handle the technical side of things. We definitely won't make any compromise that isn't the right thing by the community, and that means the forum won't go back to the way it was before the split, whatever happens.

[Pete Svarrior]

Barring the impracticality of that I don't see why we can't have this forum be the "official" one and if Daniel really doesn't trust Steve and PP on their own server then he can keep the other forum as backup for whatever betrayal he thinks will happen.

Hopefully, we can work our way through any trust issues that may arise. However, it is important to say that we can also design a solution that doesn't really require trust.

On our forum, we currently have by-the-minute database backups. If one of the admins were to suddenly go crazy and replace everything with "e", Parsifal could very easily restore essentially everything. We used this to our advantage when someone accidentally removed a thread and asked if it could be restored.

This approach could be easily extended to provide an additional set of backups that Daniel has access to, but we don't. Together with our code being public, we could design something we couldn't break too hard even if we wanted to. Of course, this shouldn't be a replacement for mutual trust, but the option is certainly available.

Ultimately, as Parsifal said, the technical side of things is the easy part from our point of view. We do, however, need to be calculated about pretty much everything else. I still intend to work out some way for everyone here to be able to have their say in a constructive way. Currently, I don't have an exact plan for how exactly we would do this. All suggestions are welcome.

[Thork]

This approach could be easily extended to provide an additional set of backups that Daniel has access to, but we don't.

Why would we leave him with the keys again?

He is the sole reason for everything wrong at the old site. I don't want to go back if he is in charge. I don't see why we should concede that. He's not offering anything we haven't already got.

Honestly, I don't see a solution. I think we go on alone. The Daniel/Wilmore/Davis team are never there. That site will die. They need us. I don't see why we need them. Daniel wouldn't have had a bollocking off Wikipedia if he thought he had the situation under control. And he is too high and mighty to come here and talk with any of us himself. I don't want that kind of person running the society. I want a person I can hold accountable when I'm not happy.