A Message From MEG

[abigailnus]

Dear FAQ-ers,

16 questions from Cindy? And that's all *for now* ? And we tried
to count Tom's but, um, we lost count somewhere near fifty. Hey,
guys, we promised you some answers to Cindy's questions,
and we gave it our best shot.
 
Now it's our turn. We, er, do get a turn, don't we? You know,
when people want to volunteer, they usually say something
about how they want to give something back to the community.
They don't say they want to take part in a power struggle, still
less a strained dialogue between people who used to be
friends. That isn't our job and we don't want any part of it.
 
Cindy has sent over thirty messages that to -Owner since
August. We'd like to make it clear that we've spent a lot of time on
matters of concern to her already. We were happy to do it. We
really hoped we could work things out.
 
At this point we have to give up. There are many legitimate
issues which in an ideal world would be worthy of MEG attention.
Unfortunately, experience has shown us that dissatisfied
volunteers can raise issues faster than MEG can deal with them.
 
Mind you, we're not saying Tom or Cindy have done anything
wrong. Or that we haven't. It's just that usually if people have
chronic differences with the management of a volunteer group,
they'll leave. We *hate* asking anyone to go and we're sad to
say that sometimes that's the best alternative for everybody.
 
We don't blame anyone for being unhappy with the site. We've
long realized that HPfGU can't be all things to all HP fans. It is
not a rule that we have to accept everyone who volunteers. It is
not a rule that everybody has to work well with us. We realize
that some people enjoy the site and can't stand MEG. Oh well.
It's obvious that there wouldn't be a MEG without HPfGU. We may
need to point out that there isn't an HPfGU without MEG. It's a
package deal.
 
MEG's priority is the 11,000 members of HPfGU. Like you, they
accepted MEG as the leadership of HPfGU when they joined the
site, and it is for their benefit that MEG and FAQ exist. We humbly
believe it is MEG's responsibility to serve them by seeing that
both groups continue to function. We do not think that can
happen if vounteers in either group take an adversarial,
us-against-them attitude toward one other, regardless of how
many members MEG and FAQ have in common. If anyone here
no longer accepts MEG's authority as legitimate, we
invite you to withdraw your support by the same means that you
offered it, by unsubbing from our sites.
 
Thank you,
Abigail
for The List Administration Team