Another One Bites The Dust

[derannimer]

First off, a note:

I accidently hit the return key on a very unfinished version of this post; I deleted it 
from the main page right away, but those of you who receive email from this group 
may have gotten it in your inboxes. My apologies. (For those who didn't: it wasn't 
especially *rude,* or at least no more so than this is; it was just highly incomplete.)

Second off:
 
Admin's most recent message carries an unmistakable, bizarrely upbeat, undertone of 
"Well, now that the problem's gone, let's get down to business, what?" I am going to 
do Admin a favor by informing them *now* that that is only true if the problem was 
Cindy; if the problem was something in Admin itself, then the problem is still right 
smack in our midst. Guys, this one, I predict, isn't going to go away. Just fyi.

Third off -- well, look at the subject heading.

I'm unsubbing. From FAQ, and from HPfGU. Not right this minute; like the vastly more 
elegant Eileen, I plan to wait a week or two and tidy a few things up, but I am leaving. 
For several reasons; the first two only apply to FAQ, and the third applies to FAQ and 
HPfGU both.

1. I don't want to have to work with a group of people with whom I cannot 
communicate. I can't talk to the MEG members here. I can't talk to them because, 
even if this list were to get its problems merrily behind it in the next five minutes -- 
hey, never say never -- this would still have *happened,* and so there would always 
be this huge uncomfortable thing that We Don't Talk About Around Here. I simply 
can't do that, I don't know how to relate to people that way. I am haunted by the 
horrible illusion that everything could be made right -- or, at least, could be 
*understood* -- if people just talked about it with one another long enough, and 
earnestly enough. I cannot stay here and tiptoe around this thing and watch every 
word I say and *not talk about it.* I just can't do that, and if that is what I will be 
expected to do, then I prefer to leave now. 

I also can't talk to the MEG members because I simply have no idea what to *do* with 
them anymore. I know some of these people a bit, and, from what I know of them, 
they're decent and intelligent people. And I know Cindy, and I know that she is a 
decent and intelligent person. And this group of decent and intelligent people has, 
from all I've seen, wronged my decent and intelligent friend. And they don't seem to 
have a clue that they've even done it. What am I supposed to think about them? I 
know that they aren't ESE, I know that I enjoy their company -- and I believe that they 
are in the wrong. I'm not their enemy, but I can't be friends with them. I don't know 
how it would be appropriate to interact with them, or even if it could be.

Especially since they are no longer in a position to interact directly with me on these 
matters anyway, or with the rest of this list. I think I understand what the Liason 
position was *supposed* to do -- it was supposed to eliminate confusion, wasn't it, 
to get everyone on MEG singing off the same page? And I can understand why MEG 
thought that it might be a good idea. The problem, however, is that it removes list 
members one step further from the actual people on the other end of our emails. 
Maybe I could talk this all out with Abigail, or with Melody -- I can't talk it all out with 
the Consensus of MEG.
 
2. Anti-climatic as this may be, my current RL situation simply makes it unlikely that I 
would be able to get very much useful done here anyway. I have little free time, and 
what I have, I want to spend on something enjoyable -- I signed up on FAQ to write 
about Snape and Love Triangles From Hell and flying hedgehogs, not to experience 
an interesting case study in the doctrine of original sin. (Which I am beginning to 
believe is the only plausible explanation for how a group of intelligent and ostensibly 
adult **friends** -- you all were, at one point -- could get into something like *this* 
over something as ludicrously trivial as a Harry Potter discussion list. I love HP too, 
but it's not as if our decisions sway the fates of nations or anything.) 

3. Cindy. Come off it. MEG is threatening to ban her from the lists. I don't even know 
what HPfGU would look like without Cindy on it. I don't know if there would *be* an 
HPfGU without Cindy on it.

When I started posting on HPfGU, almost a year ago, after many weeks of lurking and 
reading old posts, I literally did not know who, say, John Walton was. Or Penny. Or 
Heidi. Or Neil. Or most of the other posters generally thought of as the "big posters," 
the old crowd. From my reading, the big posters -- *the* big posters, with the most 
and the best and the funnest posts -- were Captain Cindy and Elkins. The two of 
them were probably the two biggest reasons I stayed on the list. Well, Elkins hasn't 
been posting for months, and Cindy is now, apparently, leaving. If I say "If Cindy 
goes, I go," it isn't just out of friendship or loyalty; it's because if Cindy goes, the list 
simply won't be the place I delurked for anymore anyway.

But there is a loyalty issue as well: I honestly believe that Cindy has been shabbily 
treated by MEG. I don't think that she *was* entirely in the right during the Ongoing 
Unpleasantness; but I think that she was less to blame than MEG was -- in some 
cases far less -- and I also think that she is *right* in her criticism of recent 
administration policy; and I don't know that it would be right or appropriate for me to 
stay, believing that.
 
For all these reasons, I simply feel that it would be awkward for me to remain on 
these lists any longer. I don't know where else I can find such a consistently high level 
of Harry Potter discussion, but it is not worth this, and I'm getting out.

I realize that this decision contradicts much of the contents of a recent post of mine 
-- for the record, I do still love this list, but I frankly don't know what any one person 
could do now to help it, and I am in any event personally very ill-suited -- by 
temperament, by status, by ability, you name it -- to achieve anything.

I realize that this is an extremely long and perhaps a self-indulgent post, and I 
apologize for that. But I felt that I ought to try and explain the way things look from 
where I stand -- as I said, I still respect many people on both sides of this, to varying 
degrees, and used to be friends with many of them, and for the sake of that respect, 
if no longer for that friendship, I thought that I owed them an explanation. 

I apologize further to any individual members of MEG who may not be wholly 
comfortable with recent decisions themselves; I recognize that the blanket "the 
administration" designation does not apply equally to all administration members. 

I am connected with various past and current members of MEG in forums other than 
these lists -- if you are hurt by what I have written, please feel free to tell me that you 
no longer wish to acknowledge that connection. I will understand and respect that 
request. 

And I apologize to Cindy, in case I didn't go half far enough. 




Derannimer