12223 What the JC....?

How many heads did the hydra have?

For transparency, I received this PM from Robert & Angie yesterday

[quote=Angie and Robert]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi
From my point of view and that of others, when will their be an end to the games this person plays on this forum. I am really very fed up with the targeting of Russ and the endless, sly cracks at people. This person dominates this forum...in a bad way, they were once removed, and now I see the challenges are to Amin to do something about it...its what J&C have I believe always wanted.
I think the mods look weak in their stance, and as I have always said it is very offputting for newcomers, too scared to post in case they are also a target. Plus I think it brings the whole forum into disrepute.
J&C are making this forum their place where they seem to be able to behave without check. Its time it was stopped for good.
Plse would you pass this to all mods and to Ronald
thanks .
Angie.
[/quote]

My assumption is that action stands with Ronald.

I just received a PM from Russ and cite this quotation from a PM he received from JC; [quote]I will not demand you leave the forum - I will not even request you do - but I tell you this - if you decide to stay - be very, very, very careful how you handle yourself - and me - on the forum - because if I even perceive a sly dig or sense anything other than total respect from you - if you attempt to poke or to suggest to anyone that they modify their behaviour in anyway whatsoever - I will rip your head off and let the whole sordid story come tumbling out.[/quote]

May I suggest that we place JulianColl under a ban for one week; she seems to be completely out-of-control at the moment.

Seems a very good idea.

I actually wanted to announce what I am about to say under different more positive conditions but might as well do it now given what is going on.

First the pre-ample:

I spent a few hours catching up with posts on Friday and today and from what I understood there was a huge thing regarding Russ, JC, Sally and all the usual people about the motives of Russ to donate money. Ridiculous as far as I am concerned but there you go...

Should JC be banned - probably a whole group of people should take a long, protracted break from the forums. JC is certainly amongst the candidates. I also fail to see why Sally is active here in any way, she is completely paranoid about most things and obsessed with the actions of the "group" against her. Both of them should be given a long break.

Problem is: JC has several other identities to come back with and stir trouble, which means that in order to make the action of banning JC stick I would have to say goodbye to family and friends and spend my life on here to deal with it. There would also be a huge onslaught of the "cavalry", orchestrated by JC herself, coming to save her, screaming bloody murder, unfairness, etc. These people have to their advantage that they don't sleep that much, don't seem to have too many distractions during work or other hours and generally LOVE to stir it up. In order to reply to those posts and control them I would have to tell work to forget about me as well because I am busy on the forums. (all of this leaving aside the fact that I am actually on holidays for a week from May 1st).

Second problem: all of this will not really solve anything. The same problems will blow up in some other way some other time.

The fact is that we at ITALY are quite tired of this - we have kept the forums going despite an initial decision a 1 1/2 ago to close them down because we had hoped for a change in attitudes but the old characters are all back and enjoying themselves. So we really need to end this. Close the forums.

The real community we draw useful comments from is out there in the web. And we already have plans and are working towards bringing some of that discussion back to this website - plans that actually don't even involve forums like this at all. We've thought long and hard about how we could have a community that will not be overtaken by the usual nasties - and we think we have a good idea of how to go about it.

The current forums will close (in the sense that all the information will still be available but no members can register and no new posts can take place). A new community website will be born - mid--May in a very different forum.

The time schedule is as follows:
15th of May new community launches. People can no longer join here and are invited to join in the new place.

Anyone can join but membership is layered based on how much people want to interact and more interaction means we get to know you better (and vice-versa). We are not interested in numbers but quality. I know people think that we are hostages to the forums because without them ITALY would close tomorrow but the truth is that that is simply not the case.

15th of June no-one can post in forums any more.

Now - given the above if you still think it is worth banning JC - why not. I would suggest Sally is given a break as well because there is simply no way to trace who is right and who is wrong but it is quite obvious (to me at least!) that they both want the fight. I will certainly be in touch with Russ to explain the situation and that will hopefully help him feel better about things.

I also wanted to add that my only remorse about closing this forums is all the great work the moderators and lots of members have been doing - but I realise that without the necessary support from our side (i.e. constant vigil over the forums and accounts to avoid duplicates and keep track of the complex web of relationships between real people, fake accounts, etc) a lot of that work is wasted and a lot of new users are just lost because of the state of the forums. Hopefully the new community will allow this work to become even better (a lot of what we are doing is about enabling information to be easy to find and easy to improve upon - i.e. some wiki-like elements)

Nothing to do with the foregoing, but I just wanted to say that I've been in correspondence with JC and hopefully I've calmed-down the more psychotic elements of her behaviour and agreed what can and can't be said. I've been reluctant to ask to impose a ban or moderation on her, since she has done some commendable work on the fund-raising and because I don't want it to look like a reaction to her attacks on me.

Of course, there's no guarantee that things won't degenerate again in the medium to long term, but hopefully Ronald and the management's new strategy will come into force before then. Needless to say, this latest dispute has caused me to think a lot about how the moderator's job should be done and all the questions that spring to mind about people for whom the Forum is not just a resource but, apparently, a major part of their social life and self-esteem. I'm no closer to understanding the second part of that.

I really like the Wiki idea and I think the format will suit the magazine's needs. Yes, Wikis are vulnerable to sabotage, but I like the fact that its harder for tit-for-tat arguments to fester and that reversion is easier. I'd really like it to be possible for people to be able to ask a question and get straight answers and share information, but I do understand that the present structure is at risk of bringing Italy Magazine into disrepute and offers very little financial gain or kudos in return. Hopefully the new strategy will tip the balance the other way and, as Ronald says, the magazine can leverage the power of the well-intentioned and well-informed majority.

[quote=Marc;118286]I just received a PM from Russ and cite this quotation from a PM he received from JC;

May I suggest that we place JulianColl under a ban for one week; she seems to be completely out-of-control at the moment.[/quote]

Following Ronald's post I don't think a ban will be constructive at all.

Russ sent me the PM too yesterday and to be honest, from what I can see, her response to him was in response to a PM from him, which I haven't seen but if her "quotes" of his PM are accurate, then his PM was almost certainly offensive and insulting to anyone with a weight problem. Her response was because she was, in fact, extremely insulted and gave it to him with both barrels. In short, there are a lot of PMs behind the one that russ forwarded. Essentially, Russ is angry because she "tricked" him into revealing his intentions, and then, as I say, told him exactly what she thought of him. He then "went public" with the story, making himself out to be whiter than white. She If he really wrote to JC what he appeared to based on her quotes of his PM, then frankly I am not surprised she was outraged.
All this has been exacerbated by Sally, who it appears has been involved only in a behind the scenes way via PM.

It's all moot now with Ronald's proposals, but just wanted to say that i think there was more to all this than meets the eye.

when will you announce this ronald?

OK, just caught up on posts; thanks for the update Ronald, this is long overdue & the approach seems pragmatic. I new forum is best as I'm much happier to see a quality forum.

Hi, I want to announce things officially once there is somewhere else people can sign in and that is not going to happen before the 15th of May - so 15th of May will be the big announcement. The main reason I want to wait is that last time round we said we would do something... but then nothing happened because we thought let's give peace a chance. So I don't want to talk about anything until there is actually something to talk about.