cris,
you're handling of matters seems to me exemplary. Your interventions have
been sensitive, proportionate and timely. It's a pleasure to see how you
establish and / or continue dialogue in sometimes the most forbidding of
circumstances. I feel I've learned a lot from your approach.
I do appreciate your concern about whether the ambience of the list is
welcoming for women posters.
One way to check that is to take a month and count the number of women
posters and men posters and compare them, weighting if necessary according
to the percentage breakdown of list membership. That may sound terribly
contrived but it might give you a pleasant surprise.
I'm unwilling to speculate on why individual members have left, but my hope
is that other factors, time, energy etc have had some part.
best
Randolph
----- Original Message -----
From: "cris cheek" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: abuse of the list
> Hi Rebecca,
>
> well I am extremely sorry. I do thank you for your clear apology. I do not
> thank you for unsubscribing, but i understand the moment. I hope that this
> will be a moment for moving forwards, for everyone. However I do concur
with
> the thought that this has of late been too hostile an environment. I did
not
> ask you to leave, nor want that one bit. That this list is unsafe for
women
> posters, in particular, is about as bad as it could get. I don't think
that
> is true in general, but taken together with Liz's deliberate retreat into
> the shadows I am genuinely chastised by that. About a year ago when
> ELizabeth neede to concentrate fully on another responsibility we (she,
> Trevor and myself) tried to find another woman to be a co-listowner and
> coudn't persuade anyone to take it on. Hopefully that time will be coming
> sooner. But at moments such as this its plainly not a fun position to be
in.
>
> I didn't want you to leave at all. I simply wanted to find some way to
reign
> in the rancour. i was obviously too slow and too late in doing so.
Sometimes
> those out of hand moments occur through being away from the list for a few
> days.
>
> But really that is a poor excuse. That your departure results from my poor
> handling is an abject [sic] lesson for me. in Trevor's absence I feel that
> I've let everybody down.
>
> In my experience these e-list wrangles can invade one's life quite
harshly.
> Partly it is the lag between messages. I steel myself to write a response,
> feel energised by the act of posting and then fall into despair when
another
> perhaps even more pressing reply comes back six hours or a day or two days
> later. So I understand the debilitation involved. For my part I have also
> felt a particular kind of embarrassment at being called out on a list and
> found my own turns of phrase wanting.
>
>
> I hope that you will come back after a brief sojourn getting on with what
> this stuff seems to displace so many of us so frequently from getting
done.
> You will be welcome here any time. Perhaps by then the times will have
> changed.
>
> love and love
> cris
>
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