Misconceptions

It has recently come to my attention that a former member of a group I moderate is carrying on a vendetta and distorting my involvement. In this post, my intention is to clear up my position.

What happened? Over a year ago, the owner of this group inadvertently sent an email to the group that was meant for the moderators. In this email, the owner expressed her upset over this member alledgedly gathering email addresses from the group’s member database and sending invitations to them for her group. The owner was mortified by her error of sending this email to the group. The member was upset by the email going to the group. At that time, I tried to keep the conflict on the group to a minimum. In doing so, they believe the group owner put me up to it, when in fact I was just trying to keep the damage from being worse than it was. The member unsubbed, and has been carrying around negativity about it a year later.

This member (Brandi) and several of her online “friends” use every chance and every avenue they get to instigate confrontation. The group owner has taken the stance to ignore them. Recently, this member sent an email addressed to the group owner and mods. Until this email arrived, I hadn’t given the incident a thought. After all, it happened a YEAR ago!

She is also peeved because she wanted to be in an exchange but didn’t want to have an international partner. Since the group is international, everyone is expected to mail internationally or not participate. After being told this by the coordinator, she was offended. I have seen the email from the moderator to Brandi and in no way was it rude or offensive.

Since I am a moderator, I took it upon myself to address some of the comments made in the recent email. Keep in mind the email was address to Owner & Mods. Repeatedly, I asked Brandi whether she really wanted to resolve the conflict or if she just wanted to feel vindicated. You know the type... The ones who want to stand at the top of the hill and puff out their chest shouting “I’m the winner!!” with a big grin on their face. That was the impression I got from the emails. I have read her comments regarding the emails we passed back and forth. She has stated she “told me off” when in reality she did no such thing. I have all of the emails. She admits in her email that I was trying to take the higher ground. Isn’t that what conflict resolution is all about? And if I’m taking the higher ground, does that mean she’s taking the lower ground? Hmmm... Something to think about.

I recently came across a post on Vickie Ridge’s blog where she refers to me as “Kelly’s Bitch” (excuse the profanity). She is one of the online “friends” I mentioned above. I have no dealings whatsoever with Vickie other than reading her comments on a group for owners and moderators. Yet, she is jumping on the bandwagon and calling me a bitch? She doesn’t even know me.

All of these people seem to think that Kelly has put me out front to deal with these people. In reality, Kelly had no idea that I attempted to resolve this year-long vendetta/conflict. It’s sad that people choose to play the victim and carry around the anger and negativity that they do. Personally, I think they are being ridiculous and acting like high school girls.

In Brandi’s last email to me where she asked: “Do you honestly believe that the way you treat the members of ILCS is fair and equal to how you treat yourselves (mods and owner)?” In her attempt to dismiss me, she made it clear in that email she wasn’t “wasting anymore time” on me. So I didn’t answer the question. In not answering, she used the lack of response to add fuel to the fire on Vickie’s blog. I responded to her question there, but I’m sure it will be deleted because they really don’t want to resolve the issue or deal with it in an adult manner. For goodness sake, who carries around something like that for a year??

I also would like to add that I posted a chart on the group and Brandi asked for it. It wasn’t anything great and I told her so. She said she didn’t care, so I sent it to her. So if I, in my role as mod, am such a bad person, why would I do that? If I don’t treat members equally, why would I send it to her?

Their problem with me lies in the fact that I took it upon myself to respond to an email that was addressed to Owners and MODS. In a recent post Brandi tells me: “Crawl back under your stone unless you have something more to say.”

LOL... Very adult, Brandi.