[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by donna52522

Now I don't know what kind of deal you have with Mr. Stevens, but if you wish me to leave just say so.

First, why would I want you to leave? I like you, and have from the start. My deal with Neal is that he tells me when I've gone too far, which is often.

But what I don't need is to know that every time I post Sailor Steve is going to pick my post apart and try to make me feel like a jerk for expressing my opinion.

You posted first to defend Bubblehead1980. That's not only fine, that's commendable. My response to you was purely defensive. That may have been an overreaction on my part, because looking at it again I see that your first post was in response to Mookiemookie, not me. I was wrong there and I apologize.

I was also out of line when I told Bubblehead that if it was up to me I would brig him every time he did that sort of thing. I said he should think himself lucky it's not up to me, but that also applies to me. If I was in charge there would probably be a lot less members.

And no, none of this is in response to anything Neal has said to me. The only thing he's asked me in this regard is why I respond to this kind of thread at all.

Your second response was on the money. Nobody has to read or respond to any post. My personal problem there is that that will never happen. People who disagree will argue, and people who think the post was less than it could have been will say so as well. Yes, my 'job' is to keep things clean and enforce the rules. The problem there is that I've been having this runaround with Bubblehead for far longer than I've been moderating. Sometimes I end up playing referee, warning or even infracting people who post insulting comments that don't even address the topic, but I do go after some of them more than others, not because I want to pick on them, but because I truly believe they could be better than that.

My real problem is that I like to talk to people, and sometimes I find it hard just to ignore them.

My response to your "forced conformity" comment was purely defensive. I'm not trying to make anybody conform to anything but the rules. At least I like to think that's the case. On the other hand when I see that somebody is what I think of as borderline trolling, I feel the need to say something, especially when I don't think he means it that way. I don't think you can have a proper debate when one of the parties is 100% convince he's right. I said long ago that if you think you know everything it's impossible for you to learn anything. Of course it's not my job to enforce proper debate either, but sometimes I truly do believe I can help. Most of the time I'm wrong, but I keep hoping.

So most of my responses to you were me thinking I was defending myself. If that came across to you as an attack, then I apologize. It wasn't meant that way; just the opposite.

Cybermat mentioned your Best Of Subsim badge. As I recall I was the one who nominated you in the first place. In case you're still wondering, that's what I think of you.