When making an administrative decision I try to keep in mind the goals of EvC Forum: it should be fun, informative, productive. The
Forum Guidelines are intended to help make this possible, and to let members know that administrative decisions aren't arbitrary. I think it's a good idea to give members as a free a rein as possible consistent with the guidelines and in line with the goals.
Regarding those who accept an administrative or moderator appointment, this entails a sacrifice, for with the increased responsibility comes increased demands upon time as they follow all threads in their purview, straighten out garbled posts, attempt to keep discussion productive and on-topic, resolved (sometimes) disputes, and so forth. I don't try to second guess those who are giving so much of themselves, for they, too, have only the best interests of this forum at heart.
That being said, I haven't yet met the perfect administrator. It's both art form and social science. Unanimity among members about an administrative decision is rare. I look back at my past decisions and some I think were good, others I think were bad, and no matter what I think of them now, at the time they all had both supporters and detractors. In other words, it's usually not possible to know what is right or wrong. Usually it is just that you can see that no productive discussion is taking place, and you just want to do something to get things back on track, but it's hard to know what that something might be, and in the background you can always hear the site's disk space tick, tick ticking away with every keystroke of someone doing a good imitation of an unappreciative ingrate.
Well, once again I tried to provide answers and ended up only producing musings. All I can say about Wise is that he was yet another very interesting character to show up here. One wonders if he lives his real life the way he lives his on-line life. Naturally he'll be reinstated if he requests it, but I'm not expecting that as he abandoned the board once before just after joining when he learned it was moderated, returning only after he discovered
Free For All. On the one hand I have this hope that he'll return to help us understand why some people believe that images in the clouds are Jesus or that statues bleed or that pictures weep. But on the other hand Wise was never forthcoming about why he believed as he did. In the end Wise's greater interest seemed to be in frustrating rather than aiding understanding, and perhaps this goes the furthest at explaining why he is won't be posting today. After today, it's up to him.
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| -- | Percy |
| | EvC Forum Administrator |
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