The Hydra Returns
It seems I can't refer to Soncrest BBS because someone objected to me mentioning it back in March. After all, it was only part of my life for about seven years, and it only savaged myself, my husband, one of my best friends, and at least three other friends. Quite who the objector is, I don't know, because he/she/it didn't bother to leave a name with their little barb.
The entry that attracted the comment was made on March 5th, my mystery visitor came here and did a search for Soncrest on the whole site, turning up a massive two results, one page of blog entries containing the word Soncrest twice, and a paragraph of an essay on online communities, written on March 11th, just after we took the Christian Depression Pages message boards down for some much needed rest. Now why would someone be looking for Soncrest stuff here?
From Communities Online: After the Fall
(written 11 March 2002)
We did manage to avoid the problems of Soncrest BBS. There was no kissing up to the admin to get a moderator role, because there were no non-admin moderators. The admin weren't on a power trip, lording it over the users, because we deliberately kept quiet.
Blog entry: Thursday, March 07, 2002
On Soncrest BBS, the worst users were all Christians. The Wiccan priestess never gave anyone any trouble, she was open about what she believed and didn't hurt anybody. The worst users, the ones who were lying, the ones on vendettas, the ones who turned everything into a religious guilt trip, the ones who insulted you to your face, the ones who tore down everything you'd worked on, the ones who lied about you to others, the hypocrites who demanded one rule for them and another for everyone else, the ones who made your life hell, they were all Christians. The ones who tore the community apart and blamed everyone but themselves, they were all Christians. It seems we Christians are very poor at accepting correction, worse still at basic stuff like honesty, and quite happy to gossip behind your back. No wonder people have such a low opinion of us.
Anonymous comment
If you only knew the real SonCrest truth. You couldn't bother to stick with it long enough to really find out, and really resolve anything. I can't believe that you still refer back to it after all this time.
Anon [Anon@anon.com] 06/17/02 12:05pm
You can't believe that I refer to it? I can't believe you're willing to dig back three months into the archives just to leave your anonymous whine. If you wanted to talk, you'd have left an email address or a name. You left neither, therefore you didn't come to talk.
Seven years is a long time to "stick with" anything, especially anything internet based. The two years that I was Soncrest's webmaster seemed like an eternity. Paul and Sehlat were there longer than me, as users and as admin. You can't say we didn't stick with it. We stuck through the worst times, but there's only so many bullet holes a person can take.
The only other mention of Soncrest is on the same page, posted two days earlier:
Blog entry: Thursday, March 07, 2002
I've not seen the term reconcile used as anything other than a blunt object to bash people over the head with. It was used on Soncrest BBS to the same effect I'm seeing it used on the Christian Depression Pages message boards. And the person using it is someone who's not above threatening suicide when she doesn't get her way. Sorry, that one stopped working on me when I was 18.
There's a big difference between trying to resolve a disagreement, which we tried repeatedly, and getting shot at, flamed, threatened, insulted, and condescended to. We had enough. We saw that nothing we could do would change the situation, we couldn't "resolve anything" to the satisfaction of the admin without bending over backwards and then some, pretending nothing ever happened, and just letting ourselves get hurt time and again, knowing that we'd be forced to apologise to the person who hurt us. The fact that the whole ugly mess was brought up out of nowhere by a user many months after we'd left Soncrest for good was proof to me if we'd stayed, it would have continued to be hell.
To me, reconcile means two parties in a disagreement getting together and coming to a mutually agreeable solution. It doesn't mean one party threatening the other, blackening their name, insulting them, or demanding that the other party does precisely what the first wants, dropping an edict down from on high and ordering it done. Do this in a business context and there would probably be lawyers involved. Do it to volunteers, who gave a lot for time and effort for free to make Soncrest work, and you really shouldn't be acting all surprised when we finally got tired of having crap thrown at us and left.
Soncrest BBS is down. The domain name soncrest.org has lapsed and not been renewed. There is no discussion system there any more. There have been no changes on the website since I left in August 2000. There's nothing to resurrect, nothing to save from heinous heretics like me, my husband, and my friends. We moved on from there a long time ago. My resignation post and explanation of why I resigned never made it onto this domain. Sehlat's isn't linked from her main page anymore.
But someone obviously hasn't moved on. Would it save time if I just posted a copy of everything that got shouted last time? We wouldn't have to go through the loop yet again that way, and I know that nothing new will be said. What's the point in flogging the decomposing horse yet again?
So, bring on the flames, roast us one more time, then crawl back into your hole and stay there. Will Soncrest ever stay dead?
Hubby said it so much better than I could:
From: Hubby
To: Me
Subject: Re: Your anon "soncrest" feedback
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 2:58 PM
>They got to my site and did a search for soncrest,
>according to my search logs from Atomz.
>sigh
So, basically, they were spoiling for a fight, then?
That's so sad! Someone, somewhere, needs to get a life!