April 1, 2008

As a response to February 19, 2011 here is my side of the events that occurred on April 1, 2008. As a new member of this site I did not realize that the chatterbox was essentially a stage for anyone who wanted attention. Before joining E2 I had a Facebook account and I played online Scrabble. There were chat features on both of those sites however they did little to prepare me for the stream of furious chatter in the catbox. After watching for a few days I thought I could try saying a few things. Like a lot of new users I said too much. I had discovered a new toy, I was a stay at home mother with two small children who were not both in school full time. I could offer words of caution to people that were passed on to me by others. This site can be addictive.

At the end of March there were several posts by a user named YoshiX. What I remember most about that particular user is how people shredded him and his theories publicly. Some were nicer than others but not many people stood up for him. Almost everyone I met on E2 in the beginning I met through the catbox. I was always there, it was always there, now that I know more about myself now I can see that I did not appreciate the extent of my involvement in E2. It was a place to go when I couldn't go anywhere else. I started trading messages with other people, and since I am generally open and honest with people I assume, naively perhaps, that they are also being open and honest with me.

One thing that bothered me was how ush would shoot streams of jizz into other people's mouths, ears and other cavities. At first I was annoyed, then it kept happening and I wondered why no one said anything when he did that to other people. Those were the days before I understood trolls and that feeding them can be a very bad idea. On April Fool's Day I was wasting time in the catbox when ush stated that he had revolutionized the site and everyone should type CONTAINED_STUFF into a place I had never heard of. sam512 cautioned against this, since I wasn't in on the joke I went ahead with my typing which led to me being locked out of my own account.

Fortunately for me Oolong opened my account. Had I known what the future held I could have used that as an excuse to never log in again, but at the time I didn't see any value in not being a member of this site. I still do not believe that ush meant to lock anyone out of E2 since I received an apology from him. He explained that the stream of jizz shots came from a site where robots spewed semen at other users and he had adapted that for use in the catbox. I still didn't like it but I liked him at the time, he was nice to me, he gave me feedback on things I had written and generally treated me decently, even going so far as to write a poem for me.

As a member of this site I have tried to get along with people. Considering the diverse population E2 represents I am sometimes amazed that there are not more conflicts. Most of my difficulties were private, not long after the CONTAINED_STUFF incident I got into trouble with two people who told the gods and editorial staff that I was harassing them. While one of these people probably had a legitimate complaint, I tend to be interested in other people and I can appreciate how others who respect their anonymity might be annoyed by someone like me, I am still not entirely certain why the other person took such an intense dislike to me.

I am not a person who walks away from misunderstandings without trying to learn from the situation, I thought an apology was in order and it wasn't until I was given the silent treatment that I started to understand what other people had said about the dangers of an online writing forum. Out of the many people I met in the beginning only a small percentage of those people still talk to me. People I thought were my friends used me. I received some private messages that could have driven me off the site however I made up my mind that if I was going to leave E2 I was going to do so on my own terms.

Of all the contacts I have made here there are only a handful of meetings that I would like to erase. Appropriate behavior is always in order. I am a very sensitive person. I'm fanciful, romantic, and I take personal comments to heart. Rest assured that those who meant to wound me found an effective target. I learned from those people and they changed me in a way that I don't necessarily think was all good. Those experiences are a part of my E2 history. I outlasted some of the people I had trouble with earlier but the hardest thing to take was the day a good close friend of mine left without saying goodbye.

Eventually I stopped watching for this person. Several times I intended to leave E2 for good. I have an addictive personality, writing is fun for me and it can be good in moderation however I am not as good at policing myself as I want to be. Through all of this ush kept logging on and creating different accounts. Several times he asked me to send messages to Jack, avalyn and eventually I told him that I couldn't be the messenger he wanted me to be. Fast forward to another night in the catbox, people were attacking Whiskeydaemon, I was frustrated with him but I also felt sorry for him. That night I lost my temper and said things I should not have publicly.

The day Whiskeydaemon left he sent me a message letting me know that I was the reason he was logging off for good. I could understand why he sent the message. Personally I thought a break would do him good, I thought about him and his reasons for using this site. I could have left after that but I didn't want people to think that I couldn't accept my share of responsibility for what had transpired in the catbox. Everyone on this site has feelings and your right to free speech should not be at the expense of another person. I like to have a good time, I don't like everyone although I usually have personal reasons for the disliking the people I do which does not mean others shouldn't be friends with these people.

There is an old Japanese proverb that says: "vision without action is a dream, action without vision is a nightmare". Initially I supported ush to the extent that I felt people were overly hard on him. Ultimately he was forced out of here because he did not care to operate within the social norms that help define this site. As far as censorship goes I feel the editorial staff is more than lenient about what they allow people to post. You may disagree with my opinion of course but I look at some of the things that are still around and wonder that the editors are as tolerant as they are. Voting is a privilege that can be used to blackball other users. That is an immature use of it however the capability exists and if you are going to win the E2 game then you have to take the good with the bad.

I was there the night ush was banned for good. He had spearheaded a poetry contest and I wrote a short poem to acknowledge that he was using his talents in what I thought was a good, creative and inspirational way. Whatever your thoughts on poetry are, and I don't care if you hate it, I thought the quest was fun and I took some pride in the feedback my message box now contains. While I will not defend behavior that is damaging and detrimental to a website I will fight for the right of people to post what they like, I have votes to use and if I feel something has not been well written I have no problem downvoting that particular writeup.

While ush was out of line on many occasions Swap crossed a line he should not have when he started using ush's real name in the catbox after he had been asked not to. I might have a different opinion on that matter if Swap had not been a part of the E2 administration and whether this is fair or not I feel that if you are a member of the staff then you are going to be held to a higher code of conduct than others who do not enjoy that rank. Quite a few of the people I call friends are also trolls. It's part of the charm that is E2 and I am not going to change it as I can only change myself and my own behavior. Many people complain about things they do not like, that becomes tiresome and leads me to believe that there is nothing really new under this small sun.

If you are still with me I would like to thank you for allowing me to share my side of the story. We are all human, each of us has our own faults and I can not be excluded from a group that includes people who have said and done things they later regretted. I do think this site has helped me grow as a writer, at my job I send and receive e-mails from people who are sometimes representing large sums of money. I believe that E2 has made me a more effective online communicator and I am grateful to all of you for the support, encouragement and even the downvotes that you handed out on writeups that were below what I was capable of.

Time will determine whether this site continues to function as we could lose funding or server space. For my part I am unsure that I care a great deal about the future of E2. While there are people here who I would lose contact with if this site died there are others who have given me names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Those who have not shared personal information must accept that I may someday become whimsical enough to stop logging in, to me that is a good reminder that I may be investing in people who are not investing in me. To briefly conclude, ush failed to act within the confines of normal behavior, I have never witnessed censorship of any work nor has any of my work ever been tampered with.

With the exception of those who have abused administrative goodwill anyone is free to create an account here. Sometimes I wish there was more control put on who says what especially since there are some minors on the site however I find myself reluctant to fight that battle. All are welcome to contribute, anyone is free to leave whenever. If I have any advice for you it is to write what you want, don't worry about what others think, say or do, put yourself into your work and if you have done your best that is all anyone can expect or ask of you. To those who have made the past almost three years here enjoyable I wish you well. For those of you who I am not on good terms with I forgive you and would ask that if we can not be friends let us not remain enemies.