[Rhodes22-list] Is There A Glitch With the List

[Metaphor]

I think that there is is a misconception about what a forum can or should be. 
I became frustrated by being lectured by a certain political mindset seemed
to take it upon themselves to indoctrinate the other participants in the
forum with their particular views, to the exclusion of almost all else. 
Though political viewpoints are interesting and can be instructive, when
they become obsessive, little good can come of one-sided discussion, or
discussion with no attempt to understand or compromise.  It serves to
alienate and anger, rather than to help.  Now, if that is the stated purpose
of a site, to argue, attack or propagandize, then I would accept its
validity, and would choose to participate or not in that venue. However,
when the kind of discussion that became so acrimonious in the last year
dominates the level of discourse, and tempers rise to the point that civil
interaction suffers, it is time to draw back and center oneself, and to
assess the perception that one might be creating, as well as the damage one
might be doing to the larger purpose that the forum was created to
encourage.

The lull now might be a reaction to the departure of a couple of high volume
posters with agendas that many did not find palatable.  In their void, it
seems like it is almost too quiet.  But in their posting absence, more
voices are appearing, and topics will again open up to include non-sailing
issues, but of the sort, I hope, that make for amicable talk, not
condescending lectures by maybe well-meaning but too overly obsessed writers
who feel that they must be the forefront of crusader proselytizing.  Not
that what they want to do is wrong, but it was being done in the wrong
place.  People come to place that are comfortable, and do not stay in places
where they are not comfortable.

The Rhodes 22 is a great boat, and what I have gleaned from reading here for
more than a while, is that there are a lot of great people who are currently
and have frequented this list, including those who have left.  But no one
wants to relax in a place of high tension, and that is what was here.  What
was almost the constant pressure here will drive people to their worst, not
their best, and for my own indiscretions, I sincerely apologize. That's not
who I aspire to be to myself or those with whom I interact.   I love to sail
because it is a release from the tensions of my day-to-day life-- because it
is one of the most free and beautiful pursuits I have been lucky enough to
be able to enjoy in my life.  I originally hoped that a site dedicated to
the Rhodes would have as its primary purpose just that -- sharing of the
commonalities of and peripheral to the shared exuberance we all seem to find
in sailing and in particular, sailing the Rhodes.

Give it time, and like the spring crocuses that will announce to us more
climactically challenged sailors that soon, we will be out blissfully
sailing in our newly painted and primped boats, more and varied topics will
pop up and more and more voices will join in discussion. 


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