madunit,
You've mentioned the privacy of PM's a few times, and now the privacy of locker rooms. As far as I could make out, a lot of the anti-dubo tirade on Friday was as a result of Jesbass making public edits from PM's that dubo had sent him, when apparently he was at his most "passionate" , probably immediately post-match.
Why was it OK for those remarks to be published, when it's very clearly not the done thing? I'm not having a go at Jesbass, but just questioning the seemingly double standard at play here as voiced by dubopov's critics.
I'll happily answer that one, murphyscreek. I think your question is an entirely reasonable one.
Yes, PMs are, by and large, private. I'm not sure if there's a forum-wide ruling that PMs must remain private, but that seems to generally be the done thing.
I didn't post any PMs publicly, although I did make reference to a PM dubopov sent me immediately after the Round 1 result.
I only did this after just shy of a fortnight of vitriol directed at me, mostly from dubopov, starting in the match thread itself. I had privately discussed with dubopov the reason for his mark, and I offered to point out where I felt the article had weaknesses. (Personally, I'd love to receive an offer from a fellow writer to look over my work to help me become a better writer.)
He evaded my offer several times, and eventually resorted to insulting me for having the audacity of actually thinking I might know grammar without the appropriate qualifications.
Quite frankly, I'm surprised that dubopov can still only see three grammatical errors in his article, and I'm still prepared to point out the other ones I can see if he is willing to humble himself ask for assistance in a respectful way. I won't embarrass him (or any other writer) by doing so publicly.
I'm convinced it'll make him a better writer. (But maybe that isn't something he wants, which is fine of course - but then he has no complaint about any marks he gets!)
Eventually, we reached an impasse, and I suggested we discuss in public for the sake of transparency. I was hoping for a constructive and irenic conversation, but dubopov came looking for a fight - he made that clear with his first post.
Anyway, by the time
this thread was started, he'd already posted one of his own PMs in which he'd labelled me Hitler, so he clearly didn't seem to mind stating publicly his anger at me for seeing grammatical errors that he obviously didn't, and having his article penalised accordingly.
Other people were posting uninformed accusations against me in this thread, as well as quoting a statement of dubopov that was putting words into my mouth to further his point.
Then DRAGONZ_RULE stepped in to say that this wasn't about one referee or one article, but about a wider concern that the Dragons were getting a rough deal - and the possibility that this may be intentional.
It was only then that I decided to break with convention to explain my side of the situation. I did it with the hope that by showing that dubopov was no victim of a hierarchal, and by reasserting my desire for the Dragons to stay, that this clarification would serve to put the issue to rest.
I should have thought twice.
In the very next post, dubopov took my post, which had essentially said "I don't know why dubopov is going off his nut at me, but there isn't a conspiracy against the Dragons and I want them to stay", and turned it on its head so that it essentially said "dubopov wanted to award himself the Dragons MVP and that's why I'm out to get them".
At that point, I decided to let it go. I told dubopov he was knocking down strawmen, and then posted a YouTube link to the song
Civil War by Guns 'n' Roses.
That song starts with a quote from the movie
Cool Hand Luke which reads:
"What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men."
It was, in its own quirky way, a call for peace.
As I say, I had hoped that by clarifying that this was much more about dubopov's attitude towards his personal mark than it was about the competition's attitude towards the Dragons, the dust would settle and we'd all get on with the task at hand - playing F7s.
However, considering that non-playing Dragons (NRL) fans have joined this discussion and made ignorant accusations against me, it is clear that what I hoped for was ultimately beyond our reach. I don't know what has been said in the Jubilee Avenue forum, but seeing as it is persuading people who have no involvement in F7s to take sides and say their uninformed pieces against me, my guess is that it hasn't been irenic or helpful for the competition as a whole.
So yes, I made mention of the content of a PM, although I didn't quote one. And in hindsight, yes, it was a poor call on my part. And I openly accept that I failed in that sense.
But my "for the greater good" intentions were, I feel, good ones - especially considering dubopov had posted his own PM and had made his private feeling very public. Had the post been enough to remove doubts and keep the Dragons players in town, it would have been worth it.
On a final note, I'm not interested in digging up this discussion again. I've sat on it for over two weeks and have been o the receiving end of a number of character slurs by people who've never dealt with me and know nothing of the very character I have.
Truth be told, very few people on here know much about my character - Big Mick would have had the greatest insight, courtesy of our work together on the Sonny Fai wristbands.
Anyway, I very nearly resigned last night.
However, rather than walk away from the competition and abandon it to a leaderless vacuum, I've decided to stay on, with the support of others, to see this phoenix rise from the ashes. I'd love it if you were to stay on, too, but I will respect your decision to leave if you choose to go your own way.
And for me, that's that on the topic at hand.
Fin.
