Birth of The Zen Dictator

Preamble: Aaarh! Blast and bloody damn this eyepatch itches and that scurvy parrot has shat on my doublet again!

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It has been a week since we launched Docudharma. So far, everything is perfectly out of control. There have been incidents and accidents and hints and allegations. Chaos has reigned. So far we have avoided rains of frogs, but I haven’t had a chance to see tomorrows forecast, having been busy with the aforementioned chaos.

Only one thing is completely certain so far: I am far too nice and sweet of a guy to be in the blogging trade.

And even that is not true! It is more accurate to say that I would PREFER too be too nice and sweet of a guy to be in the blogging trade.

I do have an inner asshole. And apparently it is time to air my inner asshole out a bit.  …..ewwww

By nature I am an idealistic, optimistic utopian. By night I visit the fields where the lambs lay sleeping and…..but I digress.

In the excitement of the launch I was overwhelmed, over excited and sleepless. This is of course all unchartered water for me. Things have not gone as I have wished. I would say that the mistakes that I have made are far more in the WAYS things were done than what was done. And that responsibility lies with me. No excuses.

So I have to fix some stuff. Learn and grow, learn and grow.

I have mentioned before that I am relatively new to the internet, so I am also naive. I hoped we wouldn’t have to deal with some of the nastier and more contentious shit that goes on on the net. I was wrong. I thought that most all of the people who were assholes on blogs had good reasons for that and were misunderstood and that a fresh start would give everyone a chance to put aside old grudges and habits and find a new way to coexist, all working together in good faith for the common good. I was wrong.

So… during this sensitive launch period it looks like I might have to be way more of the Dictator part of the zen dictator mentioned in the FAQ as the ideal. I don’t like that….so it will only make me crankier. Grrrr.

First of all, until we can figure out a way to talk about it in a productive way….I/P diaries are banned.

Who determines what an I/P diary is?

Me.

I thought having someone who knew the issue running it would work….But what I learned is that nobody in that world trusts anybody else….. so that won’t work, nothing seems to work. So ……voila.

You can write about Palestine and you can write about Israel…but you can’t write I/P diaries. Anyone who is involved in the issue knows what I mean by I/P diaries.

You are HIGHLY encouraged to write diaries on how we and other blogs should approach the issue of how to talk about I/P without all the….stuff. Until we can learn HOW to talk about it I don’t think we can really TALK about it. I/P isn’t going to be solved here anyway, but with the folks we have here we might be able to make some progress on that fron….without all the……stuff. 

I will be suspending the three comment rule and notification rule on banning for a while. Nobody who is here at this time is practicing assholery. (Although some of the worst pirate talk comes close…THAT WAS A JOKE!) But until things calm down a bit. I am not going to be shy about getting rid of habitual assholery practitioners.

If you are not a notorious assholery practitioner, you need not worry. You won’t notice anything different because the notorious assholery practitioners will unapologetically be gone very swiftly and with very little noise. Something we haven’t really talked about is suspensions. Since we really DON’T want to ban, we do have a suspension policy. Mattes for instance was only suspended, after seeing her reactions elsewhere….I am going to extend that suspension until she e-mais me and we can talk. Put it this way if EVER disciplinary action is taken against you, I will always be willing to talk.

Also no one else will perform any administrative or disciplinary activity more severe than hiding comments. Just me. We still don’t have a way to effectively moderate hidden comments yet, so right now there are very few people that can hide comments. If you have not become an EU yet, you won’t. Noy until we solve that problem. I’ll be happy to expand on that in the comments if anyone needs more info.

Very very hopefully things will calm down soon. Or lol, I should say I will calm down soon! This shit is harder than it looks!

Other notes on being The Man:

First….waaaah! When do I get to blog again???

I have stopped giving out nearly all recs on diaries and comments, I want to rec every comment and comment in every diary. But so far I haven’t even been able to read very many! So please don’t be offended if I am not rec’ing you and chatting….things WILL calm down….I hope and I will have time to actually ENJOY this place and even be able to write something besides Meta! I have a lot I want to say here, but I haven’t had the time or the concentration to say it!

I can’t believe the response this place has gotten and I thank you all! I am grateful to all of you , especially for sticking around through all the bumps and bruises of the Difficulties at the beginning. We still have a LOT of Learning and Growing to do, but I think over all, for a bunch of noobs and idiots we are doing ok, if not pretty darn god.

I knew we would attract a whole bunch of good people, but I had no idea that it would attract so many, and of such stellar goodness And hell, a boatload of our Contributing Editors haven’t even published yet! HINT HINT

I especially want to thank all the good people who have dug in and gone into some of the controversial stuff and are working hard on making things better.

The other thing I haven’t had time to do is give out ponies….so if you want one….GRAB IT!

Oh and where is the zen part of the zen dictatorship? Why it is in the flame of candle on the end of the cracked bamboo flute that the blind man plays quietly at twilight……….duh!