Thank You Dart & AMA

Author: airmax1227
Election
DART president
Airmax

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#91
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@Wylted
Thanks for telling me you are willing to talk about these things
I'm happy to rehash history, especially the more complicated things I may have regrets about. It's not my intent to make my new presidency the Airmax absolution tour, for the couple of things I may feel guilty about, but to be as candid as I possibly can be, because I'm not here for political games. I'm here to get some things done. I started on DDO in my 20s and I'm now almost 40, I'd like to think I have more wisdom now. The situation described above is a complicated one, but I don't want to justify or rationalize any part of my role in it. I have some regrets from the past 10 years, but don't plan to have any more if I can help it. To that end I'm going to be as candid and up front about everything that I can. I recognize the diplomatic and measured style you mentioned earlier can be viewed as insincere, and while I don't have any intention of changing my communication style, I certainly do want to be more casual and relaxed and just let all the chips land where they may without trying to control anything - especially the perception of things.
#92
Mikal
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@airmax1227
I hate to put you on the spot and there are people that have read this and prob wondering why you aren't responding to RM. The reason you are ignoring him as you outlined? You find the end result of that conversation unproductive?
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#93
airmax1227
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@spacetime
Can you release an official, direct statement about whether you support or condemn Lunatic's and Mikal's conduct in how they've campaigned against your opposition and behaved throughout this phase of pre-election?
No, though I suppose I can speak casually about my thoughts on it. I don't like there to be any animosity between members. I truly would like us to just all get along. So to that extent, I don't support any kind of negative behavior between members. I'm not necessarily going to condemn it, but I don't necessarily support it. I tend to just breeze past these things, but I'm pretty well aware of the events leading to these types of things. If I'm being attacked by another member, it's understandable that my supporters are going to try to defend me. I'm not going to criticize them for that. I can also understand that once these back and forths happen that they can escalate pretty quickly into an area that I would personally be uncomfortable to be involved with. But I'm not micromanaging my supporters. They understand that I like to be as civil as I can at all times, and probably know I'm not going to engage in just outright attacks on my character that I couldn't possibly begin to reply to (for some of the reasons described above) and they take it upon themselves. I think the spirit of that is commendable, but I would once again urge all of my supporters to take the high road in all cases. If someone escalates the situation to outright personal attacks, compliment their fine choice of verbiage, then carefully pick apart their arguments with precision and professionalism. That'd be my approach, but again, I don't expect everyone to follow this at all times, and if my supporters are getting into escalated flaming, I can probably assume that both parties are to blame. I did urge my supporters in my campaign OP to avoid this for the most part, but again, there are probably some exceptions, and I know that sometimes it happens. Will I condemn them? No, they were defending me from statement they likely saw as justifying their reaction. But I would ask that everyone tries harder to get along, and focus on more important things. Moving forward I am optimistic that this will be less of an issue.

Do you endorse how Lunatic and Mikal carried themselves and treated Ilikepie5 and RM during this election?
I think we should just assume that I disavow everything, whether I said it or someone else, unless specified otherwise, just assume I disavow - for whatever that might be worth.

I believe there is a worthwhile discussion about what value I place on civility, and people can see through my actions, and the way that I interact with others, how much I value this. I don't like seeing animosity between people, but this is a public forum, and things are going to happen. There's a certain amount of inevitable escalating disagreement that will occur, that I might not be comfortable engaging in, but I understand that vibrant and passionate disagreement may result in such things, especially if it becomes personal. If I saw someone just attacking someone out of nowhere in a personal and awful way, I'll condemn that, but I think we both know that's not what we are talking about here. Nonetheless, and I say this to everyone and no one in particular, taking the high road in all cases really does work out pretty well in the long run.
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#94
airmax1227
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@spacetime
Can you get Bluesteel and Raisor to join DART?
Probably not, but that would be great.
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#95
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@Mikal
I hate to put you on the spot and there are people that have read this and prob wondering why you aren't responding to RM. The reason you are ignoring him as you outlined? You find the end result of that conversation unproductive?
I addressed this earlier. I think there actually might be some value to the issues presented in some case, but don't want to engage with the individual for the reasons described above, or I feel that the issues presented aren't being brought up for productive reasons, and are probably a waste of my time.
#96
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@airmax1227
 If someone escalates the situation to outright personal attacks, compliment their fine choice of verbiage, then carefully pick apart their arguments with precision and professionalism. 
OH I do max. Doesn't stop the "OMG he's bullying me!" Accusation in the slightest. 
#97
Wylted
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@airmax1227
The ironic thing is that to the members most angry at me, they still spammed me about doing nothing, since they had no idea that I had even talked to you. I literally had one member link me to the resignation speech that I wrote, saying something like, "you are worthless and did nothing here, I got Wylted to resign, go to hell"
I can probably guess who that was. It's funny, that had zero impact on me. You were the biggest factor in that decision. It must have taken a lot of restraint not to respond. I would have campaigned differently now, but if I was back there and facing that pressure again, I would literally just go MIA for like 3 months and then return and make some positive change. 


 I do sincerely apologize for it, and hope you can forgive me.

I appreciate that. You talking to me here, has helped in that regard, even though I have assumed you probably changed in that time, like we all have. 

 I have some regrets from the past 10 years, but don't plan to have any more if I can help it
Me too. It's probably harder for me. I am like Schindler at the end of Schindler list, when he is throwing his jewelry and saying "that is one more jew I could have saved, but I was selfish". I feel guilty for drinking coffee, as it can be made with slave labor, or clothes from companies exporting labor to children who face harsh conditions in factories. 

I also feel guilty for my failure to fully rescue my siblings. I would often take blame for their actions, so my father would abuse me instead. I couldn't completely shield them from a horrible childhood though. 

It helps, when I realize how hard I am being on a child, even if that child was me. Me living off of the blood of children with my clothing choices, and the violence of military and police who keep society peaceful plagues me, but than I realize we are all monsters, since everyone else survives off of slave labor and violence, though they don't see it first hand. 

At first, it didn't help much that everyone else is monsters, but then I realized we are all sinners in the eyes of God. That the standard of God is impossible to live up to. It made me, more humble. 

The point I am making is this. If you have a conscience, even without my level of maladptiveness, you'll end up feeling regret for something else. 

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#98
airmax1227
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@Lunatic
OH I do max. Doesn't stop the "OMG he's bullying me!" Accusation in the slightest. 
I'm not disagreeing with that. But knowing that, you should realize it's a waste of your time now. Besides we are gona be too busy soon to engage with that kind of stuff. We have a glorious DART to build, and the 3rd world wont exploit itself, so there's no time to waste on making excellent well thought out arguments just to have a response of merely calling you a barmy naff plonker.
#99
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@Mikal
I hate to put you on the spot and there are people that have read this and prob wondering why you aren't responding to RM. The reason you are ignoring him as you outlined? You find the end result of that conversation unproductive?
Fascinating
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#100
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@Wylted
I can probably guess who that was. It's funny, that had zero impact on me. You were the biggest factor in that decision. It must have taken a lot of restraint not to respond.
Yeah, I just ignored it and felt a weird sense of guilt and frustration, and then perhaps relief since the situation was pretty much over. I had respected your style of pushing the limits to whatever degree before that, even if it did annoy the hell out of me, and I respected you even more after that since you accepted my "advice" (if we can call it that) and resigned. I think my greater respect may have contributed to my even greater feeling of guilt since it made me entertain in ever greater clarity what a Wylted presidency would look like.

It's funny, before I felt any pressure, when people asked me about the situation, I simply replied, "Yeah it might be problematic, but you can't criticize a winning strategy". I must have repeated that 2 dozen times. I was pretty quick to turn around on that once the weight of public opinion started hounding me for some type of resolution to the issue.

I appreciate that. You talking to me here, has helped in that regard, even though I have assumed you probably changed in that time, like we all have. 
That's true, though even though we may have changed to some degree, it's not something we ever really talked about, so I'm glad that we finally have had the chance to.

The point I am making is this. If you have a conscience, even without my level of maladptiveness, you'll end up feeling regret for something else. 
True, and the more interactions you have with people, and the more chances you have to upset someone, makes it more likely to regret certain things. In my personal life I can get a bit OCD about things, pulling people I work with aside to clarify that something I did wasn't intended as a slight. Most of the time they laugh at me, and assure me they didn't take it that way. But it's something I think about more than I probably need to. I proof read all of my posts a couple times just to be sure I'm saying things the way I like... and then I sometimes read them again and wish I would phrased it slightly differently. But yeah, I'm sure even in the next few months I'll wish I could have done something differently, but I don't want to feel like anything I've done is out of some type of lazy malice, or inability to find a solution that is best for everyone. I mean, I'll make mistakes, but I certainly don't want to look back and consider if any of those mistakes were in flippant disregard for the feelings of others.
#101
spacetime
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@airmax1227
you're awesome bro, good to have you back
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#102
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@spacetime
you're awesome bro, good to have you back
Thanks, it's good to see you again too :)
#103
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@spacetime
Of course, he has to come back when there's power to gain.
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#104
airmax1227
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Airmax be like:

#105
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@RationalMadman
I find your statement fairly one sided. Of course people want power. It's a virtue for anyone to want any form of power if offered it. Hell, you even ran for president as well because it would give you more power. Everyone has a desire for power, but only a few are worthy of power. It's also not about who has power, but what they'll do with it. Airmax has proven he can handle the power given to him and hence won the election.
#106
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@Vader
This is Airmax's AMA, not yours. Let Airmax answer me when he grows the confidence to do so.
#107
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@Vader
I find your statement fairly one sided. Of course people want power. It's a virtue for anyone to want any form of power if offered it. Hell, you even ran for president as well because it would give you more power. Everyone has a desire for power, but only a few are worthy of power. It's also not about who has power, but what they'll do with it. Airmax has proven he can handle the power given to him and hence won the election.
I will reply one thing to this, since you don't seem to comprehend the manipulative side of Airmax; it comes down to effort.

All my supporters knew I'd worked hard to keep this site alive while it would otherwise be dead, Airmax worked hard in a different way to stop DDO being dead.

I succeeded so far, Airmax failed on DDO but adspam attacks where the admin won't help you out are not easy to prevent, especially when the 'fixes' they dish out give other severe glitches to the website.

If I had not been on this website, I predict that due to several butterfly effects of my debate and forum participation, you'd have an environment that's basically much less active and much more troll-like. I am literally that active and, in the forums, so are you. You and I saved this website from what would pretty much be staleness outside the Religion Forums (which would be more toxic) had we not been involved from the start to now.