UPDATED POST: Friday - it's over this evening!
In the original manifesto, it said:
1] adopt the motto: ‘do unto other blogs as you would have them do unto you.’
In the Blogpower ethos, it said:
f] As a family there is a certain decency required when you visit, take your shoes off and come inside to someone's nice clean blog. This is not to say we can't express our views even heatedly - we do. Very strongly.
Many opinions have been expressed here in the comments that the thing over Phishez is not interesting to them but that's hardly helpful. It comes down to whether or not she did this:
1. Took over someone else's blog but retained the url and header of the former blogger so that any reader thinks they're coming to the former blogger's site;
2. Readers see the former blogger's name "in lights" but then the posts are signed by Phishez. The logical thought is that she is a guest poster;
3. When they read these posts, they find the "guest poster" attacking the blogger whose header is still being used.
Until recently it was clearly verifiable, sorry, Lord Nazh, that this is what Phishez was doing. This is not opinion but a simple "was she" or "wasn't she". So the only question after that is whether this breaches 1] and f] above.
Do you think for one second that I'm personally interested in any of this stuff - I have much better and more necessary things to be doing in RL and on my own blog.
However, BP procedures on new members demand we conduct a vote on controversial pending members. We did this on UKN&P and we're doing it now.
So we need interested parties to e-mail jameshighamatmaildotcom until 21:00, Friday, London time and he then sends names and votes to Colin Campbell for verification:
Yes - Phishez gets in;
No - Phishez must wait three months.
If two thirds of those voting say yes, she's in. If less than that, she waits three months, assuming she'd still be interested.
UPDATED FINAL VOTES [Friday 19:49]:
Yes, admit now: 2
No, she waits three months: 7
Wrote to abstain: 2
Comments made in the comments section are welcome but are not counted as votes. Closes Friday evening at 21:00 London time but unless there's a late surge, it's pretty well over now.
My statement, for what it's worth, is here:
OK people - time to wind this thing up. As promised, I'll send the names and votes to Colin [not that he wants them but that's what comes of being a senior admin]but I'll do that tomorrow morning now.
No changes to the tallies and one of the "no"s might have been an abstain but I'll check tomorrow morning. Either way, it's pretty clear and certain things came out of it:
1] There is a certain pride in BP now and many feel we should move beyond the mud slinging and laundry airing and I'm quite sure there are those, even among the admins, who blame me for letting it happen.
And yet we had to have the matter out. When I put a spanner in the works for Phishez, I didn't do it lightly and it was as much for my reputation as hers [to show it was not done through any antipathy] that we had to hear a certain amount of it.
But not this much.
So yes, I agree with you we need to find a better way and I'm open to suggestions if you are. But it must remain fair, which this was, even if it was not enjoyable.
2] I think we're always going to disagree about ethics but there are some base levels below which we can't sink. Quite a few BPers seem to agree with that and I can tell you we've had some enquiries about membership out of this process we've gone through - detractors please bear that in mind.
3] So to Phishez. If you look at a recent Blogfocus, you'll see her little cats featured so there is absolutely no personal "stick" in this. You might not be aware either that she and I have had some correspondence on other matters - blogger to blogger.
On the BP entry though, it was another matter and the results are such that she'll have to, if she's willing, wait three months and I have to now reveal that there was pressure on me via e-mail to eliminate her altogether.
Everyone makes mistakes and some of us would defend the three month rule - it gives people a chance to get the head together, see where things went wrong and to regroup. Or not. Surely this is healthier.
I don't know how relevant the late entry of Crushed into the fray is and I suspect everyone just wants the whole thing to stop here and now without any other implosions and suicides.
I think everyone wants it to get back to BP Blogroundup and the like and don't forget that we have the Autumn internal awards coming up [handled by someone other than me.
So over to you everyone.
