Over the last 12 years I’ve been involved in lots of email lists, both as contributor and as a list-owner. I’ve seen everything go by: flamewars that would knock your socks off, passive-aggressives who “accidentally” reply-all to the list with a post that is pretty critical of someone else. I’ve unsubscribed members who were abusive to other people and watched other list members unsubscribe themselves in sympathy with the person I’ve unsubscribed.
Well, I just unsubscribed from a list myself, for that very reason. I must be getting old. A list run by a lesbian and gay religious group here in the UK (not LGCM) has a Yahoo! group. There has been some criticism of the moderator and of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the list, which criticism has been fairly well deserved, I think. I have written reasoned criticism of the Archbishop for his wishy-washy cowardly stand on issues and his savaging of Jeffrey John. However, as the moderator is a former student of the Archbishop’s he feels that everything will be just fine if we don’t criticise the Archbishop and let him do his work.
So, in my long history of not trying to teach pigs to sing (because it wastes my time and annoys the pigs), I’ve unsubscribed from the list.
While LGCM has its own set of problems, which this group has gone some way to redress, I just have the feeling that there is an intense conflict-avoidance syndrome running through this group, which makes it difficult to operate a list. The skill needed is conflict resolution, not conflict avoidance. I don’t have time to read or contribute to a list of that nature. I’ll probably stop my financial support as well; we’re already paying