I realize that by now there are people who think my only purpose in writing this blog is to tear the forum down.  They are wrong.  I still believe the forum has the potential to be a great place, even better than it is now.  But before that can happen, we need to think about where we have been, what has happened and where we go from here. 

So, yes, I am going to revisit “the past”, even beyond last July.  I think it is important to look at the events leading up to the current situation. It can help explain why people have behaved the way they did.

But I won’t just talk about what I think went wrong. I will also discuss what I think was done right.  And then I want to talk about the way forward. The forum has been experiencing discord and contention for months.  Much of it was deliberately incited by a cyber-bully.  That resulted in otherwise good people, on both “sides”, doing and saying things which were misguided and hurtful.   The cyber-bully has done his mischief well and the hurt and mistrust goes deep. 

But we can overcome this.  We need the truth to come out so that these wounds can be cleansed and allowed to heal.  We need to understand that we have more in common than we have separating us.  There are going to be some people who don’t want to do this. We should not let them stop the rest of us.  I believe we can rise above it and become a united community once more.