Letter to piecepack (long)

["davidlhsl" <DavidLHsl@...>]

[Note to moderator: I just posted my attempt to apologize to the
group, and managed 
to make some very immature quips in my message that I should've
edited out. I have, 
and this is my "cleaned up" version that I hope you will accept.
Please trash my prior 
submission, if you can.]

[Note to group, if my prior submission has made it to the group, then
I owe you 
another apology. Please replace that version with this.]

Uh, sorry about the door. <blush>

Let me begin by thanking the group for the encouraging responses I
have received via 
e-mail since my Mad Cow rant.

A bit of background. I don't want to go into a lot of detail on this,
but someone from 
work who was about to have her car repossessed approached me for a
$1500 loan, 
promising to pay me back $100 per week. I think you already know the
punch-line: 
I've only received $200 of the amount. No thank you from her, no
attempt on her part 
to pay something, zippo. I'm screwed to the tune of $1300.

But I've also managed to buy a new car this year and try the switch
from PC to Mac, so 
I guess I can't claim to have been devastated. I know she doesn't
make that much and 
has a child to feed. Other than a very brief period in my life, I
have never had to know 
the feelings of worrying about how to pay the bills or where my next
meal would 
come from. So I've had to wrestle with the possibility of trying to
get my money back 
at the expense of tearing down someone down on their luck who may
have needed a 
break.

Needless to say, I've been in no mood to feel taken for granted this
year, and I've been 
taking a hard look at my contributions vs. what I receive in return.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is admittedly pretty selfish.

This may come as a surprise to you, but I did, in fact, leave this
group for a period of 
time during September. Here I saw an obnoxious person get the welcome
mat and the 
attention, and what did I have to show for my efforts? I didn't want
to make a scene, 
and didn't. I simply left. But I did continue to lurk. One day,
someone posted 
something to the files section, and I returned in order to check it
out. But I continued 
to remain in lurk mode.

Then I did something I should've done at the start: I began checking
the piecepack 
rules posted to piecepack.org rather than what I had been doing,
which was looking 
for ways to convert material on Zillions of Games to a physical
media. Being a fan of 
Formula De, I immediately tried Racepack. My brother and I had such a
great time 
playing it that I felt I just had to de-lurk in order to share it
with the group, because I 
felt the author deserved to know about it. Fortunately, he did.

This month, I have been busting my rump on a programming project.
Sadly, the 
timing meant that I had to work through the entire week of Christmas.
I had been 
putting in 8-12 hour days solid for about two weeks; and my
Christmas, as you can 
imagine, was miserable. Fortunately I work for a company that has
shown me many 
times they appreciate my efforts, and they were as distressed about
this as I was.

So I checked the piecepack discussion group after working a mentally
tiring day, and 
noted an interesting idea: a Stratego-type game for the piecepack.
Cool, I thought. As 
I read through the rules, it seemed to me that the design was such
that it would take 
forever to play. Sort of like playing Chinese Checkers where the
object is to get your 
pieces to the end of the board and back, then repeat five more times.
I was already 
familiar with EW's immaturity, but I never expected to be flipped off
the way I was.

LET'S GET READY TO RUMMMMMMMMMMBLE!!!!!!!!!!

That did it. I summoned all the feelings of resentment I had buried,
cried havoc, and 
let slip the dogs of war.

To the group:

I do owe all of you (No, EW, I don't mean you. Your turn is coming.),
an apology. It was 
very unfair of me to try to "cash in" the way I did, and it was
unfair of me to redirect 
my own personal issues and anger towards EW in your direction. Nobody
made me 
donate to the trophy cloth. I am glad I was able to be a part in
making it possible.

I will respectfully, and as gently as I can, chide the group (and
myself, as you will see) 
in one respect. I have been around the internet since the early 90s,
and I have run into 
all types of people. Most are some of the most selfless and kind
individuals you'll ever 
meet. That includes most of this group. But some are, for lack of a
better word, 
insane. I have witnessed one newsgroup, rec.music.newage (I love
electronic 
synthesizer music), deteriorate from a thriving community into a
wasteland, and all 
because of one self-righteous crusader who drove pretty much everyone
away. One of 
the reasons he was able to do this was because people were afraid to
take a stand and 
call him on his rude behavior. Some did. I did. But our efforts to
make him realize the 
damage he was causing by his hateful rants were completely diminished
by those who 
didn't want to hurt his feelings. Indirectly, their support merely
encouraged his 
offensive manners.

This is what selfish people do. They exploit decent people with their
rude behavior, 
knowing and even demanding that others take responsibility by living
with their 
obnoxiousness rather than taking responsibility themselves. I do
think people deserve 
a fairly long leash, but one does have to put one's foot down when
someone crosses 
the line. I feel that line was crossed during the announcement of the
prior contest 
winner, and I deeply regret not saying anything at the time. I fully
share in the blame 
on this one. My recent behavior has only covered me in mud.

I feel my contributions are now a matter of record, and I deeply
appreciate your very 
kind and sincere reaction. Please accept my own apologies for lashing
out at you.

To Electronic Waffle:

In many respects, you remind me of myself when I first joined the
group. I love 
games, and my discovery of the piecepack brought out an excitement
towards gaming 
I hadn't experienced in a long time. In many respects, you are
correct in thinking that 
I'm more than a little jealous at the attention you have received.

But we differ in one respect. While I had tried to be a considerate
of others as I 
possibly could, you have been arrogant and rude without any regards
to anyone else 
other than yourself. You claim to have already apologized for the
contest incident, but 
your follow-up and even your recent e-mail to me indicates that you
still don't think 
you've done anything wrong. Your apology wasn't an apology at all; it
was simply a 
formality on your part to get people off your back.

As for your immaturity, you attempt to defend yourself by stating
that you are only 21 
years old. Don't you realize that this is legal drinking age? 

The real tragedy from this is that I honestly think you have some
interesting ideas. I 
was like you in the beginning in that I tried to toss out all the
ideas that came to my 
mind; but unlike you, I realized pretty early that I needed to step
back, take a deep 
breath, and be a little more deliberate in my work. I have since
abandoned the desire 
to be a designer, and I'm more than happy in my role as gamer.

----------

It's really too late to put the pin back in the grenade. This group
will return, I hope, 
better and stronger. But I no longer leave you in anger. I leave you
in peace. You have 
my respect.

I look forward to checking out all the Solitaire Confinement entries
once they are 
posted to piecepack.org. Best of luck to everyone.

David Hassell