Just one thing

It's great! It seems I don't even have to be a member of a forum any more to be the main topic for discussion. If you want to read what a horrible asshole I am/what an entertaining prick I can be (delete as applicable) pop over to gV. I guarantee you a lot of laughs, whatever your preconceptions of my various personae might be.

I could quote at length from there (and probably will later - there is one discordant monologue by GradyE that deserves an airing) but for the moment will just comment on a brief post by Lias the Liar, who said:

"Pep said he would stop derailing governance threads and stop calling the owner and mods ignorant, incompetent and stupid IF they met his moderation demands."

This is in some way supposed to suggest that I was committing forum extortion, if I read it right.

Well, since - as I keep explaining - I have never derailed any governance threads in gV, merely made suggestions regarding the potential appointment of a moderator in a thread about moderation, I would hardly have offered to stop, would I?

And I didn't EVER say I would stop calling ANYONE ignorant, incompetent or stupid, if they behaved in an ignorant, incompetent or stupid fashion; that would be hypocritical self-censorship; I will guarantee that if people don't behave in an ignorant,incompetent or stupid manner I won't mislabel them.

I never made any "demands". How could I? I have no power, no authority in a forum where I am neither an administrator, nor a moderator, where "rights" (including the "right" to post) are merely privileges benevolently bestowed upon individuals by the owner.

Let me tell you a short story in that respect. When I was fifteen, I played in a rugby match where the referee was the opposition's coach. After a succession of very bad decisions by him, including disallowing two of our tries for no discernible reason, I decided to take action. Firstly, when I received the ball from a scrum, I stopped dead, as if the whistle had gone, having warned my own team that I was going to do so. Everybody else stopped, the other team looking completely confused. I walked towards the referee, with the ball, said to him quietly, "Who's in charge, now then?" and accelerated through the bemused static opposition for a try which could not be overturned. The ref, red faced, was speechless. He continued to give penalties against us, so I started kicking the ball, while it was in play, quite legitimately, over the touchline, over the fence separating the playing field from a major road, and so hard it even went over the road. After six balls - the whole supply - had been despatched, and the game had come to a stop, the ref asked me how long I was going to keep it up, and I responded "Until you stop making a fool of yourself". Ten minutes later after someone had been despatched to cross the road safely via a bridge some distance away, the game restarted and he began adjudicating the game in a relatively dispassionate fashion. We won.When I was subsequently called up in front of my Principal the next Monday morning, because the ref (a teacher) had in a cowardly fashion reported my actions, I didn't have to argue a case, pointing out that the referee had absolute power to discipline me, but it would have been arbitrary and vindictive. Sound familiar?