I wrote most of the start of following message yesterday evening. I didn't send it because I'm trying not to get so passionate about issues on this list, so I delayed it for a fresh look in the morning. The most recent messages, including one from Karen, make some of the following redundant but IMHO there are a couple of observations still worth making.
Regarding Julien's response to my message: Previously I had only heard the phrase "don't you worry about that" used in a patronising way, but on re-reading the message I guess it could also be seen as not intended that way. J> The whole thing is a non-issue anyway since reports of Bruce's J> death are greatly exagerated... As the author, he'll be the one J> who decides who to entrust with PP's website to. As far as I could see, Karen's offer received no reply from Bruce. Only Mockey replied to her - and I got the impression (since corrected) that he is somehow involved in the process. I commented on the difference between the two offers and the difference between his two replies to them, because I found it perplexing. I still can't understand why Karen's offer was ignored. It isn't a question of whether to "entrust" the site to someone else - it could be a permanent mirror. If that mirror turned out not to be reliable (though I bet it would be more reliable than the webeddie which The Boys have produced!) we would only be back to the current situation. So there is no possible loss of capacity just a probable gain. Every time the webeddie server is down, any mirror would become the *only* server for the website, needing the capacity to cope with all the traffic full time until webeddie might be restored. David provides a great service hosting support files, but I gathered from his messages that a full time hosting of the main website may be too much traffic for his server. I got the impression that Karen's server could handle that more easily. If PowerPro's home page had a complete mirror on a proper site, and it is mentioned in Help, with a different address and domain, people would know what to do the next time webeddie falls over. Then webeddie would no longer be a major frustration, it would just be a joke. ___________________________________________________________ Anyway, here is the observation I wish to make: This list is 99.9999% male. We have had a few wondeful women members in the past, such as Sue Chastain and Sheri Pierce, each making a valuable contribution. They moved on and the group reverted to 100% male. Why? They were never overtly insulted, not asked to leave. And why have so few women attempted to join discussions here? There is no sign on the door saying Men Only. "It's not our fault. Women just aren't interested in this kind of stuff." Rubbish! The male blindness which cannot understand why, is the same thing as the male blindness which causes them to leave. I can't be bothered analysing our latest episode of bumbling male ineptness by using long quotations from recent threads about the website. It's easier to use a metaphor... Imagine a meeting of four men. The problem is moving 5 tons of rocks. Bill: I have a 10 ton truck. I could easily do it in one trip. ... silence ... Tom: I have a 4 ton truck. Maybe I could just fit 5 tons in it. Foreman: That sounds good. Thanks for the offer. Henry: I have a 2 ton truck. Maybe if we borrow a trailer and beef up the suspension, and fit a stronger gearbox... Foreman: That sounds good too. Thank you. OK Tom and Henry, I'll entrust the job to you. Stupid story isn't it. They would not have ignored Bill like that. Now change Bill's name to Mary, and the story makes sense - it's a common occurrence. It happened here last week; it happens everywhere when a competent woman wanders accidentally into a boys club without a "Boys Club" sign on the door. In my story above, it's not only the Foreman who missed an opportunity to do the job well, it's also Tom and Henry. Their messages were not appropriate either. Karen's offer was not only ignored by Bruce but also by David and Mockey - when they made offers which made no mention of Karen's earlier offer, as if she doesn't exist, as if her offer had no credibility. Julien's use of the word "entrust" implied a similar doubt I think, though of course it's always between the lines, never overt. Such blinkered behaviour not only leads to poor practical outcomes, it also affects the morale of potential contributors. Naturally, people lose enthusiasm and energy when they are treated that way. Eventually they wander away and the whole group is impoverished by reverting to being 100% male. Yet again. There is another factor which reduces us to males only: It is a "chicken and egg" circle. Messages here are almost entirely about details of syntax - seldom about what to create and why, only about how to achieve trivial goals. Males are better than females at letting 3/4 of their brain shrivel so only the clockwork logic sections remain active. Females can be good at that clockwork stuff too, but usually don't like limiting the discussion to that alone. So they get bored with dry as dust dead hearted discussions of trivia and leave for richer intellectual environments elsewhere. It's a cycle because: the absence of women and limiting the group to a small subset of males, nerds only, limits the discussions. The limited discussions tend to exclude fuller human beings from being able to feel at home; shy to contribute for fear of seeming soft or "off topic" to the machine heads. Don't get me wrong, I really do like and value nerds. They are an essential part of a creative group - if they are part of the group, not all of it. ________________________________________________________ What's particularly crazy about the recent exclusive behaviour is that it doesn't even work. In spite of her ability to be more than a mere machine head (which probably makes a few poor souls feel a bit uncomfortable), Karen would probably do a better job of making a reliable www home for Powerpro than the boys can. If anyone had had enough of an open mind, and open heart, and just plain common decency to sctually reply positively to her offer, I bet by now we would have a professional quality site working. Instead we have a continuing farce. Attention: PowerPro's Web site has moved: http://www.ppro.org Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/power-pro/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
