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What just happened?
I am sure that is the question that all of you are now asking. You have heard the version presented to you by Chuck and Paco. I must admit that it was provocative to say the least and very well choreographed in its release. It was also a personal attack which is, in my opinion, conduct unbecoming the senior officers of our club. To say that it was an embellishment of the actual facts in this matter would be a gross understatement. The matter in question never involved any attempt to abrogate the authority of an Army Commander in this club. The matter involved an attempt by an Army Commander to dictate to our Cabinet what would be executed upon his verbal demand in an area clearly lying within that Cabinet’s authority and fully outside of the influence of any individual army of our club.
I want to be absolutely clear that neither I, nor any member of this Club’s Cabinet, ever “questioned the reason for the individual’s discharge from the LGA or implied a right to reverse” Chuck’s decision as the LGA Army Commander to expel the officer from his army. Such a decision clearly lies within the authority of an Army Commander to make pertaining to the officers under his command. What I first, and the Cabinet subsequently in our discussion and vote, did not support was Chuck’s demand that posts that we deemed as beneficial to the general membership of our club be summarily deleted from the Club’s forums. Chuck has classified these posts as “offending”. The posts in question are the ones pertaining to the graphics mods created by Philippe Divine. I will leave it to you to make your own decision as to whether you think these posts are beneficial as the Cabinet concluded, or offensive as represented by Chuck Jensen.
The following is a brief summary of the sequence of events so you may better understand the evolution of this matter as a whole:
1. Chuck sent an email to Philippe Divine on December 20th informing him that he had fallen out of communication with his second level training officer, that he was considering him to be inactive as of November 30th, that he was going to prohibit his posts in the Club’s forums, and that he was going to remove all posts placed on the Club’s forums subsequent to November 30th. The email was sent in the standard role playing tone of a superior officer dictating terms to a junior officer.
2. Philippe Divine, unknown to Chuck, had experienced a disagreement with his second level Trainer. The Trainer had informed Philippe that his most recent training game turn was “gamey” and insisted that Philippe replay it in a more correct manner. As Philippe is an extremely historical minded individual, such an accusation struck him very poorly. As a result of his previous poor experience at the hands of the LGA Trainer that was assigned to help integrate him into our club, he took offense at the role playing tone of Chuck’s email, and the demands that it also included. As a result, he returned an email to Chuck that was curt and rude. His response specifically targeted his displeasure with what he perceived to be a superior tone of a personal nature. His response did not include any disparagement of our club. It was very much directed personally at Chuck.
3. Chuck, who I am sure did not intend any offense by the role playing tone of his email, was rather shocked by Philippe’s hostility. Chuck then issued an email to Philippe saying, “Goodbye Mister Divine” in the standard 18 point font that he normally uses.
4. Philippe fired back “as you wish” and asked Chuck to delete his posts and links from our forum sites.
5. Chuck then contacted me instructing either Pierre of me to remove Philippe’s posts. Pierre was copied on this email. This is the point at which I got actively involved. Although Chuck had been copying me all along, I did not read the email until the previous exchanges had already occurred. As you can imagine, those exchanges occurred in very rapid succession.
6. I then sent an email to Chuck, with a copy to Pierre, telling him that I was not so certain that it was in the best interest of our membership to remove Philippe’s posts that contained the links to his graphics mods and had already been very well received by the membership. I asked that Chuck take “two steps backwards, breathe deeply, and cool off for a couple of days”. I never questioned Chuck’s decision to expel Philippe from LGA. Obviously the two of them were not going to be able to coexist.
7. Rather than take my advice to stand down for a bit, Chuck came right back at me telling me that he was “asking Pierre to remove his (Philippe’s) posts”.
8. I immediately responded to Chuck with a copy to Pierre that it was not his place “to ask Pierre to remove those posts”.
9. Chuck came right back at me telling me what I would do in this regard.
10. I responded that if Chuck felt this strongly about the issue, that he was fully within his rights to take the matter before the Cabinet. I made it very clear to Chuck that, once deleted, the posts were unrecoverable. Pierre had also clearly informed Chuck that he would neither delete the posts, nor delete the member from our club records.
11. The matter moved to the Cabinet at this point. A discussion ensued, the Cabinet voted, and it was ruled that the posts would remain in place.
Now, the reason I took the stance that I did, and suggested a referral of this issue to the Cabinet is very simple; the Cabinet has jurisdictional authority over the club’s forums. The deletion of posts placed in our forums is a very serious matter as, if abused, could lead to outright censorship. The disposition of forum posts is specifically not within the authority of any army commander in this club to rule upon.
I can assure you that I most certainly do not “ignore Cabinet votes, the rules of the NWC, or act with any level of impunity” as I so please. Marco has already very accurately attested to the fact that I do not have “3 of the 5 Cabinet votes locked up” either. And the day that anyone ever decides to name this club after me, will be the very same day that I resign. I am not here for me. I am here for the people who elected me to my present post. I am here for the members. I am here for you.
Now where do we go from this point?
Personally, I would be an advocate for the following, unless the will of the general membership directed otherwise:
• An open Cabinet forum in which the members could not post, but would be able to read what the Cabinet members were discussing.
• An election of the Club Secretary and Public Relations Officer by a majority vote of the General Membership to alternating two year terms.
• An election of the Club’s Army Commanders by the active officers in their respective armies to alternating, between the French and Coalition, two year terms.
The next agenda that your Cabinet will undertake is to clarify the manner in which we will handle forum posting disputes in the future. That is to say, some more detailed directions as to how we think the Forum Moderators should conduct themselves. As for me, I envision the Moderators to be more like policemen who patrol the forums as a team to ensure that volatile posts are locked in a timely manner to prevent any hostile escalations to the public embarrassment of our club. When it comes to the actual deletion of posts, which I perceive to be a much more serious matter, I think the Cabinet should vote on the issue before taking any action that is irreversible. These are just my initial thoughts. We will discuss them in the Cabinet as a group so that we can collectively come up with the best method for the overall benefit of our club.
Following this discussion, we intend to revise our Club Rules to make them more clear and comprehensive. As they are currently rendered, there is a lot of gray area that can provide points of dissention. I think this will be a rather lengthy process, as we need to be careful to get this right. I also expect that we will be posting numerous polls related to our discussion, asking for your input as the members of our club as to what you would like to see in the new rules. Whatever we do, rest assured that you, the club’s membership, will get to vote your approval of the final product before it is ever enacted. This is your club. We work for you.
In closing, I will reiterate that it is neither my intention that the Cabinet interfere with the inner workings of the armies, nor that the respective Army Commanders interfere with the workings of club related decisions that are not related to any specific army.
Thanks for the time you have invested to read this post. I will be glad to answer any remaining questions you may have either in this forum, or in private emails, at your discretion. I would also encourage my fellow Cabinet members to add anything that they think of import that I may have missed. It is rather hard to relate every detail, and my post is already quite long.
Also note that my comments here do not reflect any “official response” of the Cabinet itself. These are my thoughts only. There are many discussions that we, as the Cabinet, have yet to undertake.
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