Well, Roy, this just keeps getting stranger and stranger...
I've been following your remarks over the last few days, and was often tempted to respond, but thought better of it because I couldn't figure out what to say. I felt your attitude was at odds with the forum members in general, and your attack on Dave in particular was quite puzzling.
The hard part was that, while I was somewhat annoyed by the disruption to my own personal reading pleasure, I was less concerned with defending Dave (he doesn't really need that) and more concerned with what I might constructively say to you. Several others seemed pretty much on target, suggesting paranoia or hyperactive disorder, and I kept wondering if you'd dropped off your meds or been taking coffee intravenously for a couple of days straight.
At one point you said something like fun only slows things down and I thought about suggesting it might actually be healthy for you to slow down (a lot); someone pointed out that the group was largely self-moderating, and I wanted to suggest that you might try practicing that yourself. But I couldn't quite figure out how to suggest that in a constructive and positive way, and thought maybe you'd just give up after a while - especially given the lack of support (or even much interest) for your position by others in the group.
One of the things that I personally value about this particular group is that we tend to care about each other, can generally listen with sensitivity and acceptance despite our amazing diversity, and perhaps find a bit of emotional support when we need it. Despite your rather unusual behavior - bordering on abusive - people were almost (but not really) surprisingly gentle with you.
Having said all that, I personally find your experiment to be inexcusable.
You apologize to Dave for having to attack him - well tell us why, exactly, you really *had* to do that? For the sake of some class, or perhaps a better grade for yourself? Why is the universe now a better place overall, or theoretically will be at some point in the future, because of what you put us through?
You describe us as unknowing particpants in an experiment on Human behavior... Are you familiar with the experiments using hallucinogenic drugs by the CIA on unknowing participants? Or if you substitute unwilling for unknowing, we could come up with some particularly disturbing examples from the early-1940's, which to this day are sometimes discussed in terms of scientific experimentation.
I'm deliberately overstating things to make a point, and your little experiment is not by any means in the same class. But you had no right to use and abuse us in this fashion, and the fact that you did (and most likely intended to) apologize afterward is not enough to make it okay.
These are only my personal thoughts and reactions. I am not a moderator, and even if we had a mechanism in place, I would not actually vote to have you banned from this forum - unless you pulled something like this a second time.
We are not a bunch of amoebae on a microscope slide for you to study. Why didn't Dave respond? Because he's been struggling, even more than I have, with how to do so in a skillful way. I also suspect he's a bit more likely to accept your apology than I am.
In my opinion, the problem here is that your assumption that you could use us in this way was fundamentally flawed. The fact that it was allegedly intended (or shall we say premeditated?) as an experiment does not change that.
It's hard enough to get through life in constructive and healthy way; much harder to find an online forum with a set of participants that can work on that together, to some extent. If you want to understand more about why that works, ask us - don't use us as a pincushion.
Please, do not try this elsewhere.
-Bob
