Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:25:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] WSFA vs. Capclave

It's recently come to my attention that discussion on the Capclave
Yahoogroup has gone completely off the rails.  I'm told that some
people were afraid that if anyone were to broach the subject of
splitting off the Capclave website from the WSFA website with me,
that I might get angry and quit the club in a huff.  And that I'm
power-mad, and have been attempting to personally control everything
involved with WSFA and Capclave.

For one thing, this is utterly and totally false.  I don't even have
an opinion on whether the Capclave website should be separate from the
WSFA website.  I resigned from being Capclave webmaster.  I don't have
the capclave.org password, nor have I ever asked for it.  Sam Lubell
is in charge of that site.  Paul & Gayle are the Capclave webmasters.
I'm more than willing to put their code in the Capclave area of the
WSFA website, and I've been doing so, so nobody need create a separate
website for *my* benefit, if that's what anyone was thinking.

For another, if I was the sort of person those people imagine I was,
I don't see why they'd *want* me in WSFA anyway.

But mainly, I'm dismayed that after I've been going to WSFA regularly
for over eight years, people still know me that poorly.  Not just one
person, evidently, but a whole mailing list.  With not one person
saying "Keith isn't like that," and not one person, until today,
cluing me in on it.  It really makes me feel like a mistrusted and
feared outsider, to be spoken about in whispers behind my back.
I don't like this feeling.

This is precisely why I thought it was a bad idea to separate the
Capclave email list from the WSFA email list.  It's as if WSFA and
Capclave are evolving into two separate clubs that have little idea
of what's going on in the other.

I do have opinions on various matters, such as that one, but the club
voting otherwise is not going to get me to leave the club.  If someone
else had been voted in for secretary, that would not have gotten me to
leave the club.  *Nothing* is going to get me to walk out on the club
-- EXCEPT allegations that I've been dishonest, that I've broken a
confidence, or that I'm being a tyrant.

Having been falsely convicted of a felony 28 years ago, this is my one
real hot button.  And it's not open for debate or compromise.  Unless
you've been there, you cannot imagine what it's like to be regarded by
everyone around you as a liar, a criminal, a felon, and to be housed
in conditions so inhuman that people choose to live on the street
and eat out of dumpsters rather than go to prison, or even to jail.
And to survive in such conditions for nearly two years.  And the
punishment continues -- I cannot vote, I cannot get a security
clearance, and any attempt at international travel is a total
crapshoot -- I may or may not be turned back at the border.  All
of which is permanent.  So I have zero tolerance for accusations.

Other than that, people should feel free to say whatever they want
around me.  I may or may not disagree, but that's okay.

On Third Friday, Sam Lubell said I'm part of the Capclave committee.
I don't care whether I am or not.  If someone wants to denounce me for
not promptly jumping up and resigning from that committee as soon as
Sam said I was still on it, feel free.  But can we please make my
mailbox a psychodrama-free zone?  WSFA and Capclave are supposed to be
*fun*.  If they aren't fun for you, why bother?  If your idea of fun
is fan-feuding, please feel free, but only among consenting adults,
please.  Feuding is not my idea of fun, so please include me out.
Thanks.

I haven't actually seen the Yahoogroups messages in question.  Maybe
I'm misunderstaning what was said.  But messages such as I describe
would certainly help explain some of the messages I *have* seen.