Inconsistencies, Integrity, Misconceptions; Area's that need addressed

There have been times, where you have made valid suggestions. However, when you do things like this, manipulating people into talking, it tends to cast a shadow over any positive ideas you may have had. When it gets to the point that people think "oh, it's him again." then any positive changes you might wish to make can't occur. People won't get the message if they are ignoring the messenger. Tricking people into having a discussion, or trying to manipulate them into it, sounds to me like it's more a need for attention, than any true desire to effect positive changes.

JamesSand wrote: I don't see being at this forum as being a big part of the Jedi path - 70% (there's a rule about this somewhere) of what we do here is rubbish (I'm going to bump that up to 90% for the Chat)

"Jedi-ing" is done in the IP, with your apprenticeship, and in the meatspace.

The bulk of the Forum is just chewing the fat with (semi)-like minded people.

Thank you James. I have been trying to express this sentiment for some time and have yet to do it as well as you just have.

I'm going to be brief.

People post more when they disagree because creating an entire post to say "I agree" is usually just a waste of time and forum space. Who wants to wade through 10 pages of "what they said" just to get to the interesting parts?

I'm going to join the people pointing out the irony of you questioning other people's integrity by lying and manipulating us.

Pretty much everything else I want to say has been said.

Different people, different needs.

You went out of your comfort zone by playing this little experiment, but were later forthcoming about it. In my book, that shows there was no ill will on your behalf.

You have, of course, offended some, but that is the price to pay when doing something different. As long as you are willing to accept that, it's all good.

I might be the unpopular opinion here, but by this post you've revealed more about the members of this community (in their reactions) than they purposefully tend to reveal on their own. I for one, applaud your bravery, and I hope people are able, as is implied by their training, to learn to look past the initial emotional reaction and find the golden nugget of a lesson that they could learn.

Magnus Staar wrote: Different people, different needs.

You went out of your comfort zone by playing this little experiment, but were later forthcoming about it. In my book, that shows there was no ill will on your behalf.

You have, of course, offended some, but that is the price to pay when doing something different. As long as you are willing to accept that, it's all good.

I might be the unpopular opinion here, but by this post you've revealed more about the members of this community (in their reactions) than they purposefully tend to reveal on their own. I for one, applaud your bravery, and I hope people are able, as is implied by their training, to learn to look past the initial emotional reaction and find the golden nugget of a lesson that they could learn.

Magnus, you have figured it out the last bit of motive that I kept to myself. I had honestly last night all but given up that anyone would have figured this out. I had insisted with myself that I needed to let someone else reach this conclusion on their own.

It is my hope as well that people return to this thread after whatever period of time necessary and look at their conduct and reflect and grow appropriately. I will leave it for each person to figure that out on their own.

So a few last responses:

To the Control Freak comments I quote another response:

Nobody and i mean absolutely nobody here is under ANY obligation to respond to a thread on the TotJO Forum

I was never in control of anyone, I didn't force anyone to sit down and write a response let alone read the thread. It could have easily been ignored, moved, locked, deleted or whatever. Each person that responded was their choice to respond, just as was the manner in which they responded.

Triss says
We should be careful how we judge others based on their activity on an internet forum. Being a Jedi offline and doing things in real life is indeed an important thing. But to claim their time on a forum = lazy/non Jedi is just rude and inconsiderate.

The push for offline time is specifically in target for those who harbor so much anger in these threads such as the above. I don't think that anyone here who has spent time can say that it was not beneficial to them, and not in a sense of physical improvement but in mental health sake as well. It's hard not to see those who harbor quite a bit of anger in them, and I can easily concede some of that was likely caused by me, but there was far more of it that came from some where other then me, if you compare to the other responses here.

2. The Jedi Path is a personal one and different for every individual. Each one of us comes from a different background and comes here for different reasons. It is disrespectful, presumptuous, and judgmental for anyone to believe they know what is best for any other Jedi here. We are best served by worrying about ourselves and letting others do what they will, assuming it is all within the rules of this forum. That's why Apprenticeship is personally tailored to every individual.

I find this statement confusing on your end if you can clarify senan, in that the bold invalidates the whole idea of the apprentice/knight teaching relationship. Unless your specifically saying that any one person can define for everyone period?

3 - Inconsistency will happen. We are human. This is a community, not a machine.

This is a very true statement Brenna, no one can be perfect, no one can assume someone else can be perfect, nor demand it. It doesn't however mean we can't be better, that there isn't room to improve.

4 - Not everyone likes to talk about what they do in outside communities. There is a real resistance to feeling like people are bragging about their good works. You have no right to demand that people give you the details of their lives or get upset when only 4 people want to write an article about it. I can personally name nearly 20 Jedi off the top of my head who do formal community service, volunterism or some kind of regular contribution to their communities. If they don't want to tell you about it, then that is their choice. Feel free to ask me privately about my life outside the forums if you like, but im not writing epic tales about what a good Jedi I am.

I take this quote and I quote you back:

9. Jedi have integrity. We are authentic to what we believe and are open, honest and true to our purpose and our minds. We remove all masks to reveal ourselves as courageous and noble of heart. We do not hide from fear of damage to our image because we know that our image cannot be blemished from the words and actions of others.

I've said it before, while I understand the idea of not wanting to gloat, at the same time this was specifically for the sake of helping other Jedi find ways to improve themselves and find ways for them to also help improve their communities as well. Every attempt was made to even make it as anonymous as possible to remove those issues, and still nothing. I never demanded, I simply found it disappointing that there was so little to respond. At no point did I ever demand anything from anyone.

Ah i got a lot of private emails aswell , words like deception , manipulation , and a few other words that would not pass as a compliment here about you. Remember please , two can play that game , dont tell me that there are people that agree with you behind my back , tell me that you have learned from this and are willing to move on and learn that this place and being a Jedi is worth fighting for.

I got some angry pm's as well, there was no game playing. You have access to my PM's in your role do you not marta?

[hr]
I knew before I started this process exactly what the reactions would be, and what people would view me as, so as magnus points out, I was willing to accept that. The only thing I'm truly guilty of is creating an experience that everyone here will learn something from, if they choose to. There was no controlling, there was manipulation, motives were pure, and at the end of this week if even a handful of you go back to this thread with a clear mind and reflect upon the responses and then the Jedi teachings, then I feel as though I succeeded in my goal. That there is plenty for each of us to reflect and grow upon, even myself.

Some times in order to recognize problems and area's that can be improved they have to first be exposed. What is a better example of that then the replies in this thread. Just as magnus was able to recognize.

So as a reward for everyone here, I give you even more free will then you had before. I give you the choice. I can stay, or I can go, I'm happy with what I did in either way. If so much as one person responds here and suggests or insists I shouldn't be here then I will head out. That simple.

As I put in my previous post I stand by my beliefs and everything I've done.

So as a reward for everyone here, I give you even more free will then you had before. I give you the choice. I can stay, or I can go, I'm happy with what I did in either way. If so much as one person responds here and suggests or insists I shouldn't be here then I will head out. That simple.

Really? You're going to let me decide your actions? You don't know me from a lolcats meme, but hey, your call.

Hell man, I got nothing against you, but I feel like there's a lesson here, like watching a kid fall off the swings.

Off you go

I'd probably just say the extent of disappointment was probably limited to the effort they might have made to understand your questions as distinct points of view in context of your other questions, and therefore the more distinct the answers given could point to a higher amount of effort to understand why (they thought) you might be asking about similar things, else you probably would have just used the information from the earliest thread if indeed the questions where close enough. Rather then inconsistency itself. So it might not even really serve the purpose as described, as I would not view that effort as a negative necessarily - hence disappointment, rather then any 'exposure' being had. But who knows, I agree with as much that we should all look back at our posts from time to time to see how we can improve. People view things differently, so honesty does help make things more efficient in the longer term.. so thanks for finally being honest at least!

Tellahane wrote: To the Control Freak comments I quote another response:

Nobody and i mean absolutely nobody here is under ANY obligation to respond to a thread on the TotJO Forum

I was never in control of anyone, I didn't force anyone to sit down and write a response let alone read the thread. It could have easily been ignored, moved, locked, deleted or whatever. Each person that responded was their choice to respond, just as was the manner in which they responded.

So as a reward for everyone here, I give you even more free will then you had before. I give you the choice. I can stay, or I can go, I'm happy with what I did in either way. If so much as one person responds here and suggests or insists I shouldn't be here then I will head out. That simple.

As I put in my previous post I stand by my beliefs and everything I've done.

You are a control freak, it is evident from the fact that you are trying to hang on to the control of people's reactions, your exit from this place included.

That said, do not consider "control freak" a bad thing. The world (and this forum) needs its share of control freaks to get certain things done. Your exit would represent the denial of a heterogeneous community.

I can think of nothing more dangerous than having this place be made of only like-minded individuals.

Can I just be honest here?

I think some of the kickback may be because some of us have been in situations where we have been taken advantage of, or manipulated and we are still dealing with that when we arrive. We may never be rid of the scars of that. I mean, personally speaking, it was easy for people to use my "tendencies" against me growing up and even now. So, its hard to build up trust and try to keep it.

When we come to the Temple, we find people who are like us, and we let our guard down and we try to trust. It works. And then something like this happens (and believe me this is not the first time and you are not the first one). I honestly don't believe that you meant anything in malice, but can you see what this brings up? I don't know, it makes me feel all the ways I used to feel. It brings us to the basest parts of ourselves and we dont always get it right. As I said much earlier in the thread, "your method was a bit..." and you have spent quite a lot of time justifying yourself. I am just explaining where some of the heat might have come from.

Honestly, I think both types of responses are valid. We can probably all learn a bit from this

I got some angry pm's as well, there was no game playing. You have access to my PM's in your role do you not marta?

No i am not an Admin ,

Br John, Wescly , Proteus , Jestor and Ren are Admins , maybe you can ask them to read your emails

We do not read emails.

And there is a lot of name calling going on in this thread. Calling someone a “control freak” is name calling.

I would like for the name calling to stop. Remember, we debate ideas and not people.

Someone did something people don’t like. People did or said something someone doesn’t like. The important question is, what did we all learn from this?