This shit stops NOW or I am gone. Simple as that.
Message follows.
With regard to Viking I have very little information... the first I heard of it was when Markie spoke to me on the phone... Sunday I think that was? - to tell me about his reasons for departing YakYak. he told me it was in response to his having moderated the nasty threads on WotR, so iot must have been after whenever that was done.
I'm not sure when that was, since I wasn't party to events over there and have only my own conjectures; I'll tell you what my own theory of the sequence of events in and you can see if it fits with what you know... all I really have to go on is the time of arrival of the nasty email Giles got. That arrived with a datestamp of Friday 23 Jan, 4.54AM. Giles didn't actually see it until the Saturday; he's been recovering frm surgery and at that state wasn't able to spend a lot of time at the PC, so he didn't pick up mail till Saturday. When we started looking around to see who might have sent it, Markie PMed Giles and said it might possibly have originated from WotR. That was the first indication I had that there was anything at all going on over there - it never even occurred to me that people were holed up in there talking about us. I didn't even know there *was* a private area there until the Sunday.
Anyway, my (theoretical) sequence of events is this: Thursday night threads at WotR get unfluffy. Somebody up late or early the next morning sends out the Giles hate mail as a result. Markie moderates the threads and the Viking stuff starts - not sure if that was Thursday or Friday or even Saturday, since the first indication of that I saw was Markie's leaving message on YakYak, Saturday afternoon IIRC. Of course you'll have the WotR-side timings down better.
As for Viking's identity, and if it is the same person who sent Giles the email, I really have no idea. Markie said it started in response to his moderating those threads, which weren't public, so it had to be someone who knew about that, which means someone either with access to the WotR hidden area, or someone who knows someone with such access.
As for Unfluffy's involvement, I have no idea if that person is connected with Viking or Giles' email; I somehow doubt it, and suspect that Giles' email originated from somebody who had been whipped up into a state of indignation by whatever was being said on the WotR private area (quite possibly whilst drunk, looking at the time it was sent). But again that is conjecture; we still haven't found out who sent it yet.
What does concern me is that Unfluffy seems to be fighting a very "dirty war" and aiming specifically at Giles. When Unfluffy and I first fell out over this, it was very upsetting of course, but in all that happened I limited any unfluffiness to those involved and *only* those involved. Bad feeling is unfortunate, but I believe that even in adversity there should be a degree of honour, and part of that is not to spread nasty tales around. Keep things confined to those who are involved, I believe. And no matter how upset I got, I never spoke of it to anyone not directly involved.
In fact, in the first email that Unfluffy sent Giles in which they accused him of accusing *them* of hacking, they say:
"If you want to employ backstabbing and such, fine, but I refuse to lower myself to such methods. If I got something to say I say it out in the open and confront the person, as honest people usually do!".
Quite how this stated ethos jibes with Unfluffy inciting bad feelings towards Giles in a closed part of someone's forum, and doing so by circulating logs (or partial logs) of an incident that should in all honour have remained between the individuals involved, I don't know. As far as I am concerned we agreed to disagree, they left the forum, I asked them to remain out of my life and Giles' and they said they would, and they should honour that.
And i would respectfully request that if people do have issues with myself or with Giles, that they adhere to the ethos that Unfluffy claimed to go by, and do so honestly and to our face.
However, there is something more important that I wish to state plainly and clearly to all those who harbour ill-will towards Giles (and you may circulate this to anyone who has been sniping at him behind our backs).
I met Giles off forum, not in any kind of Llamasoft space at all; we got on very well from the start and have been communicating deeply and honestly ever since. We have a lot in common - through how we are we both have had quite a lonely path through life, and both of us have made wrong turnings at times and ended up in dark spaces; both of us have found our way out again, neither of us unscarred. And quite apart from the "obvious" similarities, we also share a passion for code and for abstract graphics. It is small wonder that we get on so well.
And we both have decided that we want to be together, and are both working towards that goal, which we hope will occur some time after the completion of Unity. I have done the whole coming-out thing to my mum, and despite being a bit fearful of doing that, she was actually absolutely delighted to hear about it. She knows i have been alone for a long time and is pleased that my loneliness is at an end. So are my friends. Many of them have met Giles and find him to be as he is, a decent, kind and gentle man.
It's not a decision that either of us have taken lightly, involving quite a bit of upheaval for us both, but since we find such peace and happiness together we feel that it is worthwhile
. And of course it involves a degree of risk for us both too - such decisions always do for each and every human on theplanet, that is the nature of such things. But we know one another well enough, and trust one another deeply enough, to believe that things will work out, and Goat willing, they will.And I can tell you that I have never been happier in my life, nor have I been so productive in my work - a happy Yakkie is a productive Yakkie
. This is something I have never had in my life before, and I am genuinely and profoundly happy about it .The basic issue is this: it is not the place for anyone else to be making judgements about Giles' suitability to be a close friend of mine. That decision is not for some of you lurking in a forum somewhere to make. How can you possibly make that decision anyway? You don't *know* Giles. All you have seen of him is his posts in forum and whatever you have been told by people inimical to him. You haven't talked with the depth and clarity that we have. You do not have enough data to make a value judgement as to his and my compatibility.
Besides, such judgement is not yours to make. It is not for any Llamasoftie to make, nor even is it for Yak-of-Llamasoft to make. It is a personal, human thing, that can only be decided by me, Jeff, the human being. It is a choice that is mine alone to make, and it is to do with my life, not Llamasoft. And if it is the right decision then we will be happy, and if it is the wrong one then at least it will be our own mistake - just the same as every other human couple on the planet. No third party has the right to make such a decision on our behalf, and to be honest, I find it quite unsettling that some people feel that they have the right to do so. This is a personal thing between us. It is not your domain.
Most of my friends accept it gladly and are happy for me. The fact is that Giles and Yak are an item, and people are going to have to deal with it as they must. Please, either accept it and be happy for us and be a friend, or if you can't accept it, leave us alone. I can't abide sniping and nastiness. And what *will* make me insular is if I find that Giles and I can't hang out in Llamasoftie spaces without taking flak. I am proud of the Llamasoft community, and I enjoy being a part of ir, but if I can't be there with my chosen partner without taking flak for it, then I will have to regretfully withdraw, which would be a shame, because I enjoy sharing as much of Llamasoft with you all as I can. I think it's lovely that we have such a community and that I can share things like Unity.
But I have my personal life too, and if I ever find that Llamasofties are trying to make judgements and take decisions that are only *mine* to make, then I will withdraw. For 20 years I have been "only Llamasoft" and Llamasofties have been my highest priority. Now I have an individual in my life who is higher priority than Llamasofties or Llamasoft itself.
If you truly care about me then you will respect that and maybe even be happy for us. If not, well, that's a shame - I am sorry - but at the very least respect the fact that we have made that choice and nobody else can change it or unmake it for us. Leave if you must, if it upsets you that much, but please leave us alone and stop the hostility.
That's all.
Take care,
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(:- ) - yak
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