Welcome to the party. You're late and cake's all gone, food's put away, but maybe someone can fix you a plate to take home?
Jess here and I'm among the people reading the e-mails that come into the public account (common_ills@yahoo.com) as well as to the private accounts for members.
I read them and so do Martha, Shirley, Eli, Heather, Dona, Jim, Ava and, yes, C.I.
Ava will rip people apart that come whining or begging to the public account. She doesn't suffer fools. So Cynthia McKinney Supporting Green (referred to from this point on as CMSG) got very lucky that I was the one who read her e-mail and not Ava.
She'd still be rubbing the side of her face if Ava had read it.
It always amazes me who shows up begging in the public account. Today, a friend of C.I.'s showed up asking. The friend could have called C.I. but didn't want to abuse the friendship. So, instead, the friend just e-mailed asking if C.I. would be able to highlight The Denver Group? I saw the e-mail and left a voice mail for C.I. about it. As soon as C.I. heard the voice mail, the highlight went up. That's someone C.I.'s known for years. And that friend didn't want to abuse the friendship by calling. Felt it was better to go through 'proper channels' and ask.
So there are e-mails like that in the public acocunt. There's also the worst group: The beggars ("Please promote my pet project!") who never e-mail after to say thank you.
But someone, CMSG, hit an absolute new low today.
CMSG e-mailed ordering C.I. to cover a topic. Saying it was an important topic and it needed to be covered! It had to be covered!
CMSG has their own site. If CMSG thinks something's important, then cover it there.
But, this was what made it so funny, the topic was one C.I. has covered over and over for the last three weeks. It's been covered in the same period of time at other community sites and we've even covered it at Third.
CMSG had just stumbled upon it. Just found out. And didn't take the time to see if C.I. was already covering it. Just showed up in bossy mode.
I'm getting real damn tired of it. If Ava had read that, it would not have been pretty -- as many a journalist whining to the public account can attest.
So I just want to note my policy with e-mails to the public account from now on. I checked with C.I. and was told it was fine to note this.
If you're showing up in the public account and you're not anyone that C.I. knows, I'm blowing you off from now on. I'm not worrying about your pet issue because there's never a thank you. And not only is there never a thank you, now people are starting to think they can show up and order. That's what CMSG thought.
The Common Ills content is dictated by members. The focus is Iraq because that's what we voted on. On any given day, there are a number of things C.I. wants to include (on Iraq) in the snapshots and it gets held over for another day because there's just not enough room.
So the three of you with books (non-Iraq related), I just put your e-mails into the trash folder. Maybe you'll find someone more eager to pass on? I doubt it. But if I come across your e-mails, I'll just trash them.
It's gone from the rudeness of never a thank you to the rudeness of demanding.
You are not a community member. Community members e-mail the private accounts. If you're a friend of C.I.'s you know the phone number. But maybe, like the person today, you want to go through 'proper channels.' That's fine, you'll get noted.
C.I.'s got a list with about fifty things on it currently that are requests of "note me" and, when possible, C.I. will squeeze those in. (Two went into today's snapshot. One had been on hold since before the Fourth of July.) I'm not going to add to that list anymore.
And that's because suddenly people are thinking they can demand things.
Rudeness has been rewarded and now it's being taken a step further. So I'm saying "no."
Keep trying though, maybe I won't see your e-mail and maybe who ever does will pass it along. But my parents did not bring me up to demand favors from people. And if I asked for a favor and it was granted, I was taught to say "Thank you." For the bulk of these people, they wouldn't have to do a special e-mail, they'd just have to add "Thank you" to their next begging. Because they beg and then they come back and beg again, and then they come and beg some more. And they never say thank you. That's why Jim put a stop to that at Third.
He got sick of it, Dona got sick of it. They stopped it and now most don't come begging anymore. Good. We don't have the number of e-mails that C.I. gets, but we do have more than there is time for.
And as long as we're on the subject of beggars . . .
If you're a liar, don't write. C.I. is supposed to be the only one in charge of the links to the left. However, I do have the password (as does Ava, Ruth and Kat) and I do know how to add links. In the past, if someone with a site this community would be interested in e-mailed and asked if we could trade links and I saw the e-mail, I would reply that C.I. doesn't trade links. I would reply that I was putting them in because I thought they did good work. I would then say, a link from you would be appreciated.
Weeks would pass. Nothing.
Or worse, they'd show up wanting links for something they wrote.
A number of those people have taken to e-mailing that they've been dropped from the links on the left. Yes, you have. I put you up there and I took you down. You asked for a link, you said you'd give one back. You never said thank you for the link and you never linked back.
It's rude. I'm not in the mood for it.
So for the three of you who wrote today whining that you'd been de-linked, consider this the reply to your e-mail. All of them were linked to for a month (by me). They not only never said thank you, they never returned the courtsey that they'd promised in the e-mail I'd replied to.
I don't know if you grew up in a barn or just hit 18 and decided manners didn't matter.
But it's like trying to walk down a street downtown these days when I go into the public account. It's one person begging after another. Since you managed to write, I'll assume you're not homeless and not have any sympathy for you.
Again, you can continue to e-mail. If it's me, it'll go right in the trash. I probably speak for Jim as well. I can tell you that if Ava sees your e-mail, you'll get a blistering reply. I won't try to speak for anyone else (but I know C.I. will continue to read them and provide links as always). Possibly the next time you feel the need to beg you would be better off asking yourself what gives you the right to?
Repeating, it's gone from beggars who never say thank you but return to beg again to orders of "YOU WILL". No, that's not how it works. I think you've all been babied enough.
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