The Lies

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Eleven

On the 25th of February 2006, I wrote a long letter to all the admins, and all the members of the first Essay Project staff. At that point I had left Leaky.

The letter started like this:

As you all know, I have looked into the accusations made against Therese, accusations claiming that she was difficult to work with, that no one in the EP staff liked her etc. I regarded these accusations to be very serious and damageing, therefore I wanted to investigate them. After I have found them to be false, I want them to be "pronounced dead and powerless" as the Norwegian legal expression goes, in front of everyone who has been involved with Therese.

My purpose with this letter is to give all f you who are concerned with the matter one way or the other, either as admins of TLC or members of the old EP staff, the information you need to know exactly what this is about and what I have done. I have never wanted to engage myself in any kind of underhanded or secret activity, any form of "plot". The reason I haven't told all of you everything before, is that I didn't want to point any fingers without proof, and end up spreading false accusations or rumours myself. Now that I have proof, I will present it to all of you, so you know where I stand and what I have done.

I trust the admins of TLC to handle this situation in a way that will hold Therese unhurt, and restore her honour and reputation. I hope you will also handle it in a way that may help preventing this kind of thing happening again at TLC. How exactly this ought to be done is not my concern, I am no longer a member of the site's staff, and after this email I do not expect to be directly involved in this case any more. But if any of you have any questions or comments about what I have done, don't hesitate to contact me and I will do my best to answer you.

This chapter will be about the accuastions against Therese, and my investigation of said accusatios, where I concluded without any doubt in my heart that they were all false, all lies. Again, I have done a lot of thinking on how much to present here, how much to cite, how much to show.

I have to say that at this point, sad as it is - I no longer feel any loalty towards Doris or Nick or Melissa. Nothing came out of my letter. From all I heard after I left, all the stories I have read in the last few weeks, on Ian's blog and elsewhere, it seems the practice of lies and false accusations continued. Therese was only the first victim - the first I know of that is.

I have no qualms in citing conversations I had with Nick, or citing from conversations he showed me that he had with Doris. This practice of lying against people, and allowing this lying to happen without investigating and without trying to stop it - this practice will never stop if no one ever tells, if no one ever shows the evidence they have. But I do have some qualms in citing the conversations I had with the members of the old EP staff. Their names were brought into this through no fault of their own. I had their permissions to show their conversations with me to the admins, but I never had their permissions to post them openly on the web.

Therefore, I will not cite anything from their conversations with me unless it is necessary to prove my accuastions: that what was said against Therese was not true. I will do my best to keep the citations anonymous, so it won't be understood which conversation was with which person. I feel pretty safe in doing this, since none of them confirmed the accusations. Whenever their names appear in the quotes, I have covered them with asterixes: ****

I will tell the rest of this story using the words and quotes from my letter to the admins. I have abridged it somewhat - it was pretty detailed - and omitted where necessary to protect the names or identity of the EP staff. Whenever I insert something that was not in the original letter, I will write in italics.

Here begins the rest of that letter:

The following is a presentation of the important YIM conversations and emails I have exchanged with people concerning this matter. I have had some more conversations with Nick than the ones I present here, mostly concerning discussions of how to best investigate or react to the matter. (......)

I have also as a rule not included the full chats and mails. I have omitted any parts of the conversations not concerning this case, repetitions, advice, emotional reactions or speculations on things like motives etc., things one might engage in in a private chat with someone one trusts, but never want to be spread outside that chat to anyone at all. I have tried to be more protective of other people's reactions of this kind than my own. If anyone feels that their opinions or words have been in any way misrepresented by these omissions, please tell me, and I will present the whole unedited converesation(s) you have had with me to anyone reading this, with your permission.

As you all know, Therese left the EP staff shortly before New Year's Eve, leaving a message to all staff where she explained the reason to be her feeling of having been subjected to powerplays, unreasonable accusations and talks behind her back. She showed me the mail and pm exchanges she had with the admins that led up to this departure. Included in this exchange was this personal message from Doris, which Therese explained to me had a lot to do with her feeling that there were dishonesty and things going on behind her back involved, and it was an important factor in her decision to leave, as she had been totally unaware that a replacement of her had been discussed:

[QUOTE=DorisTLC,Dec. 28 2005,7:44 pm]I am forwarding to you conversations Nick and I have had regarding your role in this forum. This should better help you to understand where I am coming from as an administrator of this forum, and as a Senior Staff member of TLC.

Melissa also recieved a copy of this.

Doris

[QUOTE=NickTLC,Dec. 27 2005,8:56 pm]Doris, I have thought about Therese and the issues that we have dealt with regarding her, and I am convinced that we need to think about either replacing her or otherwise just doing *something* about what's going on, and honestly, you're just the better person to solve this.

We need to have more admin involvement in the Floo Review, to be sure, either way, so I'd like to hear what you have to say about involving the two of us better in the project and having more administrative oversight of decisions being made.

--Nick[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

I was shellshocked and deeply confused by all of this, since I had worked happily on the EP for many months, unaware of any conflicts, believing we had all the TLC behind us and were going to make all of them proud. On the 30th of December I contacted Doris on YIM about it, omissions marked with (...):

FROM A CHAT ON YIM WITH DORIS (YIM name txdarcey2000), December 30th
(...)
torillgrnhaug: I just received a pm from Therese where she says she is leaving. What is going on?
txdarcey2000: Well - I would have to refer you to Melissa and Nick on that one, since they were originally the administrators in charge of this project. Nick directly, Melissa as his administrator. (That's the official stand) Personally - I think that the initial understanding of roles was not really understood by Therese - that administrators have to have the ultimate decision making authority. But honestly - I was not in the original talks or discussions, I've only seent the chats.

(...) (mostly my emotional reactions)

torillgrnhaug: and I can't believe that anyone could see her as trouble..
(...)
txdarcey2000: Oh wiat torill
torillgrnhaug: or difficult to talk to...
txdarcey2000: nobody sees her as trouble
txdarcey2000: not at all
txdarcey2000: no - I'm sorry I didn't say that and I didn't mean to give you that feeling
txdarcey2000: I don't know her - never spoken with her actually. Other then one chat with Nick.
torillgrnhaug: I have worked intimately with her on this ever since august
torillgrnhaug: and I met her this summer
txdarcey2000: I think that she is bright and articulate. That is all I can say about her - my views have come from Nick of course - since I have worked with him so closely.
torillgrnhaug: I know
txdarcey2000: But I think she seems bright and capable.

(mostly discussions about the deadline set for the 6th of January, and what is left to do, plus my emotional reactions)

torillgrnhaug: right now, I feel kind of shellshocked, to be honest
txdarcey2000: thanks - and please! We've known each other and you know Nick - we're both crushed - but sometimes the administrator has to take that role. Thanks - and I appreciated your open mind and I know that you are a kind person. So I know she must be if you feel so stongly.
(...)

After this I felt even more confused - Doris' description of Therese as no trouble, and bright and capable, and probably kind since I cared for her so much, just didn't seem to add up with the mails and the pms I had seen, especially the one quoted above. I also got the impression from this chat that Doris didn't know very much about what was going on either, and had her impressions mostly from Nick - and that she was very pleased and full of admiration for the work we had done. Which she always expressed in the threads in the EP room as well.

So I wanted to talk to Nick and ask him more directly about it. But I spent a lot of time contemplating whether I wanted to leave or stay myself. Melissa posted a thread in the EP drafting room about Therese's departure, and in it you know she expressed worries that my reluctance to discuss this without Therese's presence should intimidate anyone from asking questions or expressing concerns. It was a difficult period for me...

Then Nick contacted me himself on the 8th of January:

FROM A YIM CHAT WITH NICK 8.1.06
(...)
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I wanted to ask you first if you have any questions about the essay project
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Anything at all that I can answer
torillgrnhaug: what kind of questions do you mean?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Stuff that we might not have filled you in on
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: And I will try afterwards to explain why Therese left, to the best of my knowledge, because I am not sure, but I think that is weighing heavily on your mind

(I was very happy about being given the opportunity to talk to him, and we discussed the organisation of the EP and the way and why Doris was brought in to manage it for a while. In the course of this conversation, this came up:)

scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I worried privately that Therese might not be a very good manager, as many of the EP staff shared complaints or worries about her leadership and her way of working with them
(...)
torillgrnhaug: I am sorry - what kind of complaints were those, and from whom - when you say many of the EP staff, what does that mean, we are not that many, and I have heard no complaints either!
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: At least two of the EP staff shared complaints with Doris. They respect Doris a lot, because at least those two felt that the EP was not moving along quickly and that it would never be released
torillgrnhaug: when was this?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Mid-December going into late December
torillgrnhaug: and the complaints were about pace only?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: They felt that Therese's leadership was very difficult to work with
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: No
torillgrnhaug: what was difficult?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: They had been yelled at, apparently, in private messages, about things
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Doris could fill you in more, I do not know the details
(....)
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: The complaints suggested that she is very two-faced, in that she is nice in public but mean in private, but I'm really not sure exactly what they said
(...)
torillgrnhaug: that sounds very bad - and is not my experience...
torillgrnhaug: was that one person complaining like that, or more than one?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: More than one, I believe
torillgrnhaug: about her being mean, I mean, not only complaining about pace
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Yes, more than one, I believe, possibly more than two
torillgrnhaug: I will ask her, and also ask Doris
(...)

This was very shocking news for me, and very confusing. I was not inclined to believe it at all, as my experience with Therese and with the general atmosphere in the EP drafting room had been so very different from this. But then I also started to wonder whether Melissa was right, and I had intimidated the rest of the staff from saying anything against Therese that they perhaps had wanted to do. I didn't really believe it, but I couldn't rule it out entirely, and I had to be very careful not to fling ugly unfounded accusations around myself. I decided that before I confronted anyone, I had to check out this possibility. That was my first round of contacting all the remaining EP staff by mail or YIM

Here is where I have to edit heavily, to protect their names and their conversations with me. But my questions were worded as follows, two on YIM chats, and one by mail:

FROM A CHAT ON YIM WITH *****, 10th of January:
"torillgrnhaug: what I did wonder, was if you think I was out of line when I posted in that thread of Melissa's, Therese's Departure, saying I thought it was uncomfortable to discuss it when she was not there...
torillgrnhaug: Melissa got so angry with me, and was implying I was somehow hindering or bullying you from speaking freely - I would be very sad if that was the case
torillgrnhaug: or if you have felt in any way intimidated by Therese or by me in this project..
torillgrnhaug: If you have any concerns at all, please let me know, I will not be angry or anything...

FROM A CHAT WITH ***** ON YIM, the 10th of january:
"torillgrnhaug: you know, I wanted to ask you after that thread Melissa posted about Therese's departure.. I have been so worried that what I posted might have felt intimidating to any of you
torillgrnhaug: Melissa seemed to think so, and that made me very sad
torillgrnhaug: because that was not what I intended
torillgrnhaug: so I thought I needed to ask you all - if you have felt at all intimidated by me or any of my posts, or Therese's before - I know that both her and I could be kind of frank on the threads, and possibly seem difficult in any other way too
torillgrnhaug: is there anything at all that has made it difficult for you to work with us?
torillgrnhaug: With Therese and me, I mean?

FROM A LETTER TO *****, 10th of January
"(...)
I still believe what I posted in that thread Melissa set up, Therese's Departure, that I would feel uncomfortable with discussing this matter in depth publicly, when we don't have all the information from both sides, as I would like to try and be as fair as I possibly can. But from the reaction on my post I got from Melissa, it seems she was very concerned that saying this might have intimidated you or any of the other members of staff, and made it difficult for you to speak freely.

I have worried over this since, it certainly was not what I meant to do, intimidate any of you, not at all, I do respect everybody's opinion! But maybe something I have said and done has made it difficult for you to pariticipate in our project, I have wondered about that lately.

This is why I ask you - and this is not something you need to answer to if you do not feel like it - is it anything at all that either I or Therese has done or said that has made it difficult for you in the essay project - anything that has felt harsh or inconsiderate or too frank or anything? I would be very grateful to know if there is anything either of us has done to upset you or make you feel less welcome, or less motivated or anything...please let me know, then Imay learn from it and understand more of what has happened....
(...)"

All of them answered that they had not felt intimidated by me, nor Therese, and stated in various ways that they had had no problems with Therese at all.

After this, I contacted Nick again to discuss the matter with him, and then more of these accusations came up:

FROM A CHAT ON YIM WITH NICK, 14th of January:
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: ****, ****, and **** have all sent Doris PMs from Therese that they considered inappropriate, to my knowledge
torillgrnhaug: Nick, have you seen those?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: No, I haven't, but Melissa has
torillgrnhaug: Nick - I have asked them
torillgrnhaug: becasue this worried me so, and I wanted to investigate
(...)
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Let me see if I can find my conversation with Doris about it
torillgrnhaug: ok, I'll wait
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Doris says that, according to her conversations with the EP staff, none of them liked Therese--this is as of December 27
torillgrnhaug: none of them?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Other than you
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I'm not sure if she was exaggerating or not
torillgrnhaug: and the pms that **** has sent to Melissa - has Melissa said that to you, that she has seen it?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: No, she hasn't
torillgrnhaug: I mean, the pm **** is supposed to have forwarded to Doris
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: We've talked very little about it
torillgrnhaug: but
torillgrnhaug: NIc
torillgrnhaug: I am very confused
(...)
torillgrnhaug: would you promise me one thing Nick?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Sure
torillgrnhaug: would you wait with discussing this with Doris, until we have asked them directly, like ****, if they ever sent any such pms?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Sure
torillgrnhaug: because if this is what I am beginning to suspect, it is very ugly, and I do hope it is not...
torillgrnhaug: and I don't want to falsely accuse anyone of anything...
(...)
torillgrnhaug: because, what I fear, is that Doris may b lying
torillgrnhaug: I don't want that to be true, but it sounds like it
torillgrnhaug: when I compare what you are saying with what they have said to me, it just doesn't add up at all
(...)
torillgrnhaug: I don't belive it, but, as I said, I don't want to accuse anyone falsely, so I would like to ask if this actually did take place
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Yes
torillgrnhaug: If they acknowledge this, I would have to accept it
(...) (...discussion, among other things, how the staff might feel intimidated if I asked them..)
torillgrnhaug: is it ok if I do investigate, and ask them directly, at least **** who appears to be not at all easy to intimidate to me?
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Yes, that's fine
(...)
torillgrnhaug: the reason why I ask you not to disucss it before I have asked, is that I do not want to hurt Doris, if they have indeed done this, but not wanted to tell me...
torillgrnhaug: then she does not need to know how I doubted her

FROM A CHAT WITH **** unfortunately undated in my records (my system does not save YIM chats automatically). At this point I had decided to leave Leaky:
torillgrnhaug: The reason I contact you now, is not only that I wanted to tell you about my leaving before I made a farewell post about it - that is something I feel I owe you for all the fun we have had - but also because, since I have talked with Nick over all that has happened, I have a rather awkward question to put to you..
****: Let me have the question!
torillgrnhaug: You see, it seems there are some accusations made against Therese, that shocked me
****: Let's hear.
torillgrnhaug: I asked Nick if it was ok for him to approach the EP staff members about it and he said yes, so here goes:
torillgrnhaug: Apparently, no one in the EP staff liked her, except me
torillgrnhaug: she is supposed to have been difficult to work with, and have yelled at people "behind the scenes"
torillgrnhaug: in pms etc., while pretending to be nice in the public threads
****: None of this is true:
1: I liked her verrry much.
2: She was easy to work with.
3: She sometimes disagreed with me (which is more than o.k.!), but even under stress she alwas was frien dly!
torillgrnhaug: and there is rumours that some of those pms have been forwarded to Doris - Nick has not seen them. Your name was mentioned as one of those, but Nick was not sure if he remembered that correctly, if you were among those forwarding pms,,,,
****: She never was to me different person via PM than otbherwise.
torillgrnhaug: I didn't think so either
****: I never forwar6ded a PM by Therese to Nick or Doris as far as I can remember, and certainly not one with a complaint about Therese.
(...)
****: As for contacting Nick about this: I don't like to act behind people's backs. If I act concernin g this /and I'll probably do so): I'll do so in the therad on Therese's departure ... . You are free to send all this to him, but, as said: I m yself would tend to go a different way.
(...)
****: The EP is going down without you and Therese: whosever was not ab le to kee4p Therese on board created the problem.

I felt uncomfortable contacting people "in secret" too, and contacted Nick again:

FROM A CHAT WITH NICK, unfortunately undated as well..
(...) I presented Nick with the whole conversation with ****.
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: The next person to contact, then, would be ****, I think
torillgrnhaug: yes
torillgrnhaug: but Nick
torillgrnhaug: I do feel you should do it
torillgrnhaug: I feel awkward doing this, like I am a troublemaker
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I'm not sure that I can, because I can't really contact these people without severely undermining Doris' position
torillgrnhaug: you saw how **** felt too, about going behind someones back
torillgrnhaug: and I feel as if I am doing it too
torillgrnhaug: Nick
torillgrnhaug: how could that be seriously undermining Doris' position
torillgrnhaug: If what she says is correct
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Because it shows that I don't trust her
torillgrnhaug: they will not be afraid to tell you, as they have already told her
torillgrnhaug: that depends on how you word it
torillgrnhaug: if you say that you look into this as admin, because Therese deserves a proper investigation of th is
torillgrnhaug: and you need to know more about the accusations made
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: True
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I will see if I can contact **** this week
torillgrnhaug: and I seriosly think this is needed!
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: But we'll all be busy trying to get the essays ready and the new forum ready
(...)
torillgrnhaug: I hope you do understand how this feels so uncomfortable for me
torillgrnhaug: I feel awkward asking them, as if I am trying to push them into saying negative things, and creating discord while leaving - it is a very awkward position to have
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I know it does, I was worried about that, because it is basically going behind the admins' backs, even though I approve of it
torillgrnhaug: but I feel very strongly about investigating accuations against Therese that I feel are wrong
torillgrnhaug: yes, it is just that, and even if I say I do it after talking to you, it still feels wrong
torillgrnhaug: **** felt it too, as you can see, even though **** likes me
torillgrnhaug: and I felt I had to agree with ****...
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I wish that Therese had stayed on longer so that we could have talked this out with her, because a part of why Melissa feels no need to investigate it is that Therese left before she could really discuss things with Melissa
torillgrnhaug: yes, I know
torillgrnhaug: but you know, Therese left because she saw that pm where you discussed her replacement, then she felt safe no more
(...)
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: What I said to Doris was that *if* what she said to me was true, *then* we might need to replace Therese
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: And I'm sure that makes sense to you
torillgrnhaug: yes, that makes a lot of sense.
torillgrnhaug: of course
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: And Doris just assumed that she was right in her accusations and took it to mean that we were right in replacing her
torillgrnhaug: if she really did yell at her staff "behind the lines"
torillgrnhaug: then you couldn't let that go on
torillgrnhaug: but
torillgrnhaug: I am now very wary of Doris, I have to admit
torillgrnhaug: if she is right, if Therese was nice to only me and ****, but nasty to the others, then I will owe her an apology
(...)
torillgrnhaug: if it all is true, it serves her right not to bully people
torillgrnhaug: but if it isn't?
torillgrnhaug: And I think you know that I do not believe that it is
torillgrnhaug: but am willing to bow to the inevitable if I hear from the other staff that it is indeed like that
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I will contact ****, then, to see if I can find out from her what the story is, at least from her perspective.
(...)
torillgrnhaug: you know, if you worry about undermining Doris' position, you do not have to tell them you are investigating her claim to begin with - all you need to say is that you are investigating these accuasations
torillgrnhaug: as an admin, you need not tell them who told them to you
torillgrnhaug: then they will not have to assume you do not trust her
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: That is true
torillgrnhaug: I mean if you are worried that you may cause
torillgrnhaug: Doris uneccecary pain and hurt, if it is all true
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: Yes
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I'll see what I can do to avoid pointing blame at Doris
torillgrnhaug: Yes, that may be important for all involved, if they are going to work together later
(..)

After this I waited for the launch of the Leaky Five, as Nick had told me he would not have the time till after that. As you know, that took a while. Then I contacted Nick again about this, and after a bit of discussion, we agreed I could contact **** if he didn't have the time.

FROM A CHAT WITH ****, undated
(..)
torillgrnhaug: listen, there is one thing I would like to ask you about the experience we shared in the EP room...
(..)
torillgrnhaug: But I just heard these rumours that worried me, so I thought I should ask
torillgrnhaug: I am sorry to bring this up again...
torillgrnhaug: but the rumours says that no one liked Therese except me..
****: are you kidding me?
torillgrnhaug: and that she was sort of two faced, yelling at you all behind the scenes, and writing angry and inappropriate pms to you...
****: that never happened to me
(..)
****: I never got the impression anyone was angry at me while Therese was in charge.. I thought she was great!
(..)

I contacted Nick after this, showed him this chat, and discussed what to do next. That discussion ended with an agreement that I should contact the remaining two members of the old EP staff as well. I did so by mail, and posed the question to them in much the same way as in the two chats above. This is quotes from their answers:

FROM THE ANSWER MAIL FROM **** ( received on the 14th of February:
(...)
"As for my part in it, I never found Therese to be difficult to work with--she was friendly and answered the questions I had and went out of her way to be patient and helpful. So I find it rather annoying that people are putting words in my mouth when I know I never said anything like that. But that's the nature of rumors, unfortunately. It's also the reason I save emails, as I have been down this path in the past."

FROM ****'S RESPONSE, received on the 15th of February:
(...)
"I never had any problems with Therese and never thought that EP was poorly administered. I should point out however that I've never really had much contact with Therese or any of the other admins for that matter. I am pretty much removed from the personal aspect of the group so I have no sense of who might have been rubbing whom the wrong way."

(....)

I have shown all this documetation to Nick before, and now I have shown it to all of you who are concerned with this. I think it is evident from this material that Therese has been subjected to false lies and accuastions that have been very hurtful to her, and have played an important part in making her feel compelled to leave a project she loved. Also, that the names of the members of the old EP staff have been abused to create these lies, this false image of Therese as a mean and abusive person. I will not speculate in what the motives for this may have been, nor will I dictate what should be done about this. But I sincerely hope that the evidence in this email will forever clear these lies away from Therese's name and reputation at TLC or anywhere else where these lies may have been spread, and if you should come across them, you will work very honestly to refute them, so that they will indeed become "dead and powerless".

Thank you for your time in reading this.

Yours sincerely
Torill Grønhaug

Suddenly, the Glove Hits

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Ten

Been a few days since my last instalment - if that one was difficult to write, this one is even worse..

On one of the very last days of December 2005 - 29th or 30th I guess - I came into the EP forums to work, and saw a thread Doris had started in there. She asked us what was left to be done with the project - completely ignoring what Therese had said only days earlier about that - and posted a short list herself. One of the items on that list was about making something that was completely unknown to me. It later proved to be about the fancy (and I do not mean that in any sarcastic kind of way) roll-down Scribbulus menu to be posted on the main site, but Doris called it something I had never heard of and did not understand - I am not all that computer or website construction savvy.

I can still remember my utter confusion and terrible sense of foreboding while reading that thread. Perhaps this is difficult to understand, and I told myself back then too that I was being silly. But my first thought was - what is this, where is Therese? What is happening?

Shortly after this, on the 30th of December, Therese sent an email to all the members of the Essay Project staff, where she announced her resignment from Leaky, meaning both the EP project and her modding job. She sent the message by pms to the rest of the staff as well.

I still have her mail. She said her reason for leaving was negative talk behind her back and breach of agreements ... I was dumbstruck.

At this point, Doris had already been made an admin. I do not remember the exact date when this happened - but I think it was some time in October or November that year. It was not as if the site could not use more people on the admin side, so nothing strange about that. Doris had always worked very hard with every assignment she was given, and was involved all over the place. As far as I can remember from back then, she was generally liked and thought of as a nice and friendly person. Lilly and I talked to each other about how happy we were having her among the admins. Bel had been given access to the admin control panel of the Lounge too, so now there were four people under Melissa who had some expanded responsibility concerning things in the Lounge compared to the rest of the staff: Nick, Sue, Bel and Doris. We had been in contact with all of them about the Essay Project in various ways, and none of them had done anything other than encouraging us or giving helpful suggestions and input. And I had never heard anyone badmouthing Therese in any way whatsoever.

Then Therese contacted me to explain and say goodbye more thoroughly. We had worked very close, met in person - I was a guest in her parent's home in the summer - and appreciated each other very much. That was why she wanted me to know a bit more about the background for her decision to leave. She forwarded me communications she had had with the admins concerning the Essay Project during the last week of December.

I have thought a lot about this, about how much I should post of the chats and mails I have kept still. They were never meant for me in the first place. I do not hold it against Therese that she showed them to me, though. She felt convinced already that the admins were talking about her behind her back and campaigning against her, and was therefore concerned that I as her friend should know what was going on. I can't blame her.

In order to make sense of this story, I will quote some of this material - but I will try and keep the quotes, especially of negative things, on an absolute minimum. As the story unfolds, I hope it will be clear why I thought it was necessary to publish things that was originally never meant for the public in the first place.

I have no qualms in quoting from the first chat I was shown, though, as nothing harmful or bad was said in that one at all. It is between Nick and Therese - scabbersakapeterpettigrew is one of Nick's YIM names, and paperflowergirl is Therese's. "The Review" Nick talks about here refers to the then working title of the Essay Journal: The Floo Review. You may think the now name "Scribbulus" is a much better title, and I am not going to argue with you on that one! This chat happened on the 23d of December 2005:

scabbersakapeterpettigrew: I also wanted to let you know that Doris' new role on for TLC is that she's the sitewide project coordinator, so she may ask you about setting deadlines for various things to get done with the Review
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: She's inviting us both to a chat now, in fact
paperflowergirl: oh, ok
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: So that she can take notes on where we are with the project
scabbersakapeterpettigrew: and give input, of course
paperflowergirl: yes, she is great
paperflowergirl: hehe, I was hoping to get her in the beginning, but now she's with us anyway!

As you can see, Therese had nothing whatsoever against the idea of Doris as a Project Coordinator, taking notes and asking for the setting of dates to be finished with various things. On the contrary, she was happy to have a chance to work with Doris to finish the Essay Project.

The chat between the three of them that followed, seems perfectly friendly and nice to me. They talk about a lot of technical things. Doris voices some very valid and reasonable concerns we on the EP staff had also been discussing, about training the editor staff to judge the essays after the same standards etc., and they discuss the need for more staff. Doris asks if the project can be ready to launch by the first couple of weeks of January. Therese thinks this is too early, with the need for hiring more staff etc. Doris says it's ok if not everything is finished, but they can try....

What starts something that looks like a disagreement, though, is when Doris is showing them some technical programme I have to admit I do not quite understand. In a later email to the admins (see below), Therese calls this iTeamwork. Apparemtly it is about listing assignments and finishing dates for all staff involved in all Leaky's projects, but people will only see the project they are part of. Therese says it looks really neat and helpful, and agrees that she does not need to see anything of what is going on with other projects. But as the appointed head of the Essay Project, she thinks she should be given access to the EP part of it. Doris says she cannot give her that. Melissa has decided that access is only for Senior Staff. But she will ask Melissa if Therese can be given the limited access she asks for anyway.

I will state again, in reading this chat, I did not quite understand what kind of programme they were talking about, and I may have misunderstood some things here. For the same reason, I cannot say whether it was reasonable or not for Therese to ask being given access to the programme.

Therese voices her concerns in a following chat with Nick, though. It seems she is beginning to feel a bit uncertain about what Doris' role actually means. How much say is Doris as a project coordinator for the whole site supposed to have over her, as compared with the agreement Therese originally had with Melissa? Therese goes to Melissa to get some clarifications.

I have read these clarification mails between Melissa and Therese on the 28th, 29th and 30th of December, that were also forwarded to Nick and Doris. They are all rather long. I will not cite them (see above about my qualms with citing originally private mails) but will try and describe the essence of them.

Therese cites her original agreement with Melissa, and asks for clarifications as to how things have changed now. Melissa underlines that things are now changing everywhere at Leaky, and Doris is brought in to pick up the organisational slack that is happening all over the place. She says she is not blaming Therese for any such slack, because that has been more the rule than the exception at Leaky, but it needs to be fixed now. If Doris sees that something is getting off track with the Essay Project, it will be her right - with Melissa's urging - to go in and see to it that it gets back on track. But Melissa still wants Therese to head the project. She will give Therese the limited access to the iTeamwork she wants, and as for hiring staff, Doris will read applications (they talk about running ads on Leaky main) and pick out those that fit Leaky's needs, then hand them over to Therese and the EP staff to do the final picking.

Therese comes back saying very clearly that she understands things are changing, is glad for the clarifications, they were what she wanted - and also states more than once that she has no problems working with Doris, whom she thinks is great. But she also says that she wishes she had been told about the changes more clearly right away, without having to ask. She also hopes that if things go off track, admin will talk to her about it before stepping in to overrule her.

She does protest organisational problems with the EP, though. Deadlines have been pushed, but that is because they were unrealistic the way the project has grown. Whenever she has gone to Nick with her concerns over this, he has been nothing but understanding and soothing, and let her believe there was no rush and no problem. How can there be organisational problems when a project of this size (we had plans about a real online journal at that time) is now almost ready to launch?

Melissa states that the pushing of deadlines is an organisational problem, no matter what - and that there is not a question of what to do when the EP has gone off track, because it has done that already. There is no point of having a fantstic castle in the air if it never goes online, and there seems to be no light in the tunnel with the EP project, and no idea of when it will be finished. But - if this is not right and the project is close to finish - then Therese can just bring a list of what is left to do, and they will work from there and all will be fine......

- The "atmosphere" in the last couple of mails is a bit tense, although no one is rude - but in reading this, it really seems to me as if there was a chance of reaching a reasonable, workable agreement at this point - and that some of Melissa's ideas of the desorganisation of the EP project were perhaps bulit on misunderstandings.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, Therese comes back with her resignment note, saying that upon reading Melissa's last mail, and the pm from Doris, she understands that she has been subjected to power plays and negative talk behind her back, and will therefore no longer work for Leaky.

In the context of the mails described above only, this reaction seems strange and unreasonable. But the pm in question is this one:

[QUOTE=DorisTLC,Dec. 28 2005,7:44 pm]I am forwarding to you conversations Nick and I have had regarding your role in this forum. This should better help you to understand where I am coming from as an administrator of this forum, and as a Senior Staff member of TLC.

Melissa also recieved a copy of this.

Doris

[QUOTE=NickTLC,Dec. 27 2005,8:56 pm]Doris,

I have thought about Therese and the issues that we have dealt with regarding her, and I am convinced that we need to think about either replacing her or otherwise just doing *something* about what's going on, and honestly, you're just the better person to solve this.

We need to have more admin involvement in the Floo Review, to be sure, either way, so I'd like to hear what you have to say about involving the two of us better in the project and having more administrative oversight of decisions being made.

--Nick[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

The Essay Project Experience - the Therese appreciation chapter

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Nine

I am very glad to hear that some of you are reading this with interest, although for the most part I do it for my own good. When I read what I have written, I get a new perspective. I do not only relive what I experienced back then, I also see how it is connected to a wider context in my life. How everything that happened and my ways of handling what happened informs how I think and feel and act today - in a much more real sense than I thought before I started writing this.

But this is personal, so I won't bother you with it. The second reason why I put this story out here, is because I want it to be known - especially the part of it that I am going to tell now. I now know that others have had similar experiences. And just as I felt validated when I read their stories in the comments on Ian's blog, I hope someone may feel validated by reading what I am about to write here.

The third reason why I write this, is because I do not want to have false stories of my departure from Leaky - and even less, false stories about Therese - paperflowergirl - floating around out there on the net. Lies were told about Therese, and I don't know how many who heard them. I want to tell the truth as I know it, I want to defend her name.

This part is difficult to write. I have opened the draft with the intention of finishing it, stared at it, then closed it - for I don't know how many times now.

I loved to be part of the Essay Project on Leaky, what was later to become Scribbulus. It was when I joined this project that I felt healed from the reading groups experience. I felt enthusiastic about Leaky again, about being part of creating something great for the site and for the Harry Potter fandom.

This time, everything seemed in order. The project had an appointed leader: paperflowergirl, whom I came to know as Therese. She is a bright, lovely yong Norwegian woman in her early twenties, then studying in the US, full of enthusiasm and ideas. She had posted in the Room of Requirement (see how great it is to have a forum like that, where members can come up with ideas for fabulous new projects for your site?) on how interested she was in essays about everything HP, which she thought was something lacking in the fandom. Not just sleuthing or theorising essays (is Snape good or bad, what is the meaning of the prophecy) - essays written from within the canon as we came to call it, where the perspective of the writer is as if the story and the potterverse is real. She also wanted essays to be written by fans taking the perspective from without canon, from any sort of muggle perspective, focusing not on the plot, but on the meaning of the text. She had ideas of a "writer's workshop", where people could get help and criticism and ideas and links and whatnot, to develop their budding writing abilities. In short, she wanted something different from and more than the Mugglenet editorials. Not that there is anything the matter with the Mugglenet editorials, but they need not be the only way to write more extensively about HP than you can do in your ordinary forum post.

Again, this is not the place where I am going to tell all the details of all the plans for the Essay Project. They, too, became quite elaborate. And wonderful, I have to say. And they mostly came from Therese, she was a virtual fountain of ideas. She really really inspired me, and the 6 months or so I worked with her, from August till December 2005, was one of the happiest times I ever spent in the HP fandom. (Only surpassed by January 2005 - when I was part of planning the Leaky Lounge before it opened.)

Therese outlined her ideas on a thread in the RR. Many others posted about it as well. I have tried to find that thread on Leaky, but it seems to have been deleeted - I seem to remember something vague about old threads not posted in for a month or something being dumped behind the veil....

Reading through her old posts that came up in my searches was still good, though. I celebrated again how much I appreciate her thinking - how she always stressed meaning, not plot - how great and friendly she was when she moved in there with her "modding hat" on as she called it (and signing her modding messages with all the different "hatted" smileys we had). The way she moved threads from her forum to another one for instance, with a recommendation: this is a great discussion, happy posting! Way to go for a mod, no traffic police manner, no annoyance with posters not quite aware of our "order".

I am sure you can tell how I miss her.

So, yes - this time it was going to be the good one...that was what I thought. Nick had brought her on the staff to help develop an Essay Project for Leaky. At least, that was how she understood it. This happened in June 2005 I think - perhaps May - it was late spring, anyway, before book 6. She was told that we had to finish all the reading group work first before starting on another new project (wise!) In the mean time, she was made a moderator for the the more "brainy" Obscurus books forum, a position I think she kept till she left the site. Nick created a special forum in the mod quarters for the Essay Project - EP - and she immediately created threads in there with all her ideas.

At first no one answered her. Then in August I started posting there extensively. A couple of other staffers dropped in now and then, too. Therese approached Melissa and asked for clarifications - who was leading the EP? Melssa answered in an email (I have read it) that as far as the planning went, this was Therese's baby. Nick had to oversee it to be sure it did not go against any Leaky principles, and admins of course had a say in hiring staff as well, but basically, the planning was hers.

That made it easy. I got involved as EP staff, so did Heinrich Kuhn/ hck, Theowyn, Eeyore and Kristin/memyselfnI.

Therese was wonderful as a project leader. She posted extensive outlines of what an essay journal for Leaky ought to look like, according to her original ideas. They functioned as great starting points for discussion - because she was never the least bit defensive of her ideas. We often disagreed, but always reached a third version that was even better than the two first ones, hers or mine. Way to lead a creative project.

She was also very good at keeping track of how far we had come and what was still left to do. Nick popped in from time to time and contributed a lot to the technical discussions on how to do it - that was when I always dropped out. Other staffers also posted occationally, Doris Herrmann included, both before and after she was made an admin. Even Melissa looked in a few times. All the planning and all the discussions were done openly in the EP forum, and we never heard anything from anyone but that everything looked great and was coming along fine. We really thought we were doing a great work for the site that everybody wanted, and would make everybody proud. A work to make Leaky the best source for essays on HP online - a place to be seen as having the "gold standard" for Harry Potter essays.

The only real problem was demands from our other lives. Therese was writing her thesis, and I went through some nasty depressive periods. We thought we could finish by October but did not meet that deadline. On the other hand, we had never been given any specific deadline by the admins. Toward the end of December 2005, we were approaching the finishing line though - it was possible to see that we were nearly there. A time of great exitement, soon, it was really going to happen.

But then again - something totally unexpected happened.

Reflections on Absence and Micromanagement

None of what I have written so far about the reading groups project shoud be taken to mean that I was the most important factor in making it happen. A lot of different people contributed on a lot of different levels to realise that project. But since I am telling this from my point of view, I may appear as the most prominent person in the reading groups story. That is the trick of personal narration, don't let it fool you.

Nor do I wish to imply that I was the only one who could or should have been the leader of this project. Far from it. For some reason, I was the one among the staff who seemed to be most anxious about a failure, about how bad Leaky might appear if nothing came out of the reading groups project - after all the hype we had made of it in the RR and the test group forums. That was basically the motive behind all my nagging and all my more or less desperate measures to get someone to listen and something to happen. Looking back, I don't think I always chose the best strategies....

I have wondered if I came across as annoying and a bit threatening to the admins - a nagger and a basic pain in the neck kind of person. If you want influence in an organisation, any organisation, that is definitely not the way you want to appear. Maybe that was why they were so reluctant to give me even the shadow of a "position", why even the title of "clerk" seemed too much to bestow upon someone like me.... It is in no way unlikely that someone else could have handled this whole thing way better than I did.

The main point remains though: any project of this size needs some organisation, some co-ordination and leadership. There are many workable ways to do that of course... But someone with authority at least needs to approve, set reasonable deadlines and give feedback on the work done in time to correct it before the deadlines are hopelessly passed. When I am saying there should be no micromanagement, that should not be read as if I say there should be no management. I don't mean that at all. There is nothing wrong with management and leadership per se.

Neither is there anything wrong per se with admins being absent, as in engaged in other, new and exiting projects. As long as they ensure that the staff in the projects they leave behind have the guidelines and mandates they need to be able to function on their own, everything is fine.

What is damaging is absence combined with unwillingness to delegate, unwillingness to appoint deputies, reluctance to trust staff to make wise decisions on their own level, regarding the tasks they have been assigned.

When an organisation grows, like Leaky has done, and branches out in many different subsites and subprojects, it will not be humanly possible for one manager to oversee every detail of every project anymore. You have to delegate. You have to trust that the people you delegate some authority to, will follow the main principles you have set, and basically be loyal to the site and to you as the owner of it. If you can't do that, then don't branch out.

The Reading Groups Experience: Finishing Line

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Eight

Less than a week to go before we needed to be ready ...

Finally, Melissa looked into the reading group project - and posted in the modsuite about it, basically slamming our draft.

Ok, the draft was long, contained very detailed descriptions of all the different groups, and equally detailed instructions on how to do the sorting process. It was supposed to be a final draft after all, ready to use as a blueprint for the actual set up of the groups. If you had not been part of or monitored all the discussions leading up to it, first in the Room of Requirement thread, then in the test group forum, then in the drafting group - I am sure it appeared totally overwhelming and impossible.

It was clear to us who had been part of the process that a lot of Melissa's criticism was based on misunderstandings - she thought it was more complicated than it actually was, and some of the things she criticised was not there. I therefore posted a long explanation in way of an answer, pointing out the misunderstanding and trying to clarify how it was all meant to work. Yes, long, really long, I felt that was necessary. Remember, less than a week to go - at this late hour, to have to start drawing up a new plan, even to start tinkering too much on the one we had - this seemed impossible.

Melissa posted an answer, saying that she couldn't possibly be expected to have the time to read a long post like that, with all she had to do now that she was soon leaving for Britain.

This is where I gave up. I am not proud of it, it was not very honourable to abandon ship at that critical hour - but I gave up. I felt totally shattered, put down and disrespected, not to say disregarded - so I did abandon it all, and did no more to make the reading group project happen.

It did happen though. Bel talked to Melissa on YIM and got through to her, so the project got the go! signal, finally, with some minor alterations. Some things also had to be altered for technical reasons. Several members of staff were engaged in setting it up, working hard, and Bel was driving it all to the finishing line. So it did happen, and people enjoyed it very much, from all that I have heard. The Barnes and Noble groups happened too, with some of our best staffers as leaders in some of the groups, and people enjoyed them as well.

All well in the world, right? I did contemplate leaving the site, but changed my mind. I was involved as a moderator for one of the groups, working with Chelikins, before she was made a moderator too. Picking up, moving on, continuing my ordinary moderator job in the ordinary forums, enduring the ordinary low level chaos. And then another exiting project appeared on the horizon: the Essay Project, what was later to become Scribbulus

The Reading Groups Experience: Priorities

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Seven

On the 28th of June, Melissa sent me an email where she told me she had gathered a group of moderators and Potter Parties staff to take part in a special thing with Barnes & Nobles (the American book chain): help running the reading groups for HBP the book store was going to feature on their net site. The book chain needed insights in what kinds of threads to put up in a reading group like that, and people to be around guiding the conversations after the book was out. They wanted people with moderating experience.

Melissa asked me if I would be interested in being one of these leaders for the Barnes & Nobles reading groups.

This was my answer, sent to Melissa on the 30th of June 2005 (I needed a couple of days to think, see below)

Hi Melissa!

We are setting up reading groups together with Barnes and Nobles? It is an honour to us that they want us I am sure - but - what about our own reading group project? You know, I have been among the ones very eager to get that up, and we in the planning committee delivered a draft with suggestions on how to do it over a week ago - I have been very anxious to hear your opinion on thisk, if you are pleased with it, want us to do it or not, or maybe with some adjustments to what we have suggested. I understood from Nick he did not want me to take any special responsibility for this after the committee work was over, so I have not either, but I have been waiting to hear more about it....this is a true forum project, planned together with the members of the lounge, and I know many of them are very exited about it! We need people to lead some of those groups as well, if we set them up, and I thought, if I was to lead any group, it would be one of ours....But we are doing groups for Barnes and Nobles instead? Has our own project been abandoned? Or am I being totally clueless now...

Anyway, as you know, I leave for London on Tuesday 12th, and will not be home with any regular access to any computers until Monday the 18th, so I guess that automatically rules out me leading any group starting on the 11th. But thank you for thinking about me as someone you would trust with this, that is an honour, really.

Melissa came back to me saying that no, our own reading groups were not abandoned, this was just extra. She had to get this one sorted first though, as they were on "corporate deadlines", but she would look into our project ASAP. She just had so much to do (which I am very sure she had, this being shortly before her going to Edinburgh to interview JK Rowling herself the very morning after the big launch of HBP.) She understood that I had no time for the first set of groups, but what about leading a group starting in August?


My reaction to this Barnes&Noble invitation was very mixed, to put it mildly.

* On the one hand, I was furious to tears. I was so frustrated for not getting any reaction to our draft, for being forced to sit and watch and do nothing while knowing the time was running out - I knew Melissa was leaving first for London then Edinburgh around the 10th of July. We now only had little more than a week to go if we wanted to have our reading groups up and running by the launch of Half Blood Prince on the I6th of July - provided that Melissa had to review and approve everything first. Which is what she had to do. No one could move until Melissa said go.

I really felt like being at the brink of despair. To learn at this stage how one of the reasons why Melissa had not looked into our reading groups draft to approve or discard it, was because she was busy organising reading groups for another organisation - well, it really felt like being hit over the head with a blunt instrument. Corporate deadlines or not, the huge deadline we had was the launch date, and there was no negotiating that one. In my frustrated fury, I even harboured angry thoughts about combing our best moderators and staff to hand them over to the competition, leaving our groups to be second best...

Besides - why had I never heard about this, that a group of both moderators and Potter Parties staff - my collegues - had been gathered to do work for B&N post-launch? Who among the staff would be available to do what and how much post HBP launch, was a huge issue in those days of late June/early July 2005 . We knew we would have another tidewave of traffic and new members to handle after the sixth book was out. But by the time I received these emails, the B&N assignments were not posted about or discussed anywhere.

* On the other hand, I felt I was overreacting, being overly emotional. It wasn't as if I couldn't understand how exiting it was for Melissa to be contacted by the big book chain, to have staff from the Leaky Cauldron featured as experts on their site. Their reading groups were well established. Now, through them, Leaky would get a huge promotion. If I were Melissa, wouldn't I have been exited too?

And - was it perhaps silly of me to think of it as competition? We already had a huge traffic on the site and in the forums, the fact that some readers out there would go to B&N to join their reading groups would hardly result in us getting no participation in our own groups. The Potter public is HUGE. As for the combing of staff - enough accomplished people were left to run things, for sure - besides, we had discussed picking coordinators for the reading groups from nice posters on the Lounge that we thought would be good candidates.

In short, it wasn't as if both projects couldn't be possible. I decided I was overreacting with the tears and fury.

I clearly felt, though, that it was not an overreaction to think our own project should have been given first priority, over organising groups for any other organisation. No matter how well it would reflect on the site to be promoted elsewhere. If Melissa had no time to look into that, she should have delegated the authority to say "go" to someone else.

Finally, I had sorted out my reactions enough to write back to Melissa saying this on the 4th of July:

Poor Melissa, I didn't want to add to your worries - I know you have
so much on your plate now! I am glad to hear this is not instead of
our group project - I see I was just being silly there for a moment..

I definitely understand that bit about boosting our credibility, and I
am very proud of us - you know I love Leaky and our forum to bits, and
want it to be the best in the world - but just because of that, I kind
of feel that we will get so much to do post 7/16 and the following
month, that I feel my resources are best used on our own forum! Kind
of an "all hands on deck situation". I don't think I will have enough
online time to cover both a B&N group and our own lounge. And then I
want to give the lounge first priority.

See you in London?

The Reading Groups Experience: Micromanagement

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Six

I said four or five chapters more down there somewhere - but I am not finished yet. That's what happens when you want to tell it all, and is (in)famous for essay length posts.....

Back to the narration of the reading groups experience, right at where we left off in chapter four:

I had some idealistic ideas back then. I wanted us to be one team, working together for a common goal, so I wanted all communication to happen openly in the modforum. I didn't like the idea of a lot of talks and discussions and decisions happening in private conversations, in pms, on YIM, on Skype (I don't remember if we had started using that already at this point - but you get my point) with the risk of having some included in the politics of the site, while others were left in the dark. So I kept posting in the modsuite about all my concerns, both about the low level chaos in general, described below, and the increasingly critical reading groups issue.

Nothing much came out of this nagging practice. After I posted a major list of all my complaints, I was yelled at by an admin in some pms for not having approached them in private conversations first. I was told Melissa said this post was like the cork flying out of the bottle, and they never knew I was that unhappy. But I had been voicing my concerns in several threads for a long time before I wrote that major complaint post - only no one had answered me, and maybe not even read me........

So I was naive. There is a lot of lobbying going on in most organisations, that's why somebody may suddenly appear, seemingly over night, with new positions and newly assigned power, to the possible frustrations of ordinary members. Somebody has been talking in private, disregarding the open forums where it is said to happen, but often doesn't. This practice was beginning to emerge at Leaky at this point, if it hadn't happened before without my knowledge.

I do admit that I, too, had started to vent my frustrations in private. My closest, must trusted friends had to constantly sit at the wrong end of long rants of complaints. I got different advice, one was to not bother about any delegation of authority. Just go in there and start organise the reading groups project - if the result is useful, admins will buy it and never bother how it got started!

But I didn't feel comfortable doing that - I was very aware of being only a common moderator, not part of the admin team. I was not brought on board to start messing with their projects on my own, no matter how desperately I thought they were in the need of some messing.

Besides - if I had started to engage several people in substantial planning, only to have everything discarded by the admins later because it was not what they had wanted - I would have done more harm than good. Increased confusion and frustration could have been the result, even hurt feelings. I was adamant that if I was going to do anything, it was going to be with proper admin backing.

This is when I started pestering Nick in private conversations about my concerns. I pinged him every time I saw him online on YIM. I thought of him as a good and easily approachable friend, who never got the least bit defensive no matter how much I complained. Finally, we agreed that the test group experiment could be declared as over, the test group dissolved and its members thanked, and the secret test forum shut. A group of interested moderators could be assigned the task of combing the test forum and the RR thread for ideas and inputs, then put together a workable draft for the organisation of our HBP reading groups.

Two of the test group members had been brought aboard as moderators already: Doris/Darcey and Erin/Lady Stratford. It was natural to ask them to participate in this planning group. Then it was Aleoninc, Bel, Lilly and me. Bringing this group together with members from three continents and goodness knows how many timezones to cross was a major feat - but we were finally going to get the work done.

It was crystal clear to me that with the limited time we had left to the launch date of the sixth book: 16th of July 2005 - this group needed a leader. We could not afford a repetition of the self-organising test group, as we were already by the end of May, beginning of June (I don't remember the exact time any more, but it was late, believe me). This was a project with a very limited time, and the authority of a project group leader would not mean very much more than ensuring that the work was done in time for the techies to set up the actual group forums and sorting devices before July 16. After that date, this project woud be definitely over, and the leader returned to the status of a mere mod.

But the admins did not want any leader to be appointed among the mods. Not for any reason or any stretch of time, not even for the mere 4-6 weeks in question here. I am not entirely sure where this came from. But I had the distinct impression this was from the admin team as such, it was not only Nick. Which is not to say that he disagreed in any way, though.

I could not be the leader. I suggested calling the position a co-ordinator, arguing that this would be needed if we were to get anywhere in time for launch. But I could not be that. Neither could I be secretary. Finally, it was decided I could be the group clerk.

Fine. Armed with the title of a group clerk, I went in there and organised the drafting group. Organised the work that is, not deciding anything over the others as to what the draft should look like. We were able to reach concensus on that, and incorporate everybody's wishes, and we were very clear that this should be presented to the rest of the staff for the final approval.

We got the work done. It was a great group. People contributed to various degrees, that is how it always is in any group project. Bel worked her ass off. I spent some weekend nights without sleep to put the final draft together. People gave valuable inputs on the draft suggestions that were presented. By the middle of June, we had an exiting workable draft ready and presented it to the rest of the staff. I asked Nick how he wanted me to contribute to get it all ready by 16/7.

The answer was: not at all. The drafting group should dissolve, this project should now belong to all. I was told that this concerned me in particular, I should have no special role in driving the project to the finish line, it was important that I stepped down from my limited position immediately. As for the draft, the rest of the staff could give input, but Melissa had to approve.

Then

nothing happened. Nothing. The staff was asked to participate in the newly opened Chamber of Chat, and apart from a huge appreciation post from Sue in the modsuite, congratulating us on the great work we had done, no one discussed the launching of the reading groups. Melissa did not say anything - this was when she was busy preparing her great interview with Jo - and I spent the final weeks of June resisting the temptation to eat my wallpaper out of sheer frustration.

Then something totally unexpected happened on the 28th of June.

The Importance of What Happens On the Net

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Five

I said my next instalment would feature my reading groups experience with Micromanagement thrown into the equation. But I want to first take one step back, and share some of my reflections on why I let some conflicts and frustrations regarding a mere fan site on the net affect me so much....

I suppose I could have just walked away from the whole reading groups embarrassment. I had not been assigned any particular responsibility for that project; and if it had all come to nothing, with some frustrated test group members and disappointed RR posters as the only result, it would neither have been my fault nor the end of the world. This is a fansite we are talking about after all, nothing more, nothing less.

But the whole concept of "Leaky" was very important to me back then. Like I said earlier, it was my first home on the net and a place where I had formed some of my most important friendships. I identified with Leaky's successes and failures, I felt they reflected on me too, somehow. To a certain extent, I identified with Leaky, its forum The Leaky Lounge in particular, the one I had been a small part of creating.

I am not sure whether this makes me a sad case or not. I do not regard the net and what happens there as "virtual" as in different from "Real Life". What happens on the net matters in the same way anything that happens anywhere else matters: because it happens to real people.

The friendships made are real, so are the organisations, groups, conflicts and events created. Strip away all the technical gizmos and jargons, what you are looking at is human communication in its most basic form: carried solely by the miracle of language. Real comnunities are formed, complete with all the processes of rivalry, hierarchy, clique formations, fractions, battles for attention and recognition, power games - but also attachments, identifications, celebrations, support, care, friendships....

I saw this clearly in my work as a moderator too. People got hurt for real when they were flamed or ridiculed in the threads. I have been told how people have walked around for days with a lump in their throat and an experienced difficulty in breathing - because they have felt attacked and disrespected in forum discussions. It is real.

Be warned - just because it may seem easier to lie and get away with faking a personality on the net than it maybe is when you meet someone in the flesh, just because you may feel it is easier to shunt someone aside or say rude things to them when you cannot see the reactions on their faces, does not mean that the wounds you may inflict are virtual. They are very real, and they may carry over to the life people lead where their physical body is situated. If experiences on the net tells you that you are worthless, replaceable, uninteresting - or even downright stupid and bad - you may start to suspect this to be the case in other arenas as well.

Take it from someone who has lived it.

The Reading Groups Experience: Absence

How I Ended Up Here and All That Happened On the Road, Chapter Four.

Right from the start the Lounge had a forum called the Room of Requirement, where members could post their ideas of improvements and additions to the site. That forum still exists I believe. It was a fun place to visit, with active members coming up with all kinds of exiting and/or mad or silly ideas. Nick was very fond of interacting with the fans in there.

A huge project for the Leaky Lounge emerged from one of the ideas swirling about in that forum in the early days of 2005: sign-up reading groups for the upcoming Half-Blood Prince. The thread discussing this idea in the Room of Requirement (RR) quickly grew very large, with some very enthusiastic members posting all sorts of exiting and creative suggestions on how to organise such reading groups.

The admins bought this idea from the members. A great idea. Nick posted about it in our modforums, asking for inputs and ideas from the staff, who would be involved in monitoring and perhaps running the groups. People in the RR wanted groups where you could be sorted according to different interests or wishes. Groups where all the members would be asked to have finished the book before they joined the group to discuss it, groups with a strict schedule of chapter by chapter readings with no spoilers from future chapters allowed, groups for slow or fast readers, groups where the ardent shippers were separated from the more serious theorisers etc. etc. We would need some well thought out sorting procedures to manage all of these ideas.

I won't go into all the details of the actual organising of the reading groups here. But the sorting ideas and the ideas on how to organise the groups were allowed to become quite elaborated. And the publishing date was looming ever larger on the horizon.....

The reading groups did happen. Not with the wildest of the ideas realised, but with enough cool features left to make them quite interesting in my opinion. I think they were much enjoyed by the participants.

Yet, the problems involved in the organising of these groups amounted to a huge energy drain for me, to a point shortly before the launch of book six when I almost left the site altogether from pure exasperation and frustration. And yes, some hurt feelings as well...

A lot was happening with the ever-expanding Leaky Cauldron site that spring. As far as planning the reading groups was concerned, the admins didn't seem to be too involved. At least it didn't look like that from a mod's point of view. Nick was communicating with the members in the RR about it, but not much with the staff in our back rooms. Although we would in all probablility be the ones required to run and monitor the groups once they were set up.

That alone might not have frustrated me so much. I could have just called it not my problem, gone about my modding business and waited to see what would happen. But then some of the more active members in the reading groups thread in the RR were invited into a secret forum invisble from our regular members (but not from the staff.) They were supposed to be our secret test group for the project. Doris Herrmann, then calling herself Darcy, was among the ones invited in there.

I suppose that invitation made them kind of proud, made them feel important. I know I would have if I had been invited to a secret forum like that, and told not to talk about it to anyone on the regular forum. They were told that they were supposed to help us out with the testing of all the ideas we had concerning the reading groups. This could have been great, if we really had used them to test all the ideas we had concerning the reading groups!

But we didn't. Nothing happened. The members of the secret test group were not told anything at all about what they were supposed to do in their secret forum, except that they were supposed to read the Chamber of Secrets for the test run. The admins were all engaged elsewhere, and none of the other members of staff had been delegated any responsibility for the test group.

And so passed several weeks. I did post a few posts in the secret testgroup forum, because Nick had said that was ok for the interested mods. Then some of the testgroup members sent me pms, asking me what they should do. But I didn't know what to answer them - I wasn't given any authority to decide anything. This made me feel increasingly embarassed on behalf of the site.

In many ways, watching the activity in that test group forum was like watching an experiment in social psychology. What happens when a group of people are thrown into a virtual room together and told that they are part of an experiment, but not given any specific instructions? Not told how long the experiment will last, or what the rules are, or what will happen to them when it is over - as in: will we still be part of a secret group, will we be the reading group leaders (as some of them thought but had never been told and didn't end up being either) - or will we be reduced to ordinary members again after this is over?

It all developed in a text book fashion. Informal leaders emerged who tried to organise, then others got angry with them because "who died and made you queen?" I think it got pretty nasty in there for a while. Which is not to be read as if I blame anyone for anything - like I said, text book case. If anyone is to blame, it is us for not giving them the structure and support they needed.

But then they did arrive at some consensus, after several weeks. I think I posted something in way of: we are interested in seeing just how much leadership is needed in a group like this, so try and see if you can organise yourselves while still being nice to each other - or something.... I do not have access to any of this anymore, I am not sure if it was not all deleted eventually, and I didn't save anything of it. Anyway, the test reading group members came through admirably. They were able to vote properly for leaders of some sort, who were then respected in return. Then they formed two different reading groups, one discussing the book strictly chapter by chapter, the other one consisting of thematic threads each covering the whole book. They dug up all kinds of interesting references to the remotest aspects of the book, had some really great discussions going, and judging from what some of them said about it later, they experienced a truly great journy going from chaos to admirable, selfconstructed order.

None of this helped us one bit though, as the experiences from the test group was not utilized to decide on how the actual reading groups should be organised. The launch date for book six loomed ever nearer, and this was one increasingly frustrated mod who jumped up and down in the mod forums, flapping her hands and shouting in endless repetitious Torill Length Posts to try and draw attention to herself and the reading groups issue. Not very effective. Not necessarily the smartest approach I am afraid, not at all according to text books in organisational psychology I am sure. Meanwhile, Absence still ruled, and nothing was done.

My next instalment will continue the narration of the Reading Group Experience from the perspective of one frustrated mod, adding Micromanagement to the equation.

A brief intermission

A busy couple of days, so the next chapters of all that happened on the road and how I ended up here will have to wait a little bit. Not for very long.

Tomorrow is our (Norway's) National Day, then I will visit my old mother with flags and birch twigs with the newly sprung leaves true to tradition - and flowers in red, white and blue .... and then we will watch the children's parade and go to my sister's to have the traditional dinner - so

watch for the next instalment here tomorrow night or Friday night. My time. GMT+1, that is. I really want to tell this story, and there is more to come. Four or five chapters yet I think. Check back in if you want to read the rest.

Happy birthday darling Lilly!

Time to break the flow of the narrative of all that happened on the road and how I ended up here - because down in Australia it is now the 15th of May, and that is Lilly's birthday!!!!

Bring out the cake! Bring out the flowers and the birthday fairies and the wine and the music! Let the feast begin!!!!!

The Roots of Low Level Chaos

How I Ended Up Here and What Happened On the Road, Chapter Three

Let's make one thing clear: the lack of proper organisation described in my letter below is not the sign of Evil. At all. We are talking about a fansite run by amateurs here. As you maybe know, amateur shares root with amour - the amateur works out of sheer love for what they do, not for fame or fortune, and not as a result of professional training....

I don't think anyone foresaw the size of the tiedewave of posts that nearly drowned us the moment we opened the Leaky Lounge forum. Five moderators alone could not possibley stem that tide. Several others were brought on board in quick succession, Doris Herrmann among them. Using Darcy as her screen name back then.

The number of memberships and the posts grew and grew. We quickly passed the stage where a cozy, democratic, flat-structured grop would have been able to get the work done.

A certain amount of initial chaos is probably more the rule than the exception when amateurs start huge projects. It has even been known to be the case when professionals start huge projects too. You cannot always foresee every problem and the structure necessary to deal with it.

The question is not why such a semi-chaos (it is not as if no plan or structure or guideline existed at all, it did) became apparent soon after launch. That was perhaps inevitable, at least very understandable. The quesion is why it lasted so long.

I believe there were two main reasons for this: Absence and Micromanagement. I mentioned both of them in my farewell letter, but I didn't name them.

Absence: The admins responsible for the forum were all involved in other huge projects. The Leaky News page, the Cauldron shop, the Potter Parties, the Floo Network, the Chamber of Chat, the Pottercasts...... Melissa was soon absorbed in all of this and more, and stopped visiting the Mod Suite on a regular basis. Sue and Nick were left in charge, but it was impossible for them to be more than one place at once, so they were often away too. The sheer mass of modreports and questions quickly became overwhelming, even for us who were the people posting them.

Micromanagement: In spite of this there was a clear unwillingness to share power, delegate, give even limited and supervised authority to anyone outside the admin group of three. There were cases when even Nick or Sue could not decide, but had to wait for Melissa's approval, and she was maybe not there.

The result was that the low level chaos continued.

My next instalment will feature the description of a project I was involved in where Absence and Micromanagement combined made themselves acutely felt: The creation of the reading groups for HBP in the spring of 2005.

The moderator experience, spring 2005

How I Ended Up Here and What Happened On the Road, Chapter Two.

I will do like the writers of old 18th and 19th century novels, and tell the story partly in letters.

In December 2004, I was asked to join the staff and take part in the very secret planning and drafting of what was to become a new internet home for Potterfans: The Leaky Lounge. So was Clare, Lord Fishcake, Lilly and Puffin. We were the first group of Leaky Lounge moderators. Now all of us have left.

Suggestions of a Leaky forum had been made before. I know Martje once did for instance, and Lilly among others had campaigned for it in the comment threads. But they had always been turned down. Then our favorite rat, old Scabbers aka Nick Rhein, went to Melissa and showed her his plans for a forum, and she bought them.

I was very happy. Very exited. Honoured beyond description. And I am not being sarcastic, I am not joking. I was walking on air.

I was part of discussing the draft for Terms of Use Melissa presented, with its wonderful Be Nice! rule to rule them all. I wrote a lot of the FAC togehter with the others. I posted my thoughts on the banner and the colours of the skin. I was so proud of the avatar I made for myself, after much amateurish tinkering and problems in getting it posted on the site. Everyone was very helpful. Melissa thought my joke member title Insufferable Know-it-all endearing. So I kept it, and went out there, ready to roll.


A year later, I wrote my farewell letter. This is the first part of it:

First however, I want to thank you for all the wonderful times I have had because of Leaky. It started as you know in the old Leaky comment threads. They used to be a very important part of my life, an outlet, a refuge, an asylum and an endless invigorating source of energy. I couldn't believe it when I was invited to be part of the team of the new forum a year ago, and the first weeks of January 2005 were among the happiest times of my life, when we were all planning the new forum together, and being so full of dreams of how great it would be... This will always be true, and no matter what, I will forever be grateful to Leaky for giving me this, it was more important to me than you will ever know! Thank you Melissa, for enabling this, and to Nick and Sue too, who were part of that first period, both the comment threads and the first days of the forum. You will all have a special place in my heart forever because of this, and the term "The Leaky
Cauldron" will always mean something truly special for me!

By the beginning of the summer last year, however, I was kind of tired, desillusioned and disappointed, and at the brink of leaving. That is not to say I didn't still have wonderful moments at the lounge, but there were also issues that constituted real energy drains for me. I don't think there is any point in going through all of that all over again now, however - Nick has patiently listened to my complaints and rants more than once earlier (thank you Nick, for being so approachable, supportive, fair and among the least defensive and power-hungry people I have ever met!!), and Sue and I had some intense debate over it too (don't worry Sue, you know we have settled our differences, and made up entirely by now!) - but since some of it is still unresolved and part of my reason for leaving, let me try and sum it up like this:

I think the main problem is to do with organisation and structure, not jealous or difficult people. There is a lot of dedicated and good people working for the Lounge. But Leaky as a site has been growing fast, with constant new projects involving all of the admins, and no one seems to have been dedicated to the forum alone, with the sole task of leading the mods, and helping them out with the daily dilemmas you meet as a moderator. It is only so much that can be solved by writing down guidelines - nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but you can't cover every dilemma beforehand in print, and, what is more, written guidelines and rules will always be open to different interpretations. What you need is an ongoing discussion of the actual modding practice, linked to concrete examples, where someone is bestowed with the power of drawing conclusions after everyone has had their say, saying: this is the way we will do it, according to our core philsophy. But the problem has been, a lot of dilemmas and questions from mods have been just hanging there, some of them never answered or addressed, some answered only after too long a time, and perhaps without a proper, guided and focussed discussion, or without the admin addressing all the issues raised by mods, simply becausethey couldn't possibly take the time to read through every single post in the fastmoving modlog. The result is, quoting Lilly, that different mods seem to be modding different sites, while they all believe they are modding the same site!

One of the chief reasons for my present fatigue and lack of enthusiasm has to do with the fact that I, and also a couple of others, have repeatedly adressed this issue in various fora, and at times there has been a discussion of it started - but then it has all died down again. I believe, as I said above, that the main reason why this happens, is that all the admins dealing with the forum also have a zillion other tasks and asignments to attend to, and can only give their full attention to these problems in limited periods of time. What is needed, in my opinion, is a kind of "head mod" - someone with this task as their sole responsibility, possibly not even with any forum
modding duty in addition. They didn't have to be general admins, they probably shouldn't be that, but they would need to have some real responsibilty delegated to them from the admins to function effectively.

This ties into the second main problem of organisation, as I see it. There seems to be a strong reluctance, even fear, on the part of admins to delegate, to give real responsiblity when necessary to people for work done in even limited areas of the lounge, and even for limited periods of time. The style of praising everybody, tell us repeatedly that you are so grateful for all the hard work we are ALL doing, and you appreciate ALL of us, has a genuine good intention behind it - definitely - but there also seems to be the idea that no one among the mods must be given a grain more responsiblity or acknowledgement than the others, even if they actually do more work or show more initiative than others at times - because this would perhaps generate jealousy or rivalry or "politics" among the mods. I can see how this is a genuine concern - but the other side of the coin is that people may feel demotivated, not acknowledged, not empowered, those showing independent initiative may feel as if it they are not rewarded, and, most unfortunate: necessary tasks and issues may be left unattended to. Admins cannot possibly look into everything, since we are now too big of an organisation for a principle of micromanagement from the top leader to be effective. If everything must be given to Melissa or one of her deputies for approval, too much time will be spent sitting around and waiting for decisions to be made.

After I left, some time during fall 2006? - a head of the mods was appointed - Gina. I am not trying to hint that this happened solely because of my suggestion. I was not the only one aware of these issues. How much decision authority Gina was given, I don't know. I was not around anymore.

I will comment some more on this next, as the story of my Leaky Experience continues.....