Hey Carol (and the list!)<div><br></div><div>The escalation was equally my fault. And I also apologise for the incident, and the things I said. </div><div><br></div><div>My &quot;nice&quot; comment, as I explained in private, was not intended to cause upset - I was unaware of the connotations. In that light; I can see how my reply could cause upset, and in future I&#39;ll avoid the word! (Incidentally, that reminds me of an anecdote from primary school - when I wrote a short story which used the word &quot;nice&quot; to describe something. I didn&#39;t half get an ear bashing from my teacher about how horrible and bland a word it was. So this is not the first time I have gotten in trouble using &quot;nice&quot; in my writing)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Anyway; what you wrote the other day, Carol, was most definitely an apology, no &quot;sort of&quot; about it :) And I hope my apology in reply was adequate.</div><div><br></div><div>As I mentioned in our email exchange the other day; being a male on this list can sometimes make it feel difficult to participate. If I respond in-kind to strong comments this gets criticised (not unreasonably). If I roll over I feel this is just as sexist/rude, even if only I know about it (i.e. I&#39;m subject to a thought process like &quot;that person is female, so I should defer to avoid causing offence&quot;).</div>
<div><br></div><div>My solution is to try and make my responses match the message I am replying to; this obviously doesn&#39;t always work out :)</div><div><br></div><div>So in the future if I am being a jerk or an idiot a) it has nothing to do with the sex of the people involved and b) please do send me a private note with the appropriate level of &quot;trout&quot; applied.</div>
<div><br></div><div>We all get grumpy or offended at times, and I don&#39;t mean it personally.</div><div><br></div><div>The notes from the moderators posted to this list are great; and I will do my best to meet the high standard they are looking for in the future.</div>
<div>Tom</div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">On 30 August 2012 14:31, Carol Moore DC <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:carolmooredc@verizon.net" target="_blank">carolmooredc@verizon.net</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br>
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    <div style="font-family:-moz-fixed;font-size:14px" lang="x-western">I hate to use physiological
      excuses, but...the reason I &quot;lost control&quot; was I had a bad head
      cold - plus doing strong coffee on top.  So confused
      mental/emotional states on steroids dominated my writing...<br>
      <br>
      I value Wikipedia as a place where I HAVE to be diplomatic, since
      I do lose my temper like that a bit too much sometimes on various
      male dominated political lists where there&#39;s a lot of flaming, so
      I was unhappy about my own &quot;slip.&quot; <br>
      <br>
      I did write Mr. Morton and (sort of) apologize for &quot;starting&quot; in
      such a provocative &quot;joking&quot; tone because of his &quot;nice&quot; comment,
      instead of just making a civil comment/question...and then for my
      escalating from there.  Two days on my apologies to the him and
      the list are even more sincere!! :-)<br>
      <br>
      Glad to see Laura misunderstood and wasn&#39;t asked to leave.
      Politically I understand worldwide problems with American
      Imperialism; Wikimedia-wise I just haven&#39;t been sufficiently on
      top of the intricacies of Wikimedia politics to understand all the
      issues so at least there I&#39;ve been able to maintain my diplomacy -
      so far!!<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
      <br>
      CM
      <br>
      <br>
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