>>>If you look back historically, you'll see that other than public officials, I don't rake people over the coals in public. Discretion has a value (and at least one person here who's been sounding off about MVP's silence has reason to value that discretion).
>>
>>Tamar, I sincerely respect you and I'm also aware of That (not What) you've done useful things behind the scenes. But, sorry to say so, as I see it, your defense has some flaws and I'll try to show them.
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>>First, I think it was a bad thing to remove this part and not to reply to it:
>>This one thread is very fresh and I have already counted more MVPs here than in all the you-know threads. That's disturbing ME. Apparently the Universal Thread is a fine place to be to say praise to yet another Most Valuable Professional, but when REAL people here have a complaint about what one Most Valuable Professional of the inner circle did to a pal in the REAL world, they are dismissed as just a bunch of agitators.
>>It was essential. I expressed here a feeling that I have, but likely many here have it. I'm really interested in what you think of that (because I have always respected you.
>>
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>In general, I'll come forward to praise people publicly long before I would criticize them in public. On the whole, I tend to do both privately. (You'll notice I entered this thread not to praise Rainer, but to clarify the name of the award. I sent Rainer an email as soon as the award was public.)
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>You seem to feel that there's a "secret society" of MVPs and that we're talking about all this somewhere secret. It just isn't so. I have discussed this situation privately with a few people, some of them MVPs, some not, but there's been no big discussion about it among the MVPs generally.
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>I stayed out of the other threads because I thought they served no value to the community. You may differ in your view of that.
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>
>>Second, you use the phrase "rake over the coals". I had to look that one up:
>>to talk about unpleasant things from the past that other people would prefer not to talk about. There's no point in raking over the coals - all that happened twenty years ago, and there's nothing we can do about it now. (usually in continuous tenses)
>>Yes, we have a Dutch saying that is similar. But we regard it as inappropriate to use it when the issue is a really fresh one, esp. if talking about it can prevent that a similar thing happens again. The issue we're talking about happened really only a short time ago and we don't want it EVER to happen again. So, in my opinion the use of that saying was inappropriate here.
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>I didn't see the expression as referring only to past events. Here's another definition, closer to the way I was using it:
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>http://www.answers.com/topic/rake-over-the-coals
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>"Also, haul over the coals. Reprimand severely, as in When Dad finds out about the damage to the car, he's sure to rake Peter over the coals, or The coach hauled him over the coals for missing practice. These terms allude to the medieval torture of pulling a heretic over red-hot coals. "
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>>Third, you are accusing someone ("at least one person...") here without giving enough information. That is not what I regard discrete, ethical behavior. Personally I can think of no one who fits your description. Remarks like that one only throw oil on the fire.
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>Yep, I shouldn't have said it, but as I said to John elsewhere in the thread, I have no intention of disclosing the person or the reason.
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>>
>>Let me restate what I think that the 'group' of MVPs have done wrong: It is known that some have done things behind the scenes, but a) it is not known to the community WHAT has been done there
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>And the community has no right to know that.

And I didn't ask to let us know.

>and b) it is not known what they THINK of the ethical issue, not even if looked at from a hypothetical point of view.
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>Ditto.

The ultimate consequence of this ditto is that due to MVPs our community is not much more civilized than the Wild West was. Whenever injustice is done to one of its members and MVPs refuse to respond with a moral judgement, then these MVPs also better not start blaming when the victim feels abandoned and decides to take vengeance.

Tamar, this was the last argument I'll make. Not because of you (you're okay), but because I think I have arrived here at the CORE of the whole issue.