A very thoughtful and reasonable posting, MG. I must confess that I had my doubts about you when you were trying to defend the indefensible, but your explanation is well put and I give you the benefit of the doubt.
Your suggestion that K can be neutralized, isolated or simply dodged is a perfectly good one. I made it myself in one way or another more than once during the great battle. But eventually I came to see that it's not enough. You just can't ignore the wretch; he keeps obtruding himself. You can refuse to read any posting he makes (as I have done for a long time) but it's hard to dodge a posting of his in the middle of someone else's thread. That, and the disgust I feel at what he has done to the board, caused me to stay away. I do look in now and then (mainly to see if he's gone yet) and this is the first time I have posted for a good while.
The other great problem is that we can't quite bring ourselves, yet, to dismiss all that rancor and taking sides and get back to discussing words and languages. A newcomer would think we have a wierd and unhealthy fixation on old wounds. But we (by that I mean all the real AWAD fans to whom this forum means so much) are still in the process of grieving, like someone who has lost his best friend. And unfortunately, I don't think many of us will ever get over it as long as K is still here, haunting us and reviving the feelings of grief and loss. But I keep hoping. I'm not sure that it's much good to hope he'll leave. He did leave once before, but he came back, worse than ever. But AWAD is not now what it was, so maybe there is hope he'll have his fill and depart. Or maybe he'll be committed to an institution where he can get the help he needs. (If you don't think he has a real problem, what do you make of his posting about death threats?)
It's my hope, and that of the other exiles, that AWADTalk can again be, to some degree, what it was; but this requires K either gets out or gets banned, or somehow gets out of our hair. When that happens, we'll come back gladly.
Meantime, cheers.
