Did you understand that this meant users who did not have IDUVTS on their profile?

It seemed to overlap to me, yes. His push to get others to go through their own follow lists to coerce others to put that badge on was creepy to me.

You mention missing insults, and I have to wonder how much of this has also taken place as Dotwin mentioned off Blurt in Discord. I've seen insinuations of things I never saw here at Blurt, and as I mentioned to him I can only go by what I saw here.

I wish to make clear that I think things exploded badly, and the part I did see and disagree with that saw talk of voting circles I posted against. I also engaged with the one who was attacking Elke directly in comments, although it was more directed towards her attitude towards yourself. I also engaged with offgrid as well as I saw he was being over the top with his many different accounts.

I in no way wish to say I think any hands were clean in this, nor that can I make a judgement call on how any who were in my view collateral damage should digest and proceed with what happened.

I do ask that for those involved that if any of the rest here at Blurt mattered at all, that they conduct themselves as yourself and Jeenger have done. With class and dignity, not seeking to destroy everything in a need to settle the score (in double-u's case without the ability to see how he escalated it over time).

I wish to address your comment regarding megadrive.

If that had been the reason, and MD had been subjected to months of attacks as you write, why didn't he address those attacks in his post? Why did he make false claims instead? Surely that doesn't make any sense.

I've said several times here since that time that I now hold the view that among his many talents, handling conflict isn't one of them. I am speculating here, but I believe he hoped as time went on that if he compromised and gave in to what double-u and the mob at the pub were asking that they would at some point be satisfied and he could be free to move on to where his talents shine.

I watched him

• reinstall the Coal list to appease the original notion that VTS was encouraging plagiarism.

• a temporary ban in wallets for delegation to VTS. This was circumvented however when the VTS owners reached out to him seeking to compromise with him and pledged to utilize the Coal system in their belief that this would mitigate the original sentiment against them.

Then came the badge idea which I discussed up above in my previous comment with you. So double-u doesn't wish to spend time clicking to folks profile so he then requests an adjustment on the size when one clicks on the profile without having to leave the page so he can more quickly identify who has this mark.

• The Foundation complies once again, thinking perhaps this will be the final step necessary to get him off their backs and be satisfied with compromise.

As I said, this is all speculation on my part. I project this by putting myself in his shoes to entertain how I would be digesting all of this.

At each step, no compromise is good enough short of just banning VTS. Each compromise given is quickly forgotten and the mob stirred just a little more and the words become just a little more harsh.

Instead of going away, preferably with a thank you for trying to reach compromise in the middle it only got worse for him and a segment of the Blurt community with each one he made.

I say none of this to excuse the final climax. I say it however in the hopes that it can elicit an empathy where none has been asked for. It's important (in my opinion) to understand how all of this looked to him and felt to him as time went on.

He is busy trying to make Blurt better, making connections for Blurt with other applications outside of Blurt, working on not one but two outside projects I'm aware of (Gamestate and Dig) and still trying to maintain a presence here which involves many different personalities, some of which probably take a lot of his time in Discord.

As I said, I say none of this to say that the final response was correct.

I don't believe he is quite the bad person many of you who have had bad interactions with believe.

I see someone who made a bad decision in anger after allowing many things to get under his skin as he compromised and ignored.

I agree I wish he would have been more direct and went into the pub from day one the way I had when all this anti-VTS began and speak out adamantly without pulling punches and said no right from the start. That after his first compromise when it was not enough to have said fine, go cry about it I'm done with this. If you don't like it then leave.

It would have eliminated so much of this collateral damage and anger.

But he didn't. Like all of us have done at times in our lives, he reacted in anger, an anger that was given so much kindling because he didn't just be firm in the beginning and believed he could compromise and be a diplomat when that road held no good destination in hind site.

I'm saying so much here and need to clarify and wrap this up.

I don't defend how things ended. I have every right to be furious over this, because it affected in a secondary way myself very personally as it caused you to be damaged and leave. I stand by my assertion you should not have in any way been a casualty and some of that buildup occurred while you were away from Blurt.

I hated seeing you go. It really damaged my love for Blurt more than I can convey here.

But despite all of that, I put myself in megadrives shoes and I can't be mad at him over this. He reacted wrong, because he reacted in anger. An anger I can well understand.

It's easier for me to see because I've never been the direct recipient of his anger. But I've seen him react with anger a few times now since coming here. I've watched in most cases his eventual self reflection and change of course.

This has done much to me in mitigating my disapproval at times, done much in eliciting compassion for him as I understand how badly my own shit stinks.

In his shoes trying to run a blockchain such as a social one like this, I imagine I might have made many more missteps than he has.

So despite my loss at your leaving, despite my major stepping away to pursue other endeavors and not going to be tied here for the foreseeable future I still wish others could see him and forgive and understand the times he has faltered. I see him try to make amends and hard decisions regarding what he desires and what is best for Blurt.

I'm definitely going to wrap this up as this comment is not how I wish to end this exchange with you. The TL;DR of it all is

Given how badly I've fucked so much up in my life because of hasty decisions and actions made from emotional positions, I make many allowances when I see someone who recognizes and seeks to correct that in themselves as I see him doing.

I have to extend him this compassion because he does work on this.

If I didn't then this would make me a hypocrite as the times I've messed up badly and saw it I desired so strongly for others to have compassion for myself and help me forward.

It's such a rare experience (in my estimation) for others to hold such empathy and compassion for others, when I was very young it made me sad. I was quite bitter for years over it, my bitterness transmuting often to anger which exacerbated so much.

One could say that I was even worse than megadrive for some years. My anger was so great that I not only could see the flaw in my action, but relished the flaw as it added the right tinder to keep that anger smoldering.

I'm grateful to be past that now, and grateful for the kind folks I met in my travels who saw much more inside of me than the angry bitter teen and young man I had become.

There is a saying from the bible I like a lot. It goes something like

stop worrying about the splinter in your neighbors eye and worry instead about the beam in your own.

While I don't see that in black and white it does give me pause in my judgements of others when I contrast my own shortcomings to whatever they have done that offended my programmed sense of self.

This chain lost much when you left. And my view has always been you were an unnecessary casualty. Between your first absence and this, coupled with Freakeao pulling back there have been many times I had no heart in my actions here.

I'll always be grateful for my connection here with you, and insist on believing that through Blurt despite both of our stepping back we will still cross paths here from time to time.

My apologies I rambled on again so much regarding someone who was the catalyst for your leaving. I believe it was important for me to do so in the hopes that you might use my outside view as a tool to perhaps circumvent some of the justified (anger?) disappointment you hold for him and your time you invested here at Blurt. While you have a strong mindset to not allow your feelings to dictate your actions, you have said enough that I can sense the bitterness in you as well over how everything ended.

Thank you again for being my friend. I've found so few in my long life.