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I want to again thank all of those Monkeelanders who have expressed their well wishes to Mare and to the new DJ moderator team. Sally and Ray, I have to say that I am personally very upset by your reactions to the news of the change in moderators. I have been a member of Monkeeland for 2 years now, and I have never found this board to be a matter of "us vs. them" in terms of members vs. board admins & mods, which is I believe what both of you are suggesting in some of your posts as well as in some private communications which have been shared with me by other mods. I have generally found that many of the mods and admins are very active and friendly members here and have been involved in many interesting and enjoyable Monkeeland discussions with other members. I dont even see a distinction on the board between the mods & admins and the rest of the Monkeelanders here except that it has always been comforting to me to know whom to turn to if I needed advice about board-related questions and on those occasions when they have needed to step in to help resolve board disputes that seemed to be getting away from the intention of keeping Monkeeland a friendly and welcoming place.

I fear that your reactions to the moderator change are also less than friendly, and I have to say that this hurts me on a personal level, because I have always counted both of you among my friends on the board, and I had hoped that you would both be more supportive in your comments. It also hurts me as a member of Monkeeland who truly cares about ML and has always found it a safe and fun place to hang out and been genuinely impressed by the usually supportive nature of Monkeelanders toward one another. I know that you have both been recipients of as well as participants in that type of support. Monkeeland is usually the place that I come to to escape from some of the stresses of real life, but over the past couple of days this issue of your attitude towards the moderator change has climbed to the top of the stress factor list in my life. I havent even been able to enjoy or participate in many board discussions or even to read fan fiction, because I have been spending almost all of my online time trying to figure out, together with my co-mods and other ML mods & admins, how to resolve this issue peacefully and with a minimum of hurt feelings (some of the damage has already been done, Im afraid). Im also deeply disappointed in your comments here because I thought that both of you would have the maturity to accept the changes in the board with grace, respect the decisions of Mare, Lucy, and the rest of the ML administration and moderator staff, and to move on easily and welcomingly.

I felt quite honored when I was offered a position as co-moderator of the DJ forum here at ML, but I thought long and hard before deciding to accept it. I worried about how much time being a mod would take up, I worried that taking on the responsibility of moderating would make coming to Monkeeland more of an obligation and less of just a fun way to spend my free time, and yes, I even worried that there would be times when problem issues on the board would make Monkeeland no fun at all. But I never dreamed that one of those problem times would come quite so soon or be directly related to the moderator change itself! I discussed my concerns with several of the mods and admins here, as well as with my husband and children before deciding to go ahead and accept, and I was assured of support and encouragement from all of them, no matter what I decided to do.

Ultimately I accepted the co-mod position, because I thought (naively, it seems) that I had good enough people skills as well as a good enough relationship with most of the people who post here at ML to be able to deal peacefully with any issues that might arise in the forum. I am very glad to be working with co-moderators and do not think that I would have accepted the position if my two current co-mods had not already been presented to me as potential members of the moderating team. The idea that I would be working together with Tammy, who has had previous experience as a co-mod in the General Music Discussion forum as well as Jen, whose perceptive posts I have always admired, was very comforting to me. And indeed we are all trying very hard to resolve together this first issue which has been thrown our way so soon.

So Im asking anyone here who has doubts or concerns about the wisdom of the appointment of the new DJ mod staff to please just give us a chance. Please lets try to maintain Monkeeland as the friendly place that most of us have always felt it to be. Lets not spoil it with snide comments and petty squabbles. I just want things to go back to normal so I can start enjoying Monkeeland again.