Friday, June 23, 2006

Putting Art Explorations to rest

This is my version of what happened. It is just my opinion and nothing else.

Art Explorations is a Yahoo group started by a wonderful person. She was a very good art friend. I was one of the founding members. I took over as owner since she had various life issues. I had several moderators in the group for swaps, daily stuff, etc...to insure the group ran smoothly. There were 3 moderators in total.

Not too long ago, I wanted to do some other things and wanted to have someone else run the group. I asked one of the moderators but she did not want to be owner. One of the other members did want the job. I eventually made him an owner as well. That was a mistake on my part that I will never make again. It was always my intention to be inactive in the group for awhile to do other things but come back to it at a later time. I had put a lot of work into the group and did not want to lose that.

Time went by and the other owner was pretty inactive in the group. One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I woke up to find out that I had been removed as owner. I got one email from the other owner after he had already removed me as an owner. Two of the moderators and I were changed to members. I was outraged. I sent several emails but never got the courtesy of a reply. The other owner addressed the issue in group posts but not to me. I was also flamed during this time. It was apparent that he had no intention of making me owner again. My files and techniques were deleted and I left the group. Contacting Yahoo was useless and was unable to help me at all.

There was a lot of other stuff in between, but that is my version in a nutshell. It is just my opinion of what I think happened. I am sure that he would have another version.

I was not the only person upset by the whole thing. I could not believe the amount of messages the group posted that weekend. I set up another group, Art Techniques, to give Art Exploration members somewhere to go in case they decided to leave the group. I also gave them some other art related Yahoo groups that they could join. I am happy to say that the membership in Art Techniques has already surpassed the membership in Art Explorations. That says something to me.

In case anyone from the group is reading this, I want to thank you for your support and positive emails to me. I felt very betrayed and outraged that someone would arbitrarily decide to do something like that and completely overhaul the group's message settings and dictate restrictive membership rules. Why take over a group when you could just start your own group? Why take something that was working and dismantle it into something that is totally different. Why not start new? Some people thought it was a power ego trip or jealousy. I don't know and don't care. I think that what was done to me and Art Explorations was a travesty.

I am done with this now and am laying it to rest. I learned a crappy life lesson about other people's character. All the hard work on techniques in that group is gone now. Life kept moving along. I have moved on as well.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You showed alot of grace in handling this. That is one reason so many members followed you to your new site. It is so sad that this happened and so wrong, but we are all behind you. Thanks for not throwing in the towel as you had every right to do.
ackerson

Anonymous said...

I was also very sad about what happened since I've learned so much in that group. I'm really happy with the new group, though, and I think that what we went through just made us appreciate more the kind of group we had. I see a lot of people who had not been active in the old group participating and sharing in the new one. So maybe something really good will come of this. As for me... it made me stop and think about where I really want to go with my art and to me that's a very good thing. Thanks for creating a group for all of us to keep sharing and growing as people and artists... just wish it had not been so painful.

Anonymous said...

The passing of Art Explorations was a sad thing. I arrived home from a long, difficult trip to learn that our group was destroyed by another person's need to control others. I am sorry that you were treated so badly, and I am grateful to you and Sherre for the new group.

Stampcat2 said...

Was there a link posted somewhere for the art technique group? I did a search and could not find one in yahoo.

Sandy