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plax
06-20-2014, 07:26 PM
I've kept no secrets concerning how I feel about reckless bird owners unnecessarily subjecting their feathered companions to life-threatening situations. This forum site has lost most of its active members because of my insistence that our staff members actually do -not just say they will do- a few simple things to protect pet birds that may otherwise be placed at serious risk of losing their lives. Unfortunately, I'm fairly convinced that our member engagement here will not recover to what it once was. Despite this likelihood, I will maintain my decision to leave the Precisely Parrots website active and accessible on the Internet. Regretfully, however, the available support for bird owners here may no longer be as plentiful as it likely would have been otherwise :(

As consistent with my inclination to disclose facts about what occurred to hurl our community into its present situation, I have decided to post a pertinent portion of the administrative conversation (between myself and my ex co-administrator). This is a verbatim excerpt, and is the very conversation that progressed into the current relatively stagnant state of Precisely Parrots. The exchange took place on May 9, 2014. My comments within said excerpt were, and continue to be, representative of my sincere thoughts and passions. My communication of those thoughts and passions to my co-administrator, in conjunction with my query to our other staff members about their related feelings, was the seed that escalated into a boycott on thread participation by a sizable group of our active members. And I want to as well emphasize that I have not changed my feelings in the slightest from those expressed on May 9, 2014... nor will I do so. I've said this before and I mean it...I wouldn't hesitate to discard 1000 friends who do not share my level of passion on this matter in order to save just one pet bird from an unnecessary brutal death! Pleasing folks who disagree with me on this issue is not my priority. It never will be. Nor is having a successful pet bird forum site, if it means compromising on desperately needed bird safety protocol!





Oh No!! Why have you started this thread in the Mod section? We already know how they feel about this matter!Because I don't know their personal feelings about the rule or about the reason it was put in place. I only know that some of them said they would comply with the rule. This matter is very upsetting to me! I am one who believes in sharing my deepest feelings about things that I consider very important. I don't feel comfortable about some of our staff members merely telling me "I understand and will do my best", while other staff members (namely D*******) simply blow it off. I want to get their thoughts out in the open on this so I can decide what my course needs to be. I don't want to support a website where negative surprises exist when it comes to protecting birds from vicious attacks! I just won't do that.Tony, we are going to lose all our staff members over this!If the impact is extreme enough, we'll just have to shut down PP :(. Why is it so difficult for everyone to understand that doing our very best to protect birds from attack is vastly more important than personal relationships and having fun on a forum with friends, and certainly than blaming someone for doing something that's the right thing to do but that inconveniences them? Peoples' values in this world are all screwed up! Why am I the only one who feels as intensely as I do on this matter? The priorities of people are just way off!

This whole thing is a huge disappointment to me, Wendy :(. D******* and others may feel that I'm acting in a dictatorial manner. But they fail to grasp the reason for my passion... or perhaps they simply fail to care about it. I'm not sure which. My driving motivation is merely to keep birds from dying... and what do these 'staff members' of ours do? They blame me for taking sorely needed steps which no other bird forum management will take. I consider it a very selfish thing to place one's fun, one's conveniences, and one's socially interactive activities above taking some simple steps to protect birds from being attacked by larger mammals. If these staff folks of ours are hiding a hidden truth and they really don't care that much about this issue, and if they have been saying they will comply with the rule merely to humor me, then I don't want them around anyway. I'm a genuine person who cares more about protecting helpless pet birds from brutal attack than about coddling the forum member relationships of those who don't share my deep sentiments in this regard. I've about had it with these selfish people and their apathy! I would willingly accept all of their collective disdain to save just one bird.

If I can't start a discussion on something that's not only very important to me, but that's hugely important to -and is intended to protect- certain birds owned by careless and/or ignorant people from potentially horrible slayings, then there's no point in my being part of this forum site. I'm sorry Wendy, but this is the worst thing that anyone could do to discourage my spirits about the nobility of our mission . And I might add that I think it's terribly ironic that D******* boasts the 'Nobility Member' title here :(

It just doesn't appear that PP is going to continue to work if we can't have and hold staff members whose priority is doing whatever is necessary to protect defenseless birds from harm :(


EDIT: Also, everyone seems to ignore the fact that this is the only issue I have ever really put my foot down on (except for the matter of staff members speaking behind the backs of folks). I'm very easy to get along with and tend not to bother anyone about anything. I raised one extremely important issue that deserves serious attention and a resolution, and I feel like it's being ignored and that I'm being crucified over it. If I were a dictator type I would make non-stop demands to everyone. But I don't. Why can't these folks appreciate that fact?

jacksmom
06-21-2014, 10:32 AM
I'm sorry, I was on my honeymoon in May...I am really confused. What was the "issue"? To someone who wasn't here, this is about as clear as mud...

jtbirds
06-21-2014, 11:46 AM
Many members avoided a rule about pet bird safety that is held to a high standard here. It can be found here: [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

A few mods at the time and members created issues and plax is trying to clear the water so everyone can see it wasn't him being the bad guy. As the situation was turnt on him. There is a link explaining the whole ordeal, but I cannot find it right now.

plax
06-21-2014, 01:47 PM
Thanks Justin. That link is: [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

jacksmom
06-22-2014, 02:46 PM
I'm sorry, the second link doesn't work on my phone. It's okay, though - I don't need to hear the dirty details. Someone posted a picture, or made a statement that they did something to their birds that violated this rule. Other members sprang to the defense of this person, because they are buddies, or this person posts a lot, whatever...then there was a group leaving.

It kind of threw me off, though - I am one of those insufferable members that leave for extended periods of time, then come back for a few weeks, then leave again. Enough of those kinds of members keeps a forum active...but if we think there is drama on the board - maybe we don't come back for a longer period, or maybe we leave the board altogether. Better we think the board has just fallen on slow times. I could have been happier believing that. ;)

Anyway, I understand, and honestly do understand your need to clear the air, Plax...but this is just you trying to be a good person...and those of us still checking and posting already know this. We don't care what happened. Just tell us how we can help. :) I noticed the picture of the month, so on, has been stopped...maybe there is another way we can play with this forum as it grows again, keep new members active. I noticed back on my last active time in here there was quite the interest in avatars. Do we all have one made? Do we have a nice member who makes them still? I don't have one! :eek:

You see what I'm getting at. And thank you, Plax, for being that upfront...just wanted to share my view of outside perspective....no more "shutting this down posts", you are depressing me...how about "let's work on this now" ideas. :cool: I hope you take this as I meant it, I am sure it is a very sore issue!!!

plax
06-22-2014, 04:17 PM
Thanks for your thoughts, Grace. It was something like what you've speculated upon; however, no defensive behaviors were rendered on behalf of any regular member by any individual or any group of individuals. No regular member was treated harshly. The situation was a matter of noncompliance with our policy on the part of staff members only. The boycott was a reaction from the friends of those staff members. And my efforts in publicly communicating the scenario have not merely been intended to express that I don't believe I'm a bad person. They have been more intended to explain why our thread participation has substantially diminished, and to express the importance of screening for content that's potentially harmful for companion birds, as well as to show that such a screening policy has been a difficult path to follow due to the staff resistance element. I've tried to adequately convey the crucial importance of our bird-harmful content screening policy, and also express that it will be part of Precisely Parrots for as long as we remain active on the Internet. I hope that's somewhat understandable.

The Photo Competitions were originated by one of the ex staff members involved in the conflict. And the monthly organizational tasks related to the Photo Competition events, including the notifications and the prize coordination, were managed by that particular person and her close friends. The only part that I played was to maintain the thread structure and the winners list. As for the signature creators, most of them have gone inactive here. However, Blanca is still logged on most of the time, and she is a spectacular signature image creator! I'm unsure whether she's still willing to create new signatures for our members. You might ask her.

By the way, ShellyBorg is still on staff here. When I last spoke with her she expressed that her absence has been due to her loss of home Internet access. She apparently only has her phone to use now.

Thanks again, Grace!

jtbirds
06-23-2014, 12:05 AM
Thanks for finding that link, for the death of me I could not find it:c.

jacksmom
06-24-2014, 05:46 PM
Awesome, glad to hear Shelly is still around!!! Someone point me to the latest pics of her flock! :)

plax
06-24-2014, 06:34 PM
Awesome, glad to hear Shelly is still around!!! Someone point me to the latest pics of her flock! :)Well, this is her latest acquisition, a CAG named Boomer: [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

Not sure if you've seen him yet.