An open letter to the members and former members of the Digital Decimation community.

To all concerned,

This letter is both difficult and relieving to write.  This community has been facing trouble for some time.  Anyone that wants evidence of that, look at our applications page.  For a couple months it went from an active forum to a deserted section containing only a few "stickied" topics and an occasional application.  The odd application usually didn't' have much of a chance, either.  So DD is in trouble and, as leaders, we did nothing.  Finally someone made an honest post and stated their concern and, while I feel the discussion began positively, the forum eventually devolved into an argument and it was made clear to the community that nothing was going to be done.  I failed many times as a leader, but one of my worse failings was to not communicate my intentions at this point.  We were looking into solutions, we were working on ideas.  I failed in that I took for granted that people would just continue to be patient with us.

The thread had devolved into a frustrating mess that I didn't want to be involved in.  I didn't want to post the ideas in that thread, and it didn't' occur to me that I should make a new thread.  I was hesitant to announce to the community "we are working on it" or "here are my ideas!"  I wanted to present solutions.  But alas, life took over.  I went on a 2 week vacation in December and came home to a flooded shop (furnace went out and froze the pipes) and now my house furnace is acting up big time.  DD got put on the back burner as I was forced to deal with personal stuff.

Then, last night, it all came to a head.  A couple people left, then a couple more.  About a half dozen have left, and I'm sure more will.   As the first left, I kept my cool.  I felt bad over what I thought was bad communication, a misunderstanding.  Then the rest left.  All of my css players had just left the community.  You see, you can't have a gaming community without recruits, and you can't have recruits, it seems, without a css server, and you can't have a css server without admins.  All my admins left, so it's time to get rid of the css server and reform DD into something different.  At first, I'm ashamed to say, I was smug.  All of my stress relating to DD was regarding CSS and now that wasn't a problem any more.

But then... the tears came.  As I read the resignations and realized how utterly I had failed my members, I wept.  People were saying mean things.  The remaining DDers were lashing back.  People began to get banned and feelings were starting to get hurt.  In general, people had made tasteful resignation letters, but no matter how friendly a resignation, they still sting.  After the shock wore off, the remaining DDers, myself included, became hurt and angry.  Again, I'm ashamed to say, I went to bed with "good riddance" on my mind.

With the new day, I found my feelings had changed.   As a community, what remains of DD seems bitter and contemptuous.  For as long as DD has been around, we have strived to consider our members as family.  Loyalty and brotherhood are important to DD.  So if I wear a different tag than you (or no tag) am I suddenly a different person?  How can removing a [DD] from in front of your name suddenly change the months/years we've spent together?  The hours of comradery and the vouches and our friendship?  It doesn't.

I know that I failed as a DD member and Leader.  Going forward, I can choose to stubbornly hold onto the faulty principles of pride and ego until they drown me, or I can try to move forward.  I look at this group and, while I know that not all of our personalities get along perfectly, I can't bear the idea of losing any of you as friends.

When Bravo and I left the Dirtycardz community to reform DD, the hardest part was leaving the people that we cared about behind.  I worried about them, and whether or not they felt abandoned or felt like we didn't' care about them.  When I woke up this morning, I thought about the future of DD but found myself worrying about the future of the members who had left and are going to leave.  After all, these are people who we've called brother for so long.  I contacted Tet and asked him about his plans.  I asked him if he was going to start a clan, and he said he was reviving GHB (Gamers Heart Boobies) as a group, not necessarily a clan.  I asked if ex-DDers were going to land on GHB and he said that he expected so.

Back to DD: for the time being, DD is going to have to change.  We will keep the Minecraft, Ventrilo, website and Forums, but will close the CSS server.  The remaining DD members can't provide even a minimal amount of the support needed to keep the server running.  I, and others, don't have the time or interest to build up a recruit base.

Back to GHB: I offered GHB DD's server.  I will remove the admin list, clear the ban log, change the name, rcon, and ftp info and hand it over to Tet.  I've been looking at the list of people that left and it is a list of amazing people who are important to us as friends.  I would never want to hurt any of them or be hurt by any of them.  I don't believe for a minute that either group of people wishes for their to be bad blood.  I had a vision of DDers playing css with GBHers and GBHers playing league, etc with DDers.  Maybe like a sister-clanship.