Hi Babak,

I have just finished reading the two posts you made on the forum, that started with 'Dear Sarg'. Thank you for taking the time to explain your perspective in such detail and in such a graceful way - especially after what might have come across as a tirade from me – I appreciate it. I fully understand and appreciate your actions, from your perspective, and that was never an issue for me.
I actually had not seen your post on Lando's 'Conservationist' thread - if I had, I would certainly have responded to it.

I apologise for not being more clear on my intentions over the past few days – I certainly had no desire to have such a situation arise. Indeed, it never crossed my mind that such a situation would.
As for this situation that, I will say from the onset, I believe we can draw a line under, I would like to offer my thoughts once more:
1. The mods force paused the game on speculation, hearsay, and wrong information. This was obviously an error in judgement. Yebellz has admitted as such and apologised - very gracefully, I might add. As such, I think this particular issue is a closed topic - that's just my feeling, others may disagree.
2. However people might justify the proceedings, I did log online last night and feel like I had just arrived at a witch-hunt against my name. I was being accused of intentionally NMRing to make political points and that this was seen by other players as conducive to me being a player of low class, causing outrage. I appreciate that I made comments to some players airing my feelings about ‘leaving’ the site – however, my words have (yet again) been taken out of context. I had not said to anyone that I would leave the site never to return. My talk of ‘leaving’ was to take a break, a hiatus, which would at any rate fit nicely into the Christmas period. My reasons for leaving were not political points against this website- which I think, on the whole, is run very well by a great head moderator in abgemacht (whether or not he calls himself as such or not, it seems clear he is the de facto head moderator) – my reasons were as follows: President Eden and Tom Bombadil leaving to take extended breaks from the site (people I enjoy playing and communicating with); finding out that well-known players like Mr.Crispy have been banned for cheating; the way in which both of these points affected a Gunboat Series that I had created and the ‘conversation’ that developed between participating players as a result; the increasingly high frequency of trolls, cheating accusations, and a certain population whose only pleasure seems to be from causing disruption; the cessation of Ghostmaker’s Ghost Ratings. These were and are my reasons for considering a break and I think are a fair perspective for me to have – however, the only people that I expressed this to were yourself (Babak) and Lando Calrissian. As such, it seems unfair for people to start discussing me openly in the forums when all of the few comments I made on this topic were made in private. This website isn’t Wikileaks so why my status on this website had to become a public issue is still, despite Point 1 being a closed topic, a big concern for me.

3. It was stated on the forum that I had been emailed about this issue and not responded. Yes, I received an email on my Blackberry from the WebDip moderators asking if I was going to enter moves for Babak’s GR World map game. I looked at it and thought ‘how odd’ and thought something else had happened (little did I know) for them to send me such an email and that I would wait til I could log on to the site at home. I received this email at around 1.30am and I logged on at 4am. This meant that the moderators gave me a window period of only an hour or two to respond before they took action, which then confirmed, it seems, in people’s eyes that I was intentionally NMRing – this seems slightly hypocritical considering the fact that we have only just had a very long thread discussion about moderators not replying to player emails in a timely fashion (as per the discussion, not my own personal opinion) so to assume that I should or could respond within a 2 hour time period is unfair and surprising.

4. Unfortunately, I think Point 2 is something that been sorely missed by people like Geofram, who ignored this personal side of the situation, and told me to ‘calm down’ and, implicitly, to shut up. To be patronised in this way by someone I had deemed to have a good rapport with and, more important, a site moderator was unfair and wholly unexpected – and it did nothing to help the situation. I was then told I needed to ‘see things from his perspective’, despite my side not being defended or taken up by anyone in the public forum. In those moments, I was being misrepresented as trying to reverse the witch-hunt and turn it onto the mods – that was not my intention, they do a good and difficult job. My ‘disgust’, as I vehemently put it, was at the way my name had been bandied about from private message to public forum with a lack of regard for me as individual. Without wanting to be didactic, I think there is a lesson here – all it needed for him to say last night was ‘I understand your concerns, Sarg.’

4. However, I appreciate that the way I conducted myself was less than graceful and for this I apologise. I also apologise for making it seem like I might NMR in the GR World Map game. This was not my intention.

To explain, I had actually been out all day in meetings for my PhD and then on a trip to an exhibition. After that, we went for dinner and out for a few drinks –which was unplanned. I have been playing almost a year and have a 0% resign rate and, what I hope, is a good standing with my WebDip peers as a sportsmanlike member. Even if I was considering a break from the site, I would in no way try and settle some petty score by intentionally NMRing and ruining someone else’s game. Especially not after having my Gunboat Series ruined and cancelled. I did of course intend to enter moves and, as my neighbours on that map can attest, I maintained a healthy dialogue with all of them. I’m sorry that my spontaneity yesterday evening got in the way of me entering moves for a game but I’m really not sure it warranted the drama that ensued. However, after coming back from such a day/evening, fuelled with a few drinks, I did not approach the public conversation about me in the best of ways and for this I want to apologise a second time. I rarely handle myself in that way. Despite that, the sentiments I was airing were, in some part, a valid reaction to what I was welcomed to as I logged on to enter moves for a friendly game of Diplomacy.

I hope this letter goes some way to repairing the fractures brought to the fore in last night’s discussion. I come to this website because I enjoy playing Diplomacy, I enjoy the games and discussion with fellow players, and the healthy debates on the forum. My only wish is for that to continue, for me and for everyone.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Sargmacher