Goodbye

[mborg10]

I hope Logan will be back. I met him a couple of years back at the Sydney mini and although from NZ, he was just another nice guy doing nice things for the community and celebrating Christmas with a lightshow. I know his sequence to what does the fox say got a bunch of views on YouTube and I hope once the dust settles that Logan will be back on board.

Auschristmaslighting where everyone is welcome

 

[logandc99]

Ok, so I swore to myself that I would not look at the replies to my post but, well there you go, its a new day.
The reason I am replying is that 1) I thought I would more calmly explain my reaction and 2) I don’t really want this to create ill will in the community as obviously there will be different interpretations of my post. I see I missed one or more responses (from the comment about the thread being moderated) and probably just as well ??? .
I am not French and do not personally know anyone who was injured or killed in the recent tragedy in Paris but it did have quite an impact on me. I realise there are bombs and guns going off all over the world all the time and we often shrug them off and move on but this recent attack really hit home how this sort of thing can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime and I know this feeling would be particularly true for Australians after the siege in Sydney and obviously the Americans after several incidents over the years.
Over reaction on my part to comments about the megatree pics?… so it was only a miniscule gesture on my part but a gesture of goodwill nonetheless. I won’t go into the details any further about what was said but needless to say that the first three comments on the xlights/nutcracker facebook group from two individuals were without a doubt (and I do not believe open to interpretation) intended to be derisive of my gesture of support and were entirely unnecessary, particularly given the circumstances of the recent event in Paris. (I don’t know the true definition of cyber bullying but I assume putting someone down publically over a positive gesture might possibly qualify?).But I did shrug that off and posted my pic under the support for Paris thread, only again to be met with what certainly appeared to me to be another negative comment - but i'll leave that your interpretation. Disappointed? I was , which I showed in my reply but others were positive and again I tried to shrug it off. Now only the person who started the comments about flag colours in chat as soon as I logged in can truly say what the intention of that was but, yes, I took offence and I guess four hits in one day over what was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill had made the skin somewhat thin. (and I am not referring to Alan as the person as we have conversed over email and I realise he was trying to steer the topic away in a different direction, so thank you).
This hobby plays a significant role in all our lives, not just because of the time and financial commitments , but primarily because of the immense pleasure we get from bringing smiles to so many faces at Christmas time. This is also the time of year when we are probably at our peak stress levels hoping that everything will come together on Dec 1st (or whenever your start day is). Without a doubt the people on this site are pleasant, helpful and encouraging which makes this Christmas lighting site standout from some others. All I suggest is that negative comments about positive gestures are probably not really necessary - were it just a go at me, well, it’s still several negative shots at a hobby that is important to me but, ok, you could say toughen up and move on (several times). But it was really the circumstances around which the gesture was made in the first place (the tragedy in Paris) that made the negativity seem so much harder to fathom and shrug off.
Someone in an earlier post above voted to lock this thread closed – probably a good idea.
Merry Christmas to all.

P.S. Forgot to say thanks for the comments above.

 

[mborg10]

Hopefully you stick around Logan. You can't shake the CLAP once you have it. And we all have it bad.

 

[jediknight2]

Stick around man it's obvious that you would be missed.

 

[multicast]

+1. nice to see you back

 

[Gilrock]

So I took the claim about the xLights group serious. Partly cause I was worried it might have been me. I accidentally upset people all the time and heck I've even gotten upset at my own friend and left the group and then came back in a few days after I let it settle and my old brain forgot about it. So it happens. When I first read this I sent a copy of the post to the two main moderators for the xLights FB group and they didn't remember seeing anything to know what you were talking about. I went back and did a search today and I finally found what you're talking about. I have a screenshot of everything that was said. I can see why people would be upset from both sides. Someone initially just pointed out they thought you posted a flag from the wrong country. Then you reacted which caused someone else to chime in. I can see why you were upset cause you were just trying to show a good gesture. I see you quit the group so now you won't hear a lot of the tips I give on there unfortunately. Hopefully things will settle down and you will rejoin. You know sometimes I don't like what someone says about something I post so I just delete the post and it deletes their comments. By the way I'm not a moderator on that group but I'll let them know about it.