billgray.biz ... projects in present time - Its Messy When It Hits The Fan

As you know, I have been an admin at CastleCops for some time. During this last week it all ended when I resigned due to a number of issues.

On reflection, there are a number of reasons why life changes rapidly and these aren't entirely anyones fault but this last week has shown me that despites ones intention to be and do the best, sometimes thats just not where it is at...

A site with 125,000 members is a big site, especially when there is between one and two thousand people on the site at any one time. So how do you manage to keep a site rolling along in a calm and orderly manner.

Paul Laudanski, the site's founder is the man behind the vision that makes Castlecops what it is.

Our Vision

Our Vision for CastleCops is to focus on the community to be a welcoming, enjoyable, and family friendly presence. We encourage the pursuit of education for health in security, privacy and computing via the continuous renewal of open discussions for the benefit of all. We work hard here to create and maintain high standards of civility, empathy, integrity, and respect. Our discussions are inspired by the desire to provide a strong foundation in safe and smart computing. We promote innovation and positive contributions.

Our Vision in Practice

Maintaining the high standards of CastleCops extends beyond the jobs of the founders and the staff. It is to the benefit of every user to learn and share our Vision with us. Keeping our high standards intact means that every user who is inspired by it, begins to practice it in their discussions.

We are convinced that by upholding this Vision, our community creates self-generating success. Keeping this first and foremost in the minds of the staff has established a place for users to interact without fear of ridicule or reproach. Due to the efforts and commitment of the CastleCops founders, staff and members we will always be a family friendly community making a difference.

Every user has an opportunity to become part of our community. The founders and the staff are here to assist all users to develop and grow in support of our Vision. It is the responsibility of the staff to demonstrate this in practice to all users. Everyone is encouraged to read the Acceptable Use Policy for a deeper understanding of putting our Vision into practice.

If people can take on this concept and work within the guidelines the whole world would be better off not just the Castlecops site.

It is interesting that the stresses of the job can cause a downfall in this vision. No one is to blame totally in themselves, but there is a responsibility to yourself to uphold your own values and when you hit against these, it will be your own undoing. Over worked, people show the strains of the job, they don't think straight and they don't put their best foot forward.

For the Castlecops site to continue to grow at this incredible rate, is going to take a change in direction. That has started with my leaving. We are able to grow so much and take our interests to whatever level we consider but when that spark starts to die, then it is better to move on and let the people who are going to take it to the next level get on with it

There have been many comments as to why move on... The best way of explaining this is destiny.

If I was meant to be there now, I still would be. This isn't a sad occasion, more of a growing by all concerned. There will be some creaking as Castlecops takes on the next stage but people will step up and do the job, thats the great thing about human endeavor, they just step up.

So Paul, I wish you all the best in this next stage. As you know, I am moving ahead too. We are all growing because of this, not despite it. There are positives all around