Board Thread:Support Requests - Community Management/@comment-3312658-20140113021047/@comment-211.27.252.128-20140113081446

Thanks for your reply. Bryn did not expect to have his ban overturned but, as I said, wanted to clear the air. The most important thing is that he has tried to apologise but only the negative has been published. Now he can focus on the forums he belongs to where his humour and input are valued and enjoyed and understood, forums where corrections are made with a firm but gentle hand and communication is straightforward (they do exist).

This is an important lesson for Bryn (and us all) about the trap of the lack of non-verbal communication on the internet. It has descended to offensive comments on Bryn's part but this was never his original intent. Humour is often lost when written because of the lack of non-verbal cues from all parties involved. Add to the mix the different senses of humour people have (individually and culturally) and problems are bound to arise.

I do however wonder why it was necessary to say you are not Bryn's friend. Of course you aren't - he doesn't know you and no knows nothing about you beyond this wiki.Surely you would be an on-line acquaintance at most.

As an outsider to the whole world of the wiki but one who has dealt a lot with public relations and communication, one observation I would make is that some responses by administrators seem to be fairly verbose. Perhaps shorter comments would lessen the chance of misunderstandings in the future. If the communication had been more straightforward in the first place this whole situation would have been avoided and no-one would have been offended. As this is the final comment in this thread please accept it in the spirit in which it is given - simply the hope that this situation will be avoided in the future.