I’m a strong believer in free speech and I agree that everyone is entitled to offer his or her own passionate opinion. It was very disheartening though, when some of the opinions included personal attacks on fellow forum members, on individual schedulers and even on a company owner.
I also took exception with some of the inflammatory language used, such as “stuffing the ballot box”. I will admit that I was initially influenced by those making this accusation, however the more I thought about, the more I realized that this was not the case at all. According to "The Free Dictionary", the idiom, “stuffing the ballot box” means “to fill a ballot box with illegal votes or with more votes than the number of actual voters.” This was not the case. If the terms “campaigning” or “spreading the word” were used instead, I would agree that that was being done and would (and do) heartily endorse it.
In my opinion, LJ’s analogy, above, perfectly describes my feelings about the handful of members who chose not to actively participate in the contest, but chose, instead, to stand on the sidelines and criticize. I’m still trying to fathom how
that positively contributed to the contest.
It would be nice if we could all let go of this experience and spend our energy celebrating the winner and runner-ups as well as all the schedulers, who were recognized.
(heart)
I intend to live forever. So far, so good.