Chicks or No Chicks?

I really had hoped to leave this off my blog, but have decided I can't. Yahoo Knitting Chicks has been in crisis since the weekend, over the kind of group it was going to be. A poll was conducted and frankly, the results were less than stellar. Not even as good a voter turnout as when we have a presidential election, which is usually pretty pitiful, in and of itself.

Nonetheless, Chicks will become an "anything goes" group, with a few, very minimal rules.

Now as groups go, this was a minor "growing pain" kind of crisis. It's a big group, and it's a very active group. One-line and trivial posts should be minimized in such a group because if not, mailbox overload occurs (not to mention member burnout!). Of course, the upshot of the poll caused a flaming post by someone who was guilty of multiple emails, and once the flame was posted the member resigned. Member response to the flame was, not surprisingly, SURPRISED! Some felt the flamer shouldn't have been treated so poorly, others (probably the ones who agreed that there was a problem) either stood up for the moderators or kept silent. Silence as we all know is as damning as nay-saying.

So now, there's a chance that the driving force behind Chicks may well resign, herself. Head Chick Kitt is thinking of bowing out. And if that happens, as the lack of posts tonight are certainly evidence of, the group will probably die. Now I hate to see that happen, because it's a wacky, wonderful, caring group of knitters.

But the weekend was incredibly stressful for Kitt, who has a chronic health problem that is aggravated by stress. She doesn't want people to post to her blog, trying to change her mind.

So here's what I'd like to see...a mass mailing to Knitting Chicks from the membership in support of the moderators. If the group matters, the moderators need to know that one person isn't going to sink the ship.

I'll start it off.