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You (and others) are probably too busy to read my long message (sorry too many things to say and too little time to prepare a shorter/summarized version) but I'm going to post it anyway just in case somebody wants to read it.

I'm glad somebody answered and finally offered an explanation about what had happened.

I'm sorry you don't like the title of the thread. As I said it was provocative because I wanted to get some answers that were not forthcoming. But to tell you the truth I thought the literary reference to Hamlet (“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”) and the question mark would not be lost on most people. This is a rhetorical device used rather frequently by journalists in headlines when they want to imply that something is not right in a country or organization (people can see other examples here, here, or here).

So, I don't think the title is offensive or inappropriate at all if people take that into account. I added the question mark because I did not want to assert but rather ask whether everything was OK in Moodle. If you are worried about Moodle's image or reputation, I think you should worry more about the decision to shut down the infamous thread and your tacit support of this decision since I think this is more damaging than any title I might have used.

But now that I see your response and Julian's I see that something is indeed rotten (in a figurative sense) in the state of Moodle.

Look, it is very difficult for me to be writing this message. For my work I make intensive use of Moodle (and I love it) and I have received a lot of help and good vibes from many people in the community. Moodle has also become a place where I have made a lot of friends. Actually, some of the people who have been the friendliest and have helped me the most are probably the people that I have made to feel more uncomfortable in all this process. Not only am I very thankful for all this help and friendliness but I'm probably going to continue to need help in the future (and friendliness is always needed).

I'm saying this because I'm not totally sure that things will be the same and all the people will continue to be so friendly (genuinely, not fakely as might be the norm in the brave new Moodle) and helpful if I become some sort of Moodle outcast. And I might become a bit of an outcast if I continue with this message.

You might say that I'm exaggerating but in the past I've talked with some people who have expressed that kind of “fear” and told me they didn't really want to say what they thought for this kind of reason. I told them I thought they were being unduly concerned but now I'm wondering myself. I know for a fact, because I have received private messages telling me so, that there are some people who think that you people have acted wrongly in all this but they don’t want to say it publicly because they are afraid of risking the good relationships they have with others in the community.

You see, this is totally not your fault but many people admire you (well, this is your fault ). There is nothing wrong with admiring someone (I admire you, too) but for some people in the community, the personal admiration for you and for Moodle borders on the cultish. Moodle is indeed a cult LMS like there are cult movies and cult bands. This has its good things and its bad things. You know what I mean: nothing you can do or say can ever be wrong and whoever confronts you or some other chosen prominent moodler or disputes something you say is a troublesome person and not a good moodler and there might be something wrong or dubious with them. This is an extreme view, of course, but I see it happening here to some degree.

You haven't done anything to promote or encourage this, of course, but, to a greater or a lesser degree, it just happens. It’s life. I'm sure you know a bit about sociology and you know how these things are. It is part of so-called group dynamics and very frequent in many types of organizations and social groups.

What I want to say and what I don't find it easy to say is that I think that your message and Julian's message are the confirmation of the disrespectful and patronizing attitude I was criticizing. In your message you are basically telling us: “Look kids, I'm too busy with important things to be wasting my time with all your silliness. You should get busy too and stop with your crap which doesn't interest me. This is what was done by a person who is more sensible than you are and that's that”.

If all this had been said after some kind of expression of apology on your part, it would have been much nicer and less offensive. It is true (at least for myself) that I have wasted too much precious time in all this. But it is also obvious that the decision to shut down the thread has not gone down well with some people and there are some who feel insulted and patronized. So you might have done well considering their feelings as well as the feelings of the people who wanted the thread to stop and disappear from sight. Something coming from you and/or from Julian like "sorry this shouldn’t have happened or it shouldn’t have happened like this", "people make mistakes" and all that, would have been appreciated.

But for me the sad thing is that I don't think you haven't even bothered to see what was really said in that thread (I know, I know, you are too busy with important things and we should get busy, too). So, in spite of the fact that you don't appear to know much about what really went on in that thread, you just take Julian's word and assert “being confronted with free-flowing adult discussion about nazis, sexuality etc can be disturbing. We had complaints, and I can understand that point of view.” Said like this, everything really seems to be fine. The problem is it wasn’t really like this or at least this is a very poor and skewed description of it.

If someone had really bothered to read those exchanges, they could realize that there was nothing disturbing at all. Nazis or sexuality or homosexuality were simply mentioned (Nazis were mentioned only by the people who wanted to shut down the thread). There was nothing explicit at all!! It was practically just the words 'sexuality', 'homosexual', 'bisexual' being used, as in “I have a friend who is a homosexual”, and not much more than that. Nobody described a sexual act of any kind and the language was mostly “academic” and not graphic or explicit at all. If someone finds this disturbing, I really think the problem is theirs. I agree with what Nicole says in her answer to Julian. There have been many other threads (in the Open Social Forum and in the more “technical” forums) where there has been way more hostility than in this thread and they were never shut down. I have found very little hostility and bad feelings in this thread, to tell you the truth. There are way more bad feelings and hostility after the thread has been shut down.

What Julian says (and I quote below) is simply not true:

“Warnings were posted in the thread itself that were ignored. Key members of the thread were also contacted. In the end no other recourse was open so the thread had to be removed from the public view.”

There was no warning as such. Martin Langhoff and Julian himself expressed their opinion (which everybody must have thought was as valuable as the opinion of the other participants) that the discussion should stop. But they didn't say anything about any disturbing topics or about the language being used. They were just extremely patronizing and condescending saying that what we were discussing didn't really interest anybody and that we should take the discussion elsewhere. That's what really annoyed most people and what could be labeled as hostile. I’m really not inclined to end anything with this kind of arrogant attitude.

You sort of add insult to injury by condoning the behavior or your most helpful Moodlers without questioning anything they’ve done (you probably haven’t even bothered to look) and making the rest of us feel really bad when we haven't done anything improper.

I don't know who the key members of the thread were that were contacted but I certainly wasn't. None of the people complaining here seems to have been contacted by anybody except for telling them that the thread had been hidden.

All in all, the big irony in all of this is that a thread that started with the discussion about a teacher that lost her job because one parent complained that his/her child went into a museum where there were nude sculptures ends up being shut down (sorry, moderated) because one person (or two or three) complains.

There, I’ve got it off my chest. I plan to stay in the Moodle community for a long time. Perhaps not intervening in the Open Social Forum so much but I will certainly ask for help if I need it and try to offer it to others if I can (and if *really* helpful moodlers like Helen or many others are not faster than me ). I really hope that what I said about the cultish behavior of some moodlers is just in my imagination. But if it's not, I don’t think I have to worry. The Moodle community is very large and diverse and I will always find plenty of people who will be genuinely friendly with me in spite of having written this letter. I hope that you are one of these people.