Jed,
It's always good to hear a perspective from a third party, and I appreciate your comments.
I'm quite concerned by your comment about our domain "actively going against the rules". Are you referring to something more serious than a handful of heated comments by two or three domain members?
While I'll be the first to admit that we should all try to follow the rules, I should also be the first to admit that, when we see one officer violating rules and others seeming to support him, people will want to point it out, and will not always be as restrained in doing so as they ought to me.
That doesn't mean it's okay to do such things, and appropriate actions should be taken when they are. I hope our local coordinators are investigating those actions and taking appropriate steps, and if not, I certainly hope you will do so.
However I'm not aware of any more serious violations, nor any rule violations for which fault lies on more that a few individual domain members. If there is some impression that our domain is wildly breaking rules, this is a matter of serious concern for all us.
As for your remark about appeals, you may not be aware, but I attempted to formally raise concerns about some of Alex's decisions (those against the domain as a whole, as opposed to those that were only against Jason, for which I felt I had no standing). Mr. Bailey felt no need to read it before sending me his opinion of it, and chose not to follow the procedures designated in the Membership Handbook for handling it. If there is some procedure to deal with this which I have missed, I would love to see it, but I have attempted to be thorough. I believe most of the over-the-top comments (at least the ones I have made) can be attributed to this failure of internal methods to reach a resolution.
Henry Towsner
US2003112558