Vic - you started building a bridge yesterday of your own volition, choosing your own design. Even though it was very different from everything else rezzed in its surroundings, I decided to encourage you, believing I would see a bridge as extraordinary as your reputation and that would justify my changing the entire quay to accommodate the bridge I would see. That is what I wanted, what I hoped for.
I was unfamiliar with the original that you were modeling your bridge after but the photograph you showed me looked good. Unfortunately, the photograph didn't convey all the architectural elements of the bridge. When I saw the bridge you created in the position you created it for, my first impression was that it looked "too small" somehow. I also was trying to determine how to incorporate it in with the Quay, so I went to Google Street View to see how the original joined up with the land...and also saw immediately why my impression of what you created felt "small" as the original bridge at one time was the largest span in Italy and the proportions of the original are significantly different than what you built... and not in keeping at all with the Tuscan fishing village theme that had been chosen by the RA.
In spite of my own misgivings, I thought I'd see if the bridge would work out - that maybe my own prejudices were coloring my judgment - since the design was much more military and different than what I had envisioned. Other people then remarked that they had wanted a different type of bridge which made me revisit my own decision and I realized I needed to do what was best for the sim and decline your bridge.
I completely acknowledged to you that I understood you had put a lot of time into it. I offered to make good for it out of my own pocket because it was my mistake - I had asked you to proceed. You told me you didn't take money but you did it for the pleasure of it. I said, all I knew to offer was money because I couldn't give you your time back, but if there was another way to make it right, to please tell me what it was.
When it came up in group chat, I gave you permission to post our full IM conversation, including my side, but instead you have cherry picked what you wanted to present to try to make this sound like a political act...instead of entertaining the simple idea that your bridge just wasn't right for the location.
Yes, at this point, I am making decisions for the Locus Amoenus sim. This isn't a position I wanted to be in but it is my responsibility to see it through. As best as I can tell, the reason "the Guild" doesn't like what I am doing is solely because I rejected the Guild's plan to move citizens and I was upset that Rosie and Tor continued to pursue moving citizens, even two weeks beyond after the RA had voted to follow my plan to not move citizens.
I was just going to keep my mouth shut, thinking that was for the good of CDS, but I think the poison of these conversations have become even worse than my just telling the truth.. When I told Rosie that the only non-negotiable was moving citizens, her response was "than what's the point?.. I quit". Since it seems Rosie has continued to spew poison behind closed doors about me, it seems I am in the awkward position of having to defend myself from the "crime" of protecting the citizens of Locus Amoenus. Another thing I had is.. last December, when moving citizens was coming to a head.. there were 16 citizens in Locus Amoenus. Of those 16, 12 were in the path of the Guild's progress and scheduled to be eminent domained out of their parcels. The four that were NOT going to be moved were Tor, Rosie, Cadence and Anti.
All I am trying to do, Vic, is the right thing. Whether you knew it or not, or appreciated it or not, I was protecting you and Garnet as well as everyone else who resided in Locus Amoenus, because it was the right thing to do.
Do you think I enjoyed telling you your bridge was wrong for its location? No, I was sick to my stomach.. but I needed to do the right thing for CDS ...and ... NO, at this point, the re-do of Locus Amoenus it is NOT a democratic process or even the collaboration of creative minds I hoped for.. but it wasn't me that created that situation. I am trying to make the very best of a bad bargain.
My current fear is it doesn't matter how beautiful I strive to make the sim. No one is going to want to live here after they read the poison you and Garnet and everyone else is writing here and elsewhere.
For those who want to see what bridge we are talking about, here is the original history of it from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castelvecchio_Bridge
and here is the Google street view:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Castelve ... 77.15,,0,0