RE: The WOX Travel Contest will no longer be held
Dear @o1eh - Your contest, your decision! No one should attack you for it - and it seems to me that almost no one has done so.
As for your reasons (which, by the way, you can and should explain here - that is my understanding of openness here on the platform): they are very understandable.
I have all along admired the Steem, the Steemians, for continuing to deal with each other in an amicable, fair, straightforward and non-hostile manner. No matter where they are from. No matter what their country's troubles are at the moment. No matter what one nation is imposing on the other....
This is not a place for fighting, this is a place for talking. Information is exchanged, sympathies are created and connections are forged. I also see examples where it doesn't happen like that, no question. But these seem to me to be exceptions that are due to deep and understandable bitterness.
Ukrainians and Russians can coexist here just fine. So can the Chinese and Taiwanese, by the way, if I'm following this correctly. This is a kind of neutral zone. It can remain so, it should remain so.
Whether you organise a contest or not: forget it. But don't stop talking to each other! Don't stop respecting each other. Listen to the part of your mind that tells you: only in this way, really only in this way, will this war come to an end - in conversation. You are demonstrating here how this can be done.
Lieber @o1eh - Dein Wettbewerb, Deine Entscheidung! Niemand sollte Dich deswegen angreifen - und mir scheint, das hat auch fast keiner getan.
Was Deine Gründe angeht (die Du im übrigen sehr wohl hier darlegen kannst und sollst - so entspricht es meinem Verständnis von Offenheit hier auf der Plattform): die sind sehr verständlich.
Ich habe die ganze Zeit den Steem, die Steemianer, dafür bewundert, daß sie weiterhin freundschaftlich, fair, geradlinig und nicht feindselig miteinander umgehen. Egal, woher sie kommen. Egal, was ihr Land gerade für Schwierigkeiten hat. Egal, was die eine Nation der anderen gerade zumutet...
Hier wird nicht gekämpft, hier wird miteinander geredet. Hier werden Informationen ausgetauscht, Sympathien entstehen und Verbindungen werden geknüpft. Ich sehe auch Beispiele, wo es nicht so abläuft, keine Frage. Das scheinen mir aber Ausnahmen zu sein, die tiefer und verständlicher Verbitterung geschuldet sind.
Ukrainer und Russen können hier prima koexistieren. Chinesen und Taiwanesen übrigens auch, wenn ich das richtig verfolge. Hier ist eine Art neutrale Zone. Sie kann es bleiben, sie sollte es bleiben.
Ob Du einen Wettbewerb veranstaltest oder nicht: geschenkt. Aber hört nicht auf, miteinander zu reden! Hört nicht auf, Euch zu respektieren. Hört auf den Teil des Verstands, der Euch sagt: nur so, wirklich nur so, wird dieser Krieg ein Ende finden - im Gespräch. Ihr macht hier vor, wie das gelingen kann.
It is precisely because of the fact that I am trying to remain open that I explained the reasons for the termination of the contest. Now I regret it a little, maybe it would have been better to quietly go into the shadows. Most of them took it as the fact that I am putting everyone in one row without exception. In fact, it is not. I would be happy to communicate with those russians who would clearly explain their negative attitude towards the war. But no one does this.
Some of my decisions and statements are dictated by the emotional state I had at the time of writing the post. Recently, a rocket hit a house in Lviv, which I passed by every day for five years. There, people I knew died in their beds in the middle of the night. Then the rocket hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih. Tomorrow a rocket will hit somewhere again and someone will die. Dead soldiers are brought to our city every day. The city is small, so familiar names often come across. Emotions often take over.
Many people sympathized with my decision, but most silently condemned it. Of course, it's better to keep my emotions to myself, but I don't always manage to do that.
If you look at the content in the Ukrainian community, you can see that the war is often mentioned there. antorv presented her new book in Odessa, but was forced to flee from an attack by drones. strecoza lives in Kryvyi Rih, so the rocket attack affected people she knows. One may get the impression that Ukrainians are constantly trying to evoke sympathy. I think many people are tired of it. But we just write about our everyday experiences. So I think it's better for us to stay with our content in our local community.
It is very difficult now. If russian society would at least show a little bit that they are against the extermination of Ukrainians. Are they afraid? Not a single russian on the platform during the year and a half of the war addressed any of the Ukrainians privately in Discord or Telegram and said that he was against murder and violence. This is disappointing.
However, I am happy to communicate with the rest of the world.
I don't think you should dive into your local community.... Again, of course, it's your decision alone.
I sometimes follow posts in the Ukrainian community - of course it is a bit more time-consuming, sometimes actually less relevant for me. But I am aware that you are all affected by what is happening in your country. And many other people on the Steem too, of course. But what can they say to alleviate your situation...? If we are honest: nothing. So that's probably why they keep quiet...
Are you in contact with @gor671? We miss him, he probably also lives in a disputed area... I hope he is doing reasonably well!
@o1eh - this war will end. Not thanks to you or me, not thanks to Europe or the US, not thanks to sudden Russian insights... But it will end. Then it will be important how you got through the hard time yourself: full of hate or full of hope ;-))
No, unfortunately he never joined our Telegram chat, so I don't have his contacts. I don't know why he stopped being active.
You are probably right. But under the current conditions, I cannot pretend that nothing is happening, smile and give prizes to participants from Russia. So I removed this inconvenience from my activity on Steemit. However, it was necessary to do it without explaining the reasons, because now many people think that I drink coffee from the skulls of Russians and eat their babies :)
In general, I think nothing will change in my activity on Steemit, only there will be no contests. But there will be more comments. This is how I plan to interact with authors as a moderator.