why cant i ignore moderators ?

It's all good... And seriously wow... "police states" I wouldn't mind being on one of them.... If I am on the side of power that is.... Then again, if I wasn't in conditions like that it would be easy as pish to raise a coup d'etat.
 
Thanx Tao,

This is valuable information, for those that are new, and those that have been here a while.

This is the kind of discussion that can help us move forward.

Tao, I want to second Wil in thanking you for your blunt honesty in your input- both about your own behavior and how moderator actions can be perceived by people moderated. It helps a ton.

There is currently a moderator board where we can discuss actions. I think there may be confusion over how this system works. When a member (any member, not just a mod) "reports" a post, we all get an email that a post was reported. We can then see the post and the remarks that whoever reported it made as to the request for moderation. Then we can discuss with whatever moderators happen to be around at the time- usually this is 2-4 people that are around. Then we can make a decision, but only one person sends the PM and actually takes the action.

Much of the moderating actions I have seen come as a result of the reporting system. So in a way, other non-mod members act as moderators as well, alerting us when they feel the CoC has been broken. If you think about it, all members act as cops on the beat, the CoC is the law, and mods are judges. The goal is civil conversation.

It's the best system Brian has come up with so far, but of course, like any system it has its flaws and always will. We are currently discussing potential changes that may improve things, but it takes time to do this and I hope that people can be patient.

I have never been knowingly moderated by either of you and I would trust that if you were consulted on any issue regarding my posting you would both be as open and honest as you both are in the public forum and I would expect and respect your deliberations to be fair and even handed.

The only people who have moderated me are Luna, Bruce someone and Brian.
Looking at Luna's action I can understand she felt justified and was acting appropriately given the content of the complaint. At the time I was pushing and pushing on the limits of the acceptable on this forum. So I have no ill will or grudge.
Brian appealed to me with a friendly demeanour on a number of occasions to tone it down a bit and I replied to him with all sincerity that I would try. But then we have the best laid plans of mice and men to contend with, and I have never been good at holding my tongue.
I still feel that nothing I said was deserving of a ban and I believe that banning permanently is draconian. Uncivilised. A worse offence than any used to merit it. To me it is fascist censorship, book burning and exemplifies my harshest criticisms of organised religion. It is the kind of thing Rome does. It is in absolute opposition to the term "inter".

Which takes us to the news that Cyberpi and Bandit have been banned.

Some of you may not be fully aware that shortly after I was banned Cyberpi visited me here in Edinburgh and we travelled together and met with Brian in his home town. Cyberpi's attitude and approach to his disagreement with Brian showed hints of obsession that had I been Brian I would have found scary. Cyberpi to me seemed to have difficulty distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and I only went on that trip to use any influence I might have in making sure no boundaries were breached. At the end of the meeting, in which I hardly got an opportunity to talk to Brian, I knew no fences had been mended between the two of them. Cyberpi came back with his dogged single-mindedness to pursue only a single subject and I knew Brian would end up banning him.
I know a few of you have met Cyberpi and will be aware of his uncompromising air. I had him as a guest for 3 days and enjoyed them, he even polished off a bottle of malt with me, said the right things about my cooking and was a respectful guest all round. But it took that 3 days and my experience to see that in him. He is still weird, he is American though so he has an excuse :p But Brian has let Cyberpi irritate and intimidate him. Cyberpi could never do that to me. And I see Cyberpi's banning as weakness not strength. We all have the power to ignore posts we do not want to respond to.

As for Bandit I found the accusations against him unfounded. Bandit has come a long way since I first read his posts. If this place is not for and can not tolerate people undergoing profound changes in their approach to belief then what is its purpose? If this place does not exist for the likes of Bandit then again I cannot see how it can hold claim to be inter anything. If you tell someone to shut up then you have to be prepared to be told where to go. It may not be the rules here but it is the rules of life.

I am thoroughly dissapointed we are seeing a resumption of bannings. I had hoped we had grown beyond that.
 
I don't see it as censorship at all - merely an editorial decision in the same way that offline publishers don't publish any random material that comes their way.

The internet is a big place - if they desperately want their opinion to be heard, they can publish elsewhere online.

Censorship in my view is when a state or organisation tries to prevent a particular social/philosophical/faith/scientific viewpoint from being expressed.

I don't see that happening at all here - just a couple of people who felt they had nothing better to do than visit this website just to say how crap it is in their opinion.

I made it plain in public view that this behaviour was not going to be tolerated further, but this was ignored.

Being a member of this website is not a right, it's a choice - to be part of an interfaith community or not. When people make it clear they have no interest in being a part of that, it's time for them to move on.

No banning here has ever proved permanent historically, but under the circumstances, it appeared that the only way to move the community forward at the time was to suspend the members in question for the time being.
 
I do not doubt for a moment that your only concern is a site where people are happy to come and respect your view that constant monologues from people who appear to dislike the site add nothing. It is a great site in my opinion. One I am happy to be a part of.

You are chief editor and are entitled to make the editorial decisions you want to. But no editor finds all the journalists happy with his editorial style. There are some things we all have to put up with.

I can respect your decisions without agreeing with them. I never met with you to attempt to have the ban on me lifted. I think you know that. But I am happy it was lifted, I value this place and its contributors and just reading was not as enjoyable as being active. On a personal level we do have to accept that there are rules here and the warnings are given as due process. Each of us decides whether to get banned or not.

I am happy that you hint there will be no permanent bans. I have no issue with temporary ones.
 
I think one of the big issues is that this is an interfaith community/site. So its purpose is to discuss faith, religion, and society perhaps more broadly. Its purpose is not to foster constant monologues about the site itself. I think that is why such is disruptive to me to the workings of the site. It isn't that criticism is a problem, but that when it is the only thing someone has to offer, one wonders why they wish to be part of an interfaith community. Why not just start a blog? The answer is of course the ready-made audience, which is why I see such actions as lazy and unproductive for the site itself. Websites are owned by someone and the owner is not obligated to be a platform for every person's purpose. Each website has its own purpose and if someone needs one, they are there to be had for free.

As for temporary vs. permanent bans... most permanent bans are handed out for spammers. There is no reason to temporary ban a poster who is just trolling forums for customers. That is not censorship but rather just cutting down on irrelevant noise. Censorship, I would think, is when someone's view, belief, etc. is silenced despite playing by the rules.

Personally, I have no problem with having rules against prosyletizing, self-promotion (i.e. advertising), and attacking people. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. I would have no desire to be a part of a community where you have to wade through a ton of ads, spam, and uncivil attacks to get any sort of decent debate or conversation. The reason I'm here is because Brian's rules don't put up with that sort of thing, which makes the conversation of a higher quality, in my opinion, and more like an academic discourse than rude and pointless biting at one another.

Anyone may set up a website for free on the internet and voice any idea they have. As I understand it, the Interfaith site functions as more than just a place to voice one's ideas and have conversation. It has a purpose to provide views and ideas from the spectrum of religious thought in the world, and in a way we are all writing an ongoing journal on religion.

And Tao, to answer your own concerns more specifically, I have been involved a few times in putting comments forth on posts that would be considered "personal attacks." There were a few times I weighed in that you had pushed the limit a bit too far and needed a warning. I just never was the person that did the PM. I wasn't around when you were banned last time so I don't know what was going on. Due to my work schedule and at times just getting tired of moderating, I tend to take long sabbaticals when I can't deal with it.
 
personally, I think some of those that become moderators change. It usually takes awhile for the mod hat to get old and they revert back to normal people. I think the only one that I like more as a moderator is wil because hes not quite as obnoxious as he was pre-moderator (sorry wil ;))

I love bandit I consider him one of my favorite people here because Ive known him for so long and I know how sweet he is and how much he loves Jesus Christ and like me he believes the word of God is literal.. even though we dont agree on everything we still have those things. We formed a bond right off the bat and it grew from there. I have to say that I am very glad Im not on his s**t list because hes a pitbull when hes upset.

I tend to work through my issues with people and then I find that I learn something valuable from each of them...

wil,luna,taos, alex, Q, pathless, francis king, mee, BB, dauer, chinacat Im sure there are more but these are the ones that are topmost on my mind. I consider most of these people my friends now.. or at least on a friendlier basis. Thank you all for being who you are because I believe that God puts people in our life for a reason because we are here to learn as much as we can so we grow to be better people.
 
personally, I think some of those that become moderators change. It usually takes awhile for the mod hat to get old and they revert back to normal people. I think the only one that I like more as a moderator is wil because hes not quite as obnoxious as he was pre-moderator (sorry wil ;))
Namaste and de nada dahling,

Yes you all intentionally tethered me by making me moderator and acting more responsibly.

Frankly as Q mentions about his uniform and his service, reality to me is the moderator hat can't ever come off. Sure most of the time we are not acting as moderators, but in reality our words, our posts, our tenor regardless implicate all moderators and this site...

And FaithfulServant....I have a soft spot in my head (and heart) for you as well (and Dor) as we've bumped it so often....
 
And Tao, to answer your own concerns more specifically, I have been involved a few times in putting comments forth on posts that would be considered "personal attacks." There were a few times I weighed in that you had pushed the limit a bit too far and needed a warning.
Well I'd love to promise you that you will never have to do that on my account again, but I will not make you a promise I might not keep :p
 
I only ever had a problem with two moderators: Q and Bruce. Q rubbed me the wrong way right off the bat and I decided to retaliate and teach him a little lesson about the limits of authority. Bruce, in my opinion, was just looking for something to do since he never posts anything and his board is dead. Q and I have reached an understanding. Bruce, in my opinion, is just a douche bag.

Chris
 
Bruce, in my opinion, is just a douche bag.

Bruce was an absolute asset to the site - he was one of the first ever moderators here, and few ever worked so hard to be a considered caretaker for the site. The amount of spam he removed before it could disrupt the conversations is unreal. It was Bruce who stood on watch when we were targeted by a Belgian Nazi a few years back, who tried to flood the board with crud.

Bruce always sought to keep everything level and civil, and so far as I'm aware, never banned any regular members, nor tried to push any sort of personal agenda here. He just tried to keep to the spirit of the CoC and call out personal attacks and expletives as they came up.

Bruce left the team a few months back - he's still listed as a moderator out of respect, but the real world called him onwards, and he goes with my sincere best wishes and thoughts.
 
Sorry *** is a moderator/admin and you are not allowed to ignore him or her.

another example of the class system at interfaith in action :(

its seems that moderators have a free soapbox on which to exercise their already massive egos. sorry mods as you are not all bad. Out of principle I can not enter into dialogue with known moderators :eek:
 
another example of the class system at interfaith in action :(

Um, this isn't a country, it's a website. :)

its seems that moderators have a free soapbox on which to exercise their already massive egos. sorry mods as you are not all bad. Out of principle I can not enter into dialogue with known moderators :eek:

Everyone has a free soapbox here, and as before, no one gets banned for disagreeing with a mod or myself on general discussion issues of faith or politics.

However, it's entirely your prerogative to enter into dialogue with whomever you want to on the forums. :)
 
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