Faith Healing Discussion

[Lily]

I am no longer on the team.

What a tremendous loss. I think my heart is broken.

But if it's what's best for you Kim, you know we would all support you all the way. I most certainly would, I guess I shouldn't speak for others, but I know how much you are valued for so many reasons.

You give so much, and you still can, because I know it's what you love to do and it's such a part of who you are , but perhaps you will also have a little more energy to give to yourself, which would do my heart good.

Just please oh please, don't say you're leaving altogether. Plllllleeeeaaaasssssse no :tear:

I'm having such a difficult time myself with all this.............sorry, I cannot ignore it. Too many people are affected.


Lily

 

[flybro]

What a huge loss.

Kim you have my admiration and respect.

I will miss your effective organsing and gentle mediations.

Now yr not a boss, i'l stop shooting at ya.

Hugs @ ya

 

[Cort]

Nobody likes how this has gone. We're all volunteers - sometimes with strong opinions. We're reviewing how this has gone. It hasn't been one of our shining moments that's for sure.

 

[Navid]

kim no longer a moderator.....madness reigns

I am no longer on the team.

this is a travesty. kim was one of the best moderators. she contributes so much time, energy, intellect and tons of great ideas.

i can't believe this board will accept the loss of kim as a moderator when there are clearly two moderators who are biased and inflammatory in many, many of their postings.

each and every time i have seen these 2 moderators become involved in controversial threads,:Retro mad: emotions have just gotten more heated...here we see it again.

who is in charge of this ship.

cort if it's you ...i advise you take a close look at who has the power of moderating and how they yield this power. the integrity of this board appears to be in jeopardy.

kim i am so sorry to see you give in to this madness but completely understand....thank you for all the wonderful contributions you have made as a member of the team.

 

[Jody]

There is far more to this than members are aware of.

We are not free to discuss private matters of the mod / admin team.

 

[Navid]

Nobody likes how this has gone. We're all volunteers - sometimes with strong opinions.

well that's the problem right there..moderators should not be expressing strong opinions when moderating. they should be prevailing with calm cool and collected reactions...you need to look at who has the strong opinions and the need to express them when moderating....and alas there you have your issue.

 

[_Kim_]

Just please oh please, don't say you're leaving altogether. Plllllleeeeaaaasssssse no :tear:

I'm having such a difficult time myself with all this.............sorry, I cannot ignore it. Too many people are affected.


Lily

I am not going to leave the forums.

 

[gracenote]

I am not going to leave the forums.

That is so great to hear. Thank you Kim. This place would not be the same without you.

 

[Advocate]

Nobody likes how this has gone. We're all volunteers - sometimes with strong opinions. We're reviewing how this has gone. It hasn't been one of our shining moments that's for sure.

When you are reviewing this, I hope you will discuss the belief expressed by a couple of the moderators (not Kim) that it's okay for them to wear two hats.

The problem with this two-hat notion is that a moderator will remove the hat to express a strong personal belief, and if someone challenges the belief the hat quickly goes back on and BAM, the challenger receives a threat--often in large red type.

Forum members have sometimes said that they feel humiliated by this. Overall, it has a chilling effect on discussion.

 

[Cort]

We we're working how to deal with issues like two IP addresses and similar problems; in the future when administrative problems like this occur they will be notified first and informed of the rules and hopefully that will take care of everything. I recognize that alot of people don't know the rules and these are innocent mistakes.

I hear what you said about the bold red type.

 

[Samuel]

Kim,

I don't know what to say. I am sorry to find out that you are no longer moderating.

Samuel

 

[julius]

this is a travesty. kim was one of the best moderators

I agree

each and every time i have seen these 2 moderators become involved in controversial threads,:Retro mad: emotions have just gotten more heated...here we see it again.

For what it's worth, I have felt reservations about these two since before this kerfuffle started.

 

[starryeyes]

I am very sad. I was just thinking to myself that this is about the time that people often start to have problems on forums and now it's happening.

I'm really sorry to see Kim step down as admin. You were such an awesome admin Kim! You worked very hard here every day and have helped make Phoenix Rising the special place that it is and you've brought us together more as a family and you kept the forum running behind the scenes. I'm glad you're going to stay as a Member.

It's sad that things have gotten carried away to this point. I hope everyone will take a step back and take a deep breath and think about what we all can do differently in the future to get along better and get back to being a great support forum for ourselves and for each other. (((((Group Hug))))))

 

[leelaplay]

I am not going to leave the forums.

I am so happy to hear this Kim.

 

[busybee]

Thank you for staying around Kim

Cheers Free

 

[shiso]

Kim, I was just composing a post thanking you for your earlier post. So glad and relieved to hear you are not leaving the forum!! (phew)

I for one was grateful (as evidently others were) that you addressed (1) the implications of posting about a faith healing in the Treatment section of this forum; and (2) a discomfort with moderators rather strongly expressing their personal religious views at the same time "moderating" conflicting views on an inherently charged topic like faith healing (e.g. in the thread containing the original faith healing story, a moderator implicitly tried to dissuade a member from expressing his skepticism about faith healing from commenting further on the thread, though it didn't work).

I'm sure I underestimate how hard and time consuming it must be to moderate. As others in this thread have already expressed more succinctly, however, a problem arises when a moderator expresses a position on an issue as an individual, but then reappears in the same discussion as a moderator and "moderates" implicitly or explicitly, against conflicting points of view. It's a conflict of interest. I think moderators should be given as much leeway as possible given how tricky some issues are to navigate and that the line between expressing strongly held personal beliefs and moderation may be a fine one at times, but most can see a conflict of interest when one exists, and that is the key concern. I hope this concern can be considered as constructively and objectively as possible.

And to Cort, Jody and other members of the forum team: for the record, Kim's post did nothing to undermine my respect for each of you and appreciation for your hard work running this forum, as volunteers and despite suffering from this disease yourselves, and I doubt it did for others - especially since on a topic like this, no one person's views is likely to exactly match another's.

 

[Min]

I am truly sorry that Kim has left as a moderator, she really was 'moderate'.

Kim was certainly not the one who felt free to blatantly use the board and position as moderator in order to witness fundamentalist religious beliefs and then attempt to silence those who objected.

 

[Jody]

Kim was not a moderator. Just as I am not a moderator.

Neither of us were/are prepared to deal with the type of bashing that comes with the moderating job.

I hope that people will be done now with criticizing our moderators. Shouldn't take too much more of this before we may be in danger of losing them.

And whatever anyone thinks of our mods this forums can't run without moderators. It would take very little time for the bullies and the manipulators and the spammers and the loud mouths to take over the place. Because if we lose our mods, then that leaves me and Cort to run this enormous site.

And I wil not be a moderator on these forums.

I wonder what kind of chance we'd have of finding new moderators to replace the ones that got used up and burned out here. I wonder who would be willing to step up and take this thankless gruntwork, especially knowing how easy it is for some members of our forums to bash them.

Some have found a few of our moderators to be heavy handed. That's regrettable. I have just been thinking over the past few days of watching things unfold, that maybe they haven't been heavy handed enough.

The amount of rudeness that has been pouring out of some quarters has been astonishing to me.

I am astounded by the amount of fury and angst that has been sparked over thefreeprisoner's personal story. She's another of my mods by the way. Can't believe how many people have used her experience to turn into a platform for their own religous or non-religous views.

And if you don't like Trish's expression of her beliefs? I am tired beyond belief of how a handful of members have flogged this situation and ... for what? Their right to be heard?

This is a forums. This is not the Free Press. If people need drama in their lives I wish they'd look for it and drum it up somewhere else. Because the people that have been doing this have been wearing my mods to a frazzle. Keeping them jumping, having to make decisions about ludicrous hurtful posts.

I expect there are some who will fill their lungs with much air ready to accuse me of taking some stand or other because of some religious views of mine or other. Don't waste your time.

Nobody here knows my religious / non-religious views. Anything I've ever posted on that score is only a small part of my beliefs / non-beliefs. And frankly I don't need anyone here to validate or approve my beliefs. They're not an issue on these forums and never have been.

I understand that some people don't like the red pen. I know the reasons the mods were using it were reasons that they thought would make things simpler and clearer. Apparently that's not so. Well and good. We need to know that.

I will say though, that some of you on this thread -- and a few others lately -- have not needed a red pen to be offensive and rude in bashing my mods.

I have really seen enough. And don't bother telling me how incensed you are about it. I really don't care.

 

[Dreambirdie]

WOW!

I have been out of commission for the past few days (due to my IODINE/ARRHYTHMIA issues), and had no idea what I was missing.

I am really sad to see how badly this whole fiasco has affected KIM--one of the most helpful, caring and accommodating souls I've ever met on the internet... how much stress and discomfort it has caused her. I just hope it doesn't drive her away from us completely. That would be a horrible shame.

AS FOR FUTURE RELIGIOUS HEALING POSTS--My thought about this is that not only should posts like this be categorized into their OWN SECTION, but also that they might even include A WARNING AND A DISCLAIMER:

"You are about to enter a very controversial, provocative and highly loaded topic... one known for inciting strong opinions and heated arguments... one that has not been proven or recommended as an exclusive treatment or an ultimate cure for CFS, despite the fact that some have gained benefit from it. Be forewarned that you ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK, and be prepared for a stressful experience, which just might require significant bed rest and possibly medication to recover from."

 

[Jody]

WOW!

I have been out of commission for the past few days (due to my IODINE/ARRHYTHMIA issues), and had no idea what I was missing.

I am really sad to see how badly this whole fiasco has affected KIM--one of the most helpful, caring and accommodating souls I've ever met on the internet... how much stress and discomfort it has caused her. I just hope it doesn't drive her away from us completely. That would be a horrible shame.

AS FOR FUTURE RELIGIOUS HEALING POSTS--My thought about this is that not only should these posts on faith healing be categorized into their OWN SECTION, but also that they might even apear with A WARNING AND A DISCLAIMER:

"You are about to enter a very controversial, provocative and highly loaded topic... one known for inciting strong opinions and heated arguments... one that has not been proven or recommended as an exclusive treatment or an ultimate cure for CFS, despite the fact that some have gained benefit from it. Be forewarned that you ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK, and be prepared for a stressful experience, which just might require significant bed rest and possibly medication to recover from."

dreambirdie

I am thinking that might be an appropriate warning and disclaimer for these forums right now. And it should be issued to anyone who is willing to be a mod on these forums.