Faith Healing Discussion

[valia]

There is a constant undercurrent of anti-Christian sentiment on this board and I object to it, that is, the expression of it in such insulting terms that we have witnessed from various members. It is not religion that is causing the problem it is one specific one - Christianity


This is not about religion and two sides unable to control themselves with such a subject it is about persecution towards Christians and a refusal to stop it because of the religion or lack of it from mods

Undercurrent, anti-Christian, persecution towards Christians?

You should stop this utter rubbish, there has been no such thing on any of these threads.

 

[Jody]

Undercurrent, anti-Christian, persecution towards Christians,

You should stop this utter rubbish, there has been no such thing on any of these threads.

Valia,

This is also an example of the type of post that keeps a thread inflammatory.

Please do not post like this again.

 

[Jody]

For those who are wondering what type of posts I am taking issue with, see Brenda's and Valia's most recent posts.

Mods are stuck in a bad spot. Do they ask people to stop posting like this? (They did ask.) And when they get ignored ... (they were) .. then what?

Do we argue with them? (they tried) Reason with them? (Yup, tried that too.)

But if they are intent on fighting ... do we delete their posts? Do we ban them?

Not very appealing choices. But if people are bent on fighting -- and I am not just talking about Brenda and Valia here -- there's not alot a mod can do. And somebody's going to get mad if they delete or ban. And if they sit back (we've all done this too) hoping the fight will die down ... then mods are criticized for being "unfair" and not dealing efficiently with unruly posters.

Seen it over and over again.

This is what we need to be able to find a solution to. It's well and good to say what is allowed and what is not allowed. We have outlined these things months ago.

The tricky part is ... what to do if people won't comply? And when to do it. And who does it. And how.

To my mind today, this is one of the big issues as an admin.

 

[julius]

I have a couple thoughts,

1) An avenue where members can privately (but not anonymously) comment or complain directly about troubles or triumphs with admins/mods. Not a public thread but a comment box type thing that is addressed to the entire mod/admin. team.

2) I don't think any mod/admin would want to lock this thread, but I think it might be a good idea. It's just causing more trouble than it's worth. Is there any way we could put it to a vote and let the community decide. Then such a decision wouldn't be on the shoulders of ony one person.

 

[valia]

Perhaps it should be locked, I have been very restrained and resisted posting several time, but still managed in the end to get myself into trouble.

 

[Jody]

Julius,

I think that can be done by private message, and addressing it to all the mods. Is this the type of thing you mean?

Or are you thinking of something else?

I agree that this thread was causing more trouble than it was worth. But I think we may be getting somewhere constructive now. Just read a message from someone else a few minutes ago who was optimistic about the present direction of the thread.

I think we should let it carry on for now.

See my thought is, if we can have a discussion on what's happened, we can hopefully prevent it in future. Learn from our mistakes, our misunderstandings.

 

[julius]

Julius,

I think that can be done by private message, and addressing it to all the mods. Is this the type of thing you mean?

What I was picturing was a 'comment box' button on the main page of the forum. For us foggies it would make things a bit easier. And more work for the team to make it .

I wouldn't have thought of doing it the way you mentioned (addressing to all), and might have got lost in the process. But, my brain is like London in January.

 

[Jody]

Perhaps it should be locked, I have been very restrained and resisted posting several time, but still managed in the end to get myself into trouble.

Kinda sucks, especially on your second birthday.

Listen. I have now heard your thoughts on the matter and it is duly noted. No need to repeat it. Really.:Retro smile: Please.

I think we shouldn't lock it because I think we're getting somewhere. If we can get people to not react in a hostile way to each other and talk to each other ... then we will have made progress.

I saw how your birthday thread is growing by the way. Good stuff. :Retro smile:

 

[Jody]

What I was picturing was a 'comment box' button on the main page of the forum. For us foggies it would make things a bit easier. And more work for the team to make it .

I wouldn't have thought of doing it the way you mentioned (addressing to all), and might have got lost in the process. But, my brain is like London in January.

Julius,

The foggy brain factor is an important one around here.

I can take your suggestion to the team (since I have no clue about how to do stuff like that, or if it can be done:Retro tongue. But I can find out.

So yeah, it would be more work for someone, this is true. But it won't be more work for me so I think it sounds like a great idea.

 

[Lily]

This forum has a habit of exhausting its moderators ... especially the gentlest ones ... and we lose them faster than any other forum I know.

That is a fascinating statement, Martlet.

I have many thoughts on your post, Martlet and I'd like to get back to you if you are open to it. FWIW, I'm not one who describes you as heavy-handed. And I must say that I've never noticed that you have to step in when Robin's interventions are ineffective. I'll pay more attention to that.

I'd like to say that I'm very busy too, have a household to run and other things to attend to, but I'm just tired. I am going to do things today though, other than worry about this.

I feel very protective of this community, Martlet, and that includes you.

Lily

 

[Jody]

This place does burn out its mods.

We have lost some, probably for good. They don't have the stomach for this anymore, even were they to regain the energy.

We have all been flattened at one point or another due to the work load and the stress. Most of us will then take some time away and come back. But it's an ongoing complication. And of course everybody's got cfs.

I haven't been in any other forums for a few years though I used to moderate two others before I was sick. So I don't know if we wear them out faster here or not.:Retro smile: But we do wear 'em out.

 

[garcia]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

 

[Jody]

another thought would be that the constructive ( and technically off topic,really) parts of the discussion could get moved to the nuts and bolts area for a new thread about what to take away from this experience. It is kind of odd that we are discussing the future of moderation here under the heading of "faith healing". There have been good ideas. But what to call it? should I do this? any thoughts?

I see your point sarah.

I think though that for now it should stay put unless Cort has a different opinion.

I think that the non-constructive parts led to the constructive parts. And to remove the constructive parts from the non-constructive post would make for a grim remaining thread indeed.

(Try to say that fast.)

No, I think the two sides are inextricably joined for now. My opinion.

They show that conflict can bring growth. Or something like that.

 

[Jody]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Sorry, could you put that in English for me please?

 

[Sunday]

Let's hope it can. I want to give ALL the moderators here a big hug of appreciation. (As a token of how much I appreciate all of you, present, past, and sitting on the fence, I am using the new smilies for the first time, so they may just turn out as html, which isn't as festive.):innocent1:

We are all imperfect. It's a corollary of being human, I believe, and if this illness has taught me anything (and it has) it's taught me that. We just have to keep groping around. And although I know religions have inflamed people for millennia, I can't help wondering if some of the frustration at this disease, and some of the neurological distubances that make our emotions twitch in unexpected directions, isn't at play here. It's hard, when life feels so unfair, to be fair to others. But to me it's really important to try.

So this is why I have so much appreciation for our moderators. They're trying. And that's a hard task when you're just an imperfect person with a rotten disease.

 

[Sunday]

The Latin translates roughly to , "Who guards the guards?" (same root as "custodian"). And I'd like to gently remind Garcia that perhaps bringing more paranoia into this situation isn't exactly what it needs. Can we maybe find a way to work back to Us, instead of Us and Them? Aren't we all in the same boat here?

 

[Jody]

Thanks for the translation Sunday.

Here's my take.

If I had you as a guest in my home, eating my food, enjoying my books and music and friends and family -- and you were to ask me Who makes sure I behave decently,

I'd ask you to leave.

Now this is not my house. And I'm not going to ask you to leave.

But now you know what I think, don't you.

 

[Martlet]

Jody ... I know forums where mods have been there for years and years and years --- and then some --- but neither they nor the forum members are sick.

I am a little nervous of a comments box because we are often held back from moderating as it is, with discussions on whether to, then who should do the moderating and what to say. Not that I think that behind the scenes discussion is bad. In fact, I think it's good because it has almost alwaysmeant that our biases are balanced out by the views of other mods/admins. But I think moderators are often nervous of stepping in as it is, without having to look to see how many members agree and how many disagree with what we have done.

I'd like to float a suggestion: What if moderators only post the rule that is being breached? That way, there is no risk of personal thought slipping in, and style is removed. We are all posting quickly, briefly and without further comment. But then as I was writing that, I remember occasions when people have posted such egregiously offensive things about others that we have had to delete part of or entire posts, so already my suggestion is falling down. But I'll leave it there to see what people think?

 

[Jody]

Martlet,

You referring to the fact that when a group of mods/admins are notified on something, it can add to the confusion of not knowing if one or all the others (or none) are responding to the call?

If so ... yeah, I have been in some of those situations. Then, we have to check with all the other team members to see whether or not they have done it, are doing it, are planning to do it....

Julius, I'm not sure if I'm coming across clearly here to you or not. But when the whole team gets a notification about something ... all of a sudden it's a big conference call and gets pretty unwieldy at times.

Now. All of this is dependent on whether or not I understood Martlet's original point.:Retro tongue:

 

[julius]

I'm not too bothered whether there is a suggestion box or not (personally, I would not likely even use it, but I thought others might), and I can see the points against it. I put it our there and leave it to the team to decide.

I just remembered another thing I wanted to mention. About the red ink, I think it's good for mod comments to be in another color so they stand out, but maybe blue is a better choice. Red really does have a psychological effect, and blue seems a lot more calm and impartial.