DiscussMormonism.com

Due to the fact that I refuse to post on MAD, and disabled my beastie account so I am not even tempted, last year I created a different account for the sole purpose of accessing the search engine. (you cannot use the search engine unless you are signed in as a member) I never posted one time with this account, it was a lurker account only.

Yesterday I went to MAD to try and view droopy's threads, and suddenly got the message "you are not permitted to use this board". A friend checked for me and my member account was completely deleted, doesn't exist at all.

This is bizarre. Along with the fact that now MAD posters cannot even name this board over there (it gets changed to "mormonapologetics.org") makes me suspect that their frustration and desire to control and censure even boards other than their own has escalated. This sort of escalation will continue, because no matter how much they seek to diminish critics' voices, the brutal fact of the matter is that their frustration will not be abated because, quite simply, the church isn't true. They are trying to defend claims that just aren't true. This is why they are doomed to eternal frustration as long as they allow criticism of church claims, in any way, to be aired. The end solution will have to be banning all critics and having a complete private board that only approved members can even view. I'm sure they don't want that end, because it screams defeat and will be boring. So they will keep escalating in other ways.

Anyway, does anyone know how to override whatever they've done to disallow me to even view the board?

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to ask them to reset "beastie's" password so you can use your account. Then you'd just have to maintains some self-control if you don't want to post.

I can't ask them to reset my password when I can't access the board.

Never mind, I found a proxy server. I can view the board, just not search it, which is ok for now.

Beastie,

Have you tried deleting all your cached pages, cookies, etc.. And then re-starting your computer? The same thing happened to me a couple of times, but I was able to view their board again when I cleaned up my hard drive a bit. -AS8

I cleared out the cookies and cached pages, but didn't restart the computer. I'll try that.

The ideal situation for MADB is to have a few secular critics that serve as useful idiots. That way they and their bad arguments can be vanquished by the apologists as an example of how dumb "anti-Mormonism" is. Why make up ridiculous strawman arguments to represent critics (anti-Mormons assert that all archeology is settled and no new discoveries will be made) when you can have a real live critic to be a strawman? The only problem is that these people tend to anger the powers that be at MADB so much that they end up getting banned anyway.

Oh well. I used to get a kick of pointing out that FAIR ironically became exactly what ZLMB was created to avoid because of the treatment of LDS on the UTLM message board. ZLMB LDS then fled that board and built up FAIR. DCP used to jokingly call the lead moderator on UTLM "Der Fuhrer" and go into elaborate Nazi metaphors - all for the same treatment that FAIR dishes out on critics. But I'm not sure that comparison suffices anymore. After all, MADB has gone as far as secretly editing posts of critics and LDS to make the the former seem worse and the latter seem better. I never heard that complaint of UTLM. The auto-filter is another step that seems to go well beyond UTLM in terms of information control. Now the irony very well might be that MADB (formally FAIR) is worse than what LDS complained about on UTLM.

Finally, and perhaps contrary to Beastie, I think the culture at MADB, while influenced by their apologetic mission and fundamentalist mindset, is in significant part a function of the unique personalities that run the place. It's quite different at a place like the Times and Seasons blog.

Yeah, you're right, the place is heavily influenced by its founders. The entire place smacks of Juliann. But it's a very popular place, which is what leads me to conclude that this is what most internet Mormons want.

by the way, I hadn't heard about this:

After all, MADB has gone as far as secretly editing posts of critics and LDS to make the the former seem worse and the latter seem better.

Can you give more information about this, or point me to a thread that discussed it? I seemed to have missed it.

I think they routinely clean up old and unused accounts. I don't know for sure - it's just an impression I have. So if you've had it a while and never used it to post maybe it just got swept out in a routine clean-up, not an outright ban. Maybe. :)

That occurred to me, nightingale, but I don't think that's the case, since I can no longer even view the board from my computer. I think they checked IP addresses and saw I was posting from the same IP address as beastie, and "punished" me. LOL. I think they don't like me being able to search the site cuz I link their old, embarrassing threads on my website, which I know they were watching carefully enough to immediately disable linking.

I can still see you, MAD. Don't you hate it? Don't you wish you could control computers everywhere?