Six Hundred and Ninety-Nine
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 2:47 pm
(edit: This thread title has been updated upon further examination of the data)
That's a number to keep in mind whenever someone brings up a reluctance to post at the MAD forum. 402 is the number of threads that Nemesis has shut down since January. Many of these discussions were initiated by faithful LDS apologist and a few of them were started by reputable LDS scholars. As I perused the ending of some of these discussions, the reasoning for the shut down wasn't always clear.
This anecdote also helped me understand why Nemesis thinks Shades is such a horrible moderator. By comparison, Nemesis is obsessive compulsive about controlling the day-to-day discussions, making sure they don't harm the image of his Church or his Church leaders. He averages shutting down two discussions per day for the past six months, and that's just insane. I can't even imagine how many posts he has edited, censored, or how many accounts he has suspended or banned.
The point is, both mods approach this forum business in two different ways. Dr. Shades is pretty much opening up his backyard to folks who want to come over, sit back and shoot the bull. He's usually not even around, but he trusts his guests to behave themselves as adults. Debate is entirely open, and if someone chooses to switch sides from LDS to critic, or from critic to LDS, the group wishes them the best in their journey (i.e. Don Bradley, Aristotle).
By contrast, Nemesis appears to be chaperoning some kind of Church get together, where he and his helpers are constantly scanning the scene, trying to identify critical perspectives that they believe could poison the minds of the sheep. Debate is not open, it is controlled. And if any of the sheep ends up being convinced that the Church is no longer true, they are labelled "traitors" by the veteran posters, their activity on Shades' forum is monitored and they are generally treated as a threat to the rest of the sheep, and so their accounts at MAD must be deactivated.
This is why I think the name of the forum is misleading. Mormondialogue.com should be better advertised as something else. Perhaps, Mormonlectures? This way people have no reason to be offended when their input is slammed and a thread is shut down. One thing is for certain, and that is the quality of discussion has dropped substantially since 2006. There used to be many popular scholars on both sides posting over there, probably because it was a place where open debate could take place. But now they've seemed to have migrated elsewhere. And I think this supports my point. Nobody wants to post where they don't feel welcome to speak their viewpoint openly. The unspoken rule in LDS society has always been a so-called "tolerance" of dissenting views, so long as you keep them to yourselves. And apologists nowadays have adopted this Will Schryver's paranoid approach to apologetics; defending the Church from enemies foreign and domestic. Prospective apostates are always being accused and marginalized for scrutiny.
Ultimately, what does this say about LDS apologetics if it isn't confident enough to let grown, free-thinking adults on both sides, debate the issues without benefit of an authority steering the conversation in their favor? This never takes place on this forum. Ever. If an LDS apologist has a case to be made and he can back it up with empirical data, then there is nothing on this forum to prevent him/her from proving the point.
And I think that is why this forum is becoming more popular, even for some LDS posters who are tired of the echo-chamber.
EDIT - UPDATE:
[correction]I want to apologize for misrepresenting the active-to-closed thread ratio at MAD. After taking another look, I realize it is much worse than I suspected.
The mods have been moving closed threads and placing them in the "Social Hall" and "In the News" sections of the board. Pages 2-7 in each section consist of 30 closed threads per page. Amazing.
After recounting, there are 896 threads started this year (not counting the few in "Focused Discussions")
Guess how many of those have been shut down? An astounding:
699!
This means that 78% of the threads have been shut down entirely. Nearly four discussions are shut down every day.
Why would anyone want to start a discussion on a forum where you have a 78% chance of moderator interference? And this, considering that most discussions are initiated by faithful members of the Church!
Only a 22% chance of seeing your discussion come to fruition....
Hmmmmm..... that's ironically close to the LDS activity rate.[/correction]
That's a number to keep in mind whenever someone brings up a reluctance to post at the MAD forum. 402 is the number of threads that Nemesis has shut down since January. Many of these discussions were initiated by faithful LDS apologist and a few of them were started by reputable LDS scholars. As I perused the ending of some of these discussions, the reasoning for the shut down wasn't always clear.
This anecdote also helped me understand why Nemesis thinks Shades is such a horrible moderator. By comparison, Nemesis is obsessive compulsive about controlling the day-to-day discussions, making sure they don't harm the image of his Church or his Church leaders. He averages shutting down two discussions per day for the past six months, and that's just insane. I can't even imagine how many posts he has edited, censored, or how many accounts he has suspended or banned.
The point is, both mods approach this forum business in two different ways. Dr. Shades is pretty much opening up his backyard to folks who want to come over, sit back and shoot the bull. He's usually not even around, but he trusts his guests to behave themselves as adults. Debate is entirely open, and if someone chooses to switch sides from LDS to critic, or from critic to LDS, the group wishes them the best in their journey (i.e. Don Bradley, Aristotle).
By contrast, Nemesis appears to be chaperoning some kind of Church get together, where he and his helpers are constantly scanning the scene, trying to identify critical perspectives that they believe could poison the minds of the sheep. Debate is not open, it is controlled. And if any of the sheep ends up being convinced that the Church is no longer true, they are labelled "traitors" by the veteran posters, their activity on Shades' forum is monitored and they are generally treated as a threat to the rest of the sheep, and so their accounts at MAD must be deactivated.
This is why I think the name of the forum is misleading. Mormondialogue.com should be better advertised as something else. Perhaps, Mormonlectures? This way people have no reason to be offended when their input is slammed and a thread is shut down. One thing is for certain, and that is the quality of discussion has dropped substantially since 2006. There used to be many popular scholars on both sides posting over there, probably because it was a place where open debate could take place. But now they've seemed to have migrated elsewhere. And I think this supports my point. Nobody wants to post where they don't feel welcome to speak their viewpoint openly. The unspoken rule in LDS society has always been a so-called "tolerance" of dissenting views, so long as you keep them to yourselves. And apologists nowadays have adopted this Will Schryver's paranoid approach to apologetics; defending the Church from enemies foreign and domestic. Prospective apostates are always being accused and marginalized for scrutiny.
Ultimately, what does this say about LDS apologetics if it isn't confident enough to let grown, free-thinking adults on both sides, debate the issues without benefit of an authority steering the conversation in their favor? This never takes place on this forum. Ever. If an LDS apologist has a case to be made and he can back it up with empirical data, then there is nothing on this forum to prevent him/her from proving the point.
And I think that is why this forum is becoming more popular, even for some LDS posters who are tired of the echo-chamber.
EDIT - UPDATE:
[correction]I want to apologize for misrepresenting the active-to-closed thread ratio at MAD. After taking another look, I realize it is much worse than I suspected.
The mods have been moving closed threads and placing them in the "Social Hall" and "In the News" sections of the board. Pages 2-7 in each section consist of 30 closed threads per page. Amazing.
After recounting, there are 896 threads started this year (not counting the few in "Focused Discussions")
Guess how many of those have been shut down? An astounding:
699!
This means that 78% of the threads have been shut down entirely. Nearly four discussions are shut down every day.
Why would anyone want to start a discussion on a forum where you have a 78% chance of moderator interference? And this, considering that most discussions are initiated by faithful members of the Church!
Only a 22% chance of seeing your discussion come to fruition....
Hmmmmm..... that's ironically close to the LDS activity rate.[/correction]