Off Topic Comments from Book of Mormon Authorship Thread

[_Jersey Girl]

Might I suggest that additional off topic remarks be removed (once again) and any complaints about the splits be voiced on the split thread itself? This to save moderator time and effort.

Moderators do not always read each post on a thread. If you have a complaint about a post, you can PM the moderator.

I've done it repeatedly myself since this thread began.

[_Uncle Dale]

... why was this post allowed to remain on the thread, and not very long ago:

"I take it that you consider the material (propaganda) published by FARMS is sometimes (or always) reliable. Byron"

Nothing personal against Byron, just pointing out some obvious bias at work here.

We all have a bias of some sort or another. I have one in favor of my wife's
loveliness; and another against spoken Mandarin. Neither of these can be
objectively defended -- so I avoid mentioning them in most conversations.

But a bias for or against the LDS Church and its various appendages, is a
much more widespread phenomenon -- and I suppose we all just have to
expect to encounter it on message boards soliciting diverse views on the
origin and nature of Mormonism. I don't mind Brent taking a dim view of
FARMS publications (though I occasionally am informed by reading them);
but I do see how some folks would feel that such a remark was not very
appropriate on a MB such as this one.

More to the point, I do not mind posters like Brent asking us to elaborate
on questions and answers we've already dealt with -- but such stuff can be
a distracting waste of time, for those readers who search through a thread
like this one, looking for pertinent information regarding the Stanford study.

At the end of all such quibbling, we are facing an important question here.
It will affect the lives of many people, if the scholarly consensus develops,
explaining the Book of Mormon as a 19th century product of multiple authors.

This is not a matter to be taken lightly -- nor to ignore. If the statisticians
eventually refute the Stanford team's methods and conclusions, we can set
aside this thread and perhaps devote our time and energy to other things.

But so far, that has not been done. Probably it will take several months
before we see responding articles in the scholarly literature. Until then, I
suppose we can continue our discussions, (while awaiting new findings).

At least I hope so -- and I hope Brent can add something interesting here.

UD

[_marg]

Hi Marg,

Not "assum[ing] the worst," just genuinely perplexed by your moderating style.

So Dale can post a remark that you consider "on topic," but asking him to clarify that remark is "off topic"? (Again, your bias is showing.)

I will delete these posts to the off topic eventually Brent, but will comment to clear things up. I'm leaving to go out in 5 minutes, will look in later or tomorrow.


Your post generated a number of other posts following. Had it only been your post I likely would have left it up to Dale to respond to it or not. At issue was that Dale had received an ad hom post from Mikwut, and his comment you were questioning was a response to that ad hom. Either I delete the ad hom directed at Dale, or I allow Dale to respond. However the ad hom is off topic, meant to spoil the well against Dale. And your question asking him to elaborate follows as off topic. Then others asking or commenting on your post again further follows as off topic. Added to this that Dale should not have had to deal with the ad hom in the first place. So I elected to remove all those posts from yours and the ones following. I note Dale has addressed your post though, so you do have your answer to your question. I also noted when I moved posts I left a comment that if people felt their post on topic they may repost. But I do hope that people will consider whether their post is truly on topic of the main issues or not, before doing so.

Yet a subsequent post that completely lacks substance, but cheers Dale on, doesn't merit your "off topic" relocation program:

It was a superfluous post and I recognized that but I also note it was one post not generating a number of other posts and that while it was supportive of Dale and encouraging him to do further research, there have been many other posts not supportive of him.

You'll understand if I think your words ring hollow.

Ciao,

</brent>

I do understand brent. I probably would feel the same way as you in your shoes. But there are 2 things that I am taking into consideration. The first is the effort and knowledge to this thread Dale offers, and second is that to some extent he needs protection in that he certainly has no support from a multi-billion dollar church and its many members and he is vulnerable to their attacks on message boards. So if I think he's being questioned with superfluous questions, perhaps ad homs, which only serve to wear him down I will remove those questions or ad homs if possible without detracting from the thread, to the off-topic thread, which I did in this case with a link. If I'm wrong and Dale wishes to respond or I made an error it can be corrected. Dale did respond.

[_marg]

Might I suggest that additional off topic remarks be removed (once again) and any complaints about the splits be voiced on the split thread itself? This to save moderator time and effort.

Moderators do not always read each post on a thread. If you have a complaint about a post, you can PM the moderator.

I've done it repeatedly myself since this thread began.

I will clean up this thread later Jersey Girl, tonight or tomorrow morning.

[_Ray A]

I do understand brent. I probably would feel the same way as you in your shoes. But there are 2 things that I am taking into consideration. The first is the effort and knowledge to this thread Dale offers, and second is that to some extent he needs protection in that he certainly has no support from a multi-billion dollar church and its many members and he is vulnerable to their attacks on message boards. So if I think he's being questioned with superfluous questions, perhaps ad homs, which only serve to wear him down I will remove those questions or ad homs if possible without detracting from the thread, to the off-topic thread, which I did in this case with a link. If I'm wrong and Dale wishes to respond or I made an error it can be corrected. Dale did respond.

I don't think you should be moderating this thread, marg. Your post above tells why. This has to be the first time I've ever heard of any poster on MDB "needing protection", and that goes against the very spirit of this board and its purpose. So what is this, MAD guidelines now being implimented for the protection of someone special, or a special theory?

The other point is that your strong bias in favour of the S/R theory is well known. Someone like Scottie, or Liz, would be in a better position to moderate this thread.

[_Jersey Girl]

Might I suggest that additional off topic remarks be removed (once again) and any complaints about the splits be voiced on the split thread itself? This to save moderator time and effort.

Moderators do not always read each post on a thread. If you have a complaint about a post, you can PM the moderator.

I've done it repeatedly myself since this thread began.

I will clean up this thread later Jersey Girl, tonight or tomorrow morning.

I know I'm adding to the "split list" in replying to this. I just did want to thank you for your efforts to keep it on topic by removing extraneous off topic exchanges and I wanted to appeal (once more) to those on the thread, to PM moderators when they see a post that is questionable in their mind. When one receives a post in reply that contains ad hom or other types of snide remarks (whether the remarks were intended to provoke or not) it is difficult to avoid responding in kind. I have walked away from the computer a number of times while reading this thread for just that reason and tried to refrain from responding to something that would generate more off topic exchanges.

This thread has provided so much useful information and points to reflect upon. I hope participants will strive to keep it that way. No matter what side of the S/R theory one's position lies on, I hope that posters will respect the effort that has gone into this thread thus far.

[_Jersey Girl]

I do understand brent. I probably would feel the same way as you in your shoes. But there are 2 things that I am taking into consideration. The first is the effort and knowledge to this thread Dale offers, and second is that to some extent he needs protection in that he certainly has no support from a multi-billion dollar church and its many members and he is vulnerable to their attacks on message boards. So if I think he's being questioned with superfluous questions, perhaps ad homs, which only serve to wear him down I will remove those questions or ad homs if possible without detracting from the thread, to the off-topic thread, which I did in this case with a link. If I'm wrong and Dale wishes to respond or I made an error it can be corrected. Dale did respond.

I don't think you should be moderating this thread, marg. Your post above tells why. This has to be the first time I've ever heard of any poster on MDB "needing protection", and that goes against the very spirit of this board and its purpose. So what is this, MAD guidelines now being implimented for the protection of someone special, or a special theory?

The other point is that your strong bias in favour of the S/R theory is well known. Someone like Scottie, or Liz, would be in a better position to moderate this thread.

I requested that she moderate this thread. My request was approved by Shades.

[_Ray A]

I requested that she moderate this thread. My request was approved by Shades.

Well that makes it even worse, because you're just as biased towards the S/R theory as she is. But you're not a moderator, and I'd like to know when Shades created the rule that people who start threads can determine who moderates them???

Gee, I could have utilised that more times than I can count. What special rights do thread starters on MDB have?

Shades?

[_Jersey Girl]

Ray,

I'll reply to you on the split thread. I'm not going to engage in more back and forth here.

[_Jersey Girl]

I requested that she moderate this thread. My request was approved by Shades.

Well that makes it even worse, because you're just as biased towards the S/R theory as she is. But you're not a moderator, and I'd like to know when Shades created the rule that people who start threads can determine who moderates them???

Gee, I could have utilised that more times than I can count. What special rights do thread starters on MDB have?

Shades?

Firstly, stop obnoxiously cluttering up the Jockers thread with off topic exchanges.

Here's your clarification.

I asked Shades if marg could moderate the thread to perform a split. He approved that. I made the request because marg is assigned to moderate the Celestial Forum.

This does not exclude any other moderator from moderating the pinned Jockers thread. If you bother to look through the thread you will see instances where harmony and Liz have also commented as moderators and infact, this thread I'm posting on is a result of an early split by Liz.

Now, what is the issue about "protection" you have?