Six Hundred and Ninety-Nine

[_Kevin Graham]

(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]

[_truth dancer]

Hey Kevin,

Wow, that is a lot!

The thing that we have to remember is that the MDD board is designed to promote the LDS church. That is it.

It is a private board whose creators do not want anyone to speak negatively about the LDS church, its leaders or members.

So, it creates the board to fulfill its mission.

I think the board creators have every right to ban, delete, and quiet anyone, and I suppose if I were wanting a board to promote only my beliefs I would thwart the opposing voice as well.

The only time anyone has a problem with the MDD board is if they forget what their real intent is.

IMHO, the MDD board is about dialogue and discussion that SUPPORTS LDS beliefs.

Our board has a completely different vision... to allow all voices. In other words, you can't really compare the two.


~td~

Edit for clarity.

[_Chap]

Hey Kevin,

Wow, that is a lot!

The thing that we have to remember is that the MDD board is designed to promote the LDS church. That is it.

[...]

Our board has a completely different vision... to allow all voices. In other words, you can't really compare the two.

You just compared them.

MAD is a board of the kind one would expect from an organisation that has good reason to be nervous about keeping disturbing information from its members, whereas MDB is a board of the kind one would expect from a group of people freely assembled to exchange views in the hope that truth will come out on top.

Which is a more suitable model of discussion for adults with open minds? I don't find that a hard one to answer.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Excellent OP, Kevin. I have not posted over at MAD for several months for this very reason.

The real danger that I see with MAD and its current direction of extreme censorship is that people who visit MAD are only getting a version of the LDS Faith that Nemesis and other Moderators want you to see. And this version is not correct (this will be the subject of a forthcoming OP).

MAD is becoming one of the biggest anti-Mormon sites on the internet today and I don't think they are even aware of it. Extreme censorship reflects MAD's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of paranoia. The hallmark of truth is freedom of discussion.

[_Yoda]

Hey Kevin,

Wow, that is a lot!

The thing that we have to remember is that the MDD board is designed to promote the LDS church. That is it.

It is a private board whose creators do not want anyone to speak negatively about the LDS church, its leaders or members.

So, it creates the board to fulfill its mission.

I think the board creators have every right to ban, delete, and quiet anyone, and I suppose if I were wanting a board to promote only my beliefs I would thwart the opposing voice as well.

The only time anyone has a problem with the MDD board is if they forget what their real intent is.

IMHO, the MDD board is about dialogue and discussion that SUPPORTS LDS beliefs.

Our board has a completely different vision... to allow all voices. In other words, you can't really compare the two.


~td~


Edit for clarity.

You know what, TD?

I think that you just hit the nail on the head as to the root of the problem between the folks on MDD and the folks at MDB.

Each board is different, and have completely different purposes!

I think our problem is, the folks at MDD are upset because MDB is not run like their board. Folks here are upset because MDD is not run like MDB.

Why not just accept that each board has a very different purpose, and that neither board is better than the other....just different!

Some folks are going to be more comfortable on MDD. That doesn't make them bad people. That just means that they are more comfortable with the environment that MDD has created.

The same thing goes for MDB.

If Nemesis and Juliann are reading this...maybe we can come to some sort of truce if we can simply accept that both boards serve different purposes.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with either one.

Maybe we can all get along if we can just accept the differences of the boards, and keep in mind that the posters of these boards are not pawns in some chess game...we're all just people interacting in different communities.

[_Chap]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with either one.

MAD is devoted to making it appear that the case for the claims of the COJCoLDS is much stronger than it is, by suppressing valid argument and evidence that points the other way, and allowing weak or misleading argument to appear to win unchallenged.

MDB is devoted to open discussion, and does not suppress or maintain one particular viewpoint.

I am a bit surprised to find someone living in a free country who does not think there is anything wrong with the first of these two purposes.

Being nice to everybody is a commendable aim, but if the choice is between criticizing religious censorship and saying 'OK, whatever works for you' to the censor, I know which way I'd go.

[_Yoda]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with either one.

MAD is devoted to making it appear that the case for the claims of the COJCoLDS is much stronger than it is, by suppressing valid argument and evidence that points the other way, and allowing weak or misleading argument to appear to win unchallenged.

MDB is devoted to open discussion, and does not suppress or maintain one particular viewpoint.

I am a bit surprised to find someone living in a free country who does not think there is anything wrong with the first of these two purposes.

Being nice to everybody is a commendable aim, but if the choice is between criticizing religious censorship and saying 'OK, whatever works for you' to the censor, I know which way I'd go.

But people are free to choose what environment they are comfortable in.

Why trash people just because they are comfortable in an environment that may not be suitable for you?

I think, based on the events as of late, maybe a "live and let live" attitude is in order.

[_Kevin Graham]

Why trash people just because they are comfortable in an environment that may not be suitable for you?

I wasn't trying to trash anyone. But it is a bit misleading to call the forum "Mormondialogue" because this presumes the environment will be conducive to open discussion. In reality it is essentially an echo chamber for believers. Everyone else is "welcome" only to the extent that they're considered prospective converts. But if they come to persuade believers that their arguments and reasons for being LDS are in fact wrong, well, they'll probably get the boot. Only those engaged in the biblical debates have a chance of lasting, since these discussions always end up in a wash - it is your interpretation vs. mine - and cannot falsify the truthfulness of the Church (i.e Rob Bowman). The rest of us who are more interested in discussing the Corporation of the LDS faith and historical issues such as Joseph Smith's lies about polygamy, his translation abilities, etc. Well, what we're trying to argue forbids us from ever getting an argument off the ground before the mods step in and censor the post and suspend or ban the person responsible for it. This is because they know from the outset that no viable apologetic exists for these matters, and all debates of this sort will inevitably lead to a negative image of the Church, and probably more people leaving MAD and heading over to this forum.

I only started to think about all this after Nemesis offered an olive branch by reactivating my account, which they deactived in 2006, once my apostasy was no longer in doubt. In what sense is this really an olive branch when we both know my "welcome" is going to be short-lived and dependent on my willingness to let ridiculous apologetic arguments go unchallenged. They want to hear nothing I have to say, and I really have no interest trying to convince a room full of believers they're wrong about Joseph Smith or the Church. Most of my involvement in these debates is sparked after an apologist attacks "apostates" like myself for leaving the faith based on the reasons we provided. Which is why I'm almost always involved in KEP related discussions.

[_truth dancer]

"Mormon Dialogue and Discussions," means, we discuss anything that is faith promoting. We will not allow anything that challenges our beliefs.

The few times I have popped in there I have gotten the impression that it is basically a gospel doctrine class with a few of those difficult members who want to depart from the standard curriculum. (smile)

It is not a board for discussion with critics.

It just is not.

I think it is best to not expect the board to be something other than what it is... a place for members to share their thoughts that promote their church and its leaders.

~td~

[_Jersey Girl]

"Mormon Dialogue and Discussions," means, we discuss anything that is faith promoting. We will not allow anything that challenges our beliefs.

The few times I have popped in there I have gotten the impression that it is basically a gospel doctrine class with a few of those difficult members who want to depart from the standard curriculum. (smile)

It is not a board for discussion with critics.

It just is not.

I think it is best to not expect the board to be something other than what it is... a place for members to share their thoughts that promote their church and its leaders.

~td~

It is the same thing as RFM. RFM does not allow defenders on their board. I've never seen a critic criticize RFM for doing so.