Am I responsible for the "culture" of MormonDiscussions.com?

[_Jersey Girl]

Would you like me to post evidence of your so-called "policy" in action?

Jersey Girl, as much as I would like to be the one to embarrass CamNC4Me with his own stupidity (I cannot think of a poster, other than Joseph, whom I despise more), I think it should be you. You must claim the glory on this one.

I'm not planning to compile his post history of remarks to me, Belmont. The floor is yours if you want to.

Go for it.

[_Dr. Shades]

Everyone, THANK YOU for your feedback! There's a lot here for me to digest.

Please give me some time to type up an adequate response.

[_ludwigm]

As You know, I was a member of the army for 39 years, (18..57). I am now (66) in principle. Real oaths, like baptism, can not be deleted.

We have a saying - read as general rule - "leaders on every level are responsible for everything they did or omitted to do".

[_Pahoran]

I have not read the whole thread, and am not likely to. I have read just the first and last page, so I apologise in advance if I say something that's been addressed in between.

At a general level, Shades, I suggest that you are in fact responsible for the culture of this board. Let me hasten to add that I do not for a minute propose that you are in any way responsible for the free acts of (supposed) adults on other websites not in your control. But as far as the culture of this board is concerned:

1. You chose to create a board whose one and only reason to exist was that it was "not-FAIR." (No pun intended.) Now that's been done before; when ZLMB first started, its reason to exist was to be "not-UTLM." That lasted for just a few weeks before the substantive discussions that originated at ZLMB pushed the UTLM-spawned threads into the background. By contrast, after the FAIRBoard has undergone two separate reinventions, this board's one and only reason to exist is to be "not-MD&D." It has never outgrown its knee-jerk beginnings. This is evident in almost every thread, and is painfully evident in this one.
2. You chose to create a board where cross-posting and board wars were not only allowed but encouraged. That, of course, was necessary to enable the denizens here to continue to snarl and jeer at discussions on MD&D; but these are not encouraged on boards run by responsible administrators. While I can see the attraction of a certain amount of adolescent rebellion against such old fuddy-duddy notions like being responsible, there must eventually come a time for the adolescent to grow up. But that doesn't seem to have happened here. All these years down the track, and this board is still revelling in the first flush of freshman just-off-to-college freedom.
3. You chose to create a board where personal threads -- and by extension, personal vendettas -- were allowed to flourish. It was inevitable that someone who was spitefully targeted might eventually find a way to hit back; and when the inevitable happened, it was the victim's fault.
4. You chose to create a board where a specific religion was targeted for mockery and ridicule; and that is embedded in the structure of the place. The "three kingdoms," the various levels of poster status (from "Nursery" up to "God" ) all make light of things that are serious to and respected by believing Latter-day Saints. This despite the fact that religion matters very much to a great many people, including us. But if we want to respond to you in your forum, then we're expected to either give tacit consent to your mockery, or else single ourselves out for further ridicule for being "thin-skinned" or unable to take a joke; all the jokes in view being, of course, at our expense. This is a well-known tactic of schoolyard bullying.

This is the culture you have created and that you continue to promote. You continue to beat up the "us vs. them" aspect of it, as when you recently assumed, sans evidence, that the temporary board outage was due to some kind of conspiracy by the MD&D administrators, instead of a complaint by a legitimately aggrieved individual.

In support of your surrealistic claim that this sty you have worked so hard to create is "srictly better than MD&D," you pointed out on another thread that MDB has the "Celestial forum." Think about that for a moment: the best part of MDB, the part that makes it eau seau superiah, is the part where the rules most closely resemble MD&D.

Does that tell you anything?

And there is nothing stopping the disrespectful swine who profane the temple by putting their new names in their sig lines from posting in your "Celestial forum," is there?

However, there is hope for this forum. The culture has been changed for the better once before.

I remember when Scratch first built up his creepy "dossiers" about Mormon (of course) targets on his blog, and MDB resounded with the oinks and grunts of malicious glee. Then "Mr Itchy" responded by doing the same thing to Scratch (and a few others here) on his blog. Scratch erupted with hypocritical rage that anyone could have the temerity to do to him what he thought himself entitled to do, with impunity, to others. (It was really quite entertaining, and the best part is that he still erupts with hypocritical rage about that; but I digress.) Suddenly, you and the other Mods became all solemn and po-faced, and then the rule was introduced that in real life details should not be posted. And while, to my knowledge, you've never actually pinged anyone for breaking that rule, you've been reasonably even-handed about editing out in real life names when they appear. (You were quicker off the mark to do it for Kishkumen than for me, but you still did it.)

Now suppose you were to introduce a new rule: "No personal threads." That would mean no new threads targeting individuals. And suppose you were to even-handedly enforce that rule. Would it make your forum less vulnerable to legitimate grievances?

I think it would.

Would it make your forum in any way worse than it now is?

Well, that all depends: how much does the enjoyment of your non-Mormon and anti-Mormon clientele depend upon the Schadenfreude that arises from seeing Mormon (of course) individuals targeted?

Regards,
Pahoran

[_Blixa]

I think you need to recruit some more moderators, Shades and rethink suspensions and banning.

[_Jersey Girl]

I have not read the whole thread, and am not likely to. I have read just the first and last page, so I apologise in advance if I say something that's been addressed in between.

At a general level, Shades, I suggest that you are in fact responsible for the culture of this board. Let me hasten to add that I do not for a minute propose that you are in any way responsible for the free acts of (supposed) adults on other websites not in your control. But as far as the culture of this board is concerned:

1. You chose to create a board whose one and only reason to exist was that it was "not-FAIR." (No pun intended.) Now that's been done before; when ZLMB first started, its reason to exist was to be "not-UTLM." That lasted for just a few weeks before the substantive discussions that originated at ZLMB pushed the UTLM-spawned threads into the background. By contrast, after the FAIRBoard has undergone two separate reinventions, this board's one and only reason to exist is to be "not-MD&D." It has never outgrown its knee-jerk beginnings. This is evident in almost every thread, and is painfully evident in this one.
2. You chose to create a board where cross-posting and board wars were not only allowed but encouraged. That, of course, was necessary to enable the denizens here to continue to snarl and jeer at discussions on MD&D; but these are not encouraged on boards run by responsible administrators. While I can see the attraction of a certain amount of adolescent rebellion against such old fuddy-duddy notions like being responsible, there must eventually come a time for the adolescent to grow up. But that doesn't seem to have happened here. All these years down the track, and this board is still revelling in the first flush of freshman just-off-to-college freedom.
3. You chose to create a board where personal threads -- and by extension, personal vendettas -- were allowed to flourish. It was inevitable that someone who was spitefully targeted might eventually find a way to hit back; and when the inevitable happened, it was the victim's fault.
4. You chose to create a board where a specific religion was targeted for mockery and ridicule; and that is embedded in the structure of the place. The "three kingdoms," the various levels of poster status (from "Nursery" up to "God" ) all make light of things that are serious to and respected by believing Latter-day Saints. This despite the fact that religion matters very much to a great many people, including us. But if we want to respond to you in your forum, then we're expected to either give tacit consent to your mockery, or else single ourselves out for further ridicule for being "thin-skinned" or unable to take a joke; all the jokes in view being, of course, at our expense. This is a well-known tactic of schoolyard bullying.

This is the culture you have created and that you continue to promote. You continue to beat up the "us vs. them" aspect of it, as when you recently assumed, sans evidence, that the temporary board outage was due to some kind of conspiracy by the MD&D administrators, instead of a complaint by a legitimately aggrieved individual.

In support of your surrealistic claim that this sty you have worked so hard to create is "srictly better than MD&D," you pointed out on another thread that MDB has the "Celestial forum." Think about that for a moment: the best part of MDB, the part that makes it eau seau superiah, is the part where the rules most closely resemble MD&D.

Does that tell you anything?

And there is nothing stopping the disrespectful swine who profane the temple by putting their new names in their sig lines from posting in your "Celestial forum," is there?

However, there is hope for this forum. The culture has been changed for the better once before.

I remember when Scratch first built up his creepy "dossiers" about Mormon (of course) targets on his blog, and MDB resounded with the oinks and grunts of malicious glee. Then "Mr Itchy" responded by doing the same thing to Scratch (and a few others here) on his blog. Scratch erupted with hypocritical rage that anyone could have the temerity to do to him what he thought himself entitled to do, with impunity, to others. (It was really quite entertaining, and the best part is that he still erupts with hypocritical rage about that; but I digress.) Suddenly, the you and the other Mods became all solemn and po-faced, and then the rule was introduced that in real life details should not be posted. And while, to my knowledge, you've never actually pinged anyone for breaking that rule, you've been reasonbly even-handed about editing out in real life names when they appear. (You were quicker off the mark to do it for Kishkumen than for me, but you still did it.)

Now suppose you were to introduce a new rule: "No personal threads." That would mean no new threads targeting individuals. And suppose you were to even-handedly enforce that rule. Would it make your forum less vulnerable to legitimate grievances?

I think it would.

Would it make your forum in any way worse than it now is?

Well, that all depends: how much does the enjoyment of your non-Mormon and anti-Mormon clientele depend upon the Schadenfreude that arises from seeing Mormon (of course) individuals targeted?

Regards,
Pahoran

Pahoran,

I would be less than honest if I didn't state publicly that I agree with the overall message of your above post.

I have no problem with profanity, as you well know. :-)

I do however, have a huge problem with the onslaught of personal threads, personal attacks in the form of poster bashing, the use of links to Facebook to draw attention to photographs of posters and their families, and the recent use of "memegenerator" wherein photos of posters may now be viewed with obscene material written on them.

This leaves me with one foot in chat and the other foot already out the door.

Why should I have to step through mountains of beer bottles and trash on the front lawn in order to get to the front door of a legitimate topic?

[_Jersey Girl]

I have not read the whole thread, and am not likely to. I have read just the first and last page, so I apologise in advance if I say something that's been addressed in between.

At a general level, Shades, I suggest that you are in fact responsible for the culture of this board. Let me hasten to add that I do not for a minute propose that you are in any way responsible for the free acts of (supposed) adults on other websites not in your control. But as far as the culture of this board is concerned:

1. You chose to create a board whose one and only reason to exist was that it was "not-FAIR." (No pun intended.) Now that's been done before; when ZLMB first started, its reason to exist was to be "not-UTLM." That lasted for just a few weeks before the substantive discussions that originated at ZLMB pushed the UTLM-spawned threads into the background. By contrast, after the FAIRBoard has undergone two separate reinventions, this board's one and only reason to exist is to be "not-MD&D." It has never outgrown its knee-jerk beginnings. This is evident in almost every thread, and is painfully evident in this one.
2. You chose to create a board where cross-posting and board wars were not only allowed but encouraged. That, of course, was necessary to enable the denizens here to continue to snarl and jeer at discussions on MD&D; but these are not encouraged on boards run by responsible administrators. While I can see the attraction of a certain amount of adolescent rebellion against such old fuddy-duddy notions like being responsible, there must eventually come a time for the adolescent to grow up. But that doesn't seem to have happened here. All these years down the track, and this board is still revelling in the first flush of freshman just-off-to-college freedom.
3. You chose to create a board where personal threads -- and by extension, personal vendettas -- were allowed to flourish. It was inevitable that someone who was spitefully targeted might eventually find a way to hit back; and when the inevitable happened, it was the victim's fault.
4. You chose to create a board where a specific religion was targeted for mockery and ridicule; and that is embedded in the structure of the place. The "three kingdoms," the various levels of poster status (from "Nursery" up to "God" ) all make light of things that are serious to and respected by believing Latter-day Saints. This despite the fact that religion matters very much to a great many people, including us. But if we want to respond to you in your forum, then we're expected to either give tacit consent to your mockery, or else single ourselves out for further ridicule for being "thin-skinned" or unable to take a joke; all the jokes in view being, of course, at our expense. This is a well-known tactic of schoolyard bullying.

This is the culture you have created and that you continue to promote. You continue to beat up the "us vs. them" aspect of it, as when you recently assumed, sans evidence, that the temporary board outage was due to some kind of conspiracy by the MD&D administrators, instead of a complaint by a legitimately aggrieved individual.

In support of your surrealistic claim that this sty you have worked so hard to create is "srictly better than MD&D," you pointed out on another thread that MDB has the "Celestial forum." Think about that for a moment: the best part of MDB, the part that makes it eau seau superiah, is the part where the rules most closely resemble MD&D.

Does that tell you anything?

And there is nothing stopping the disrespectful swine who profane the temple by putting their new names in their sig lines from posting in your "Celestial forum," is there?

However, there is hope for this forum. The culture has been changed for the better once before.

I remember when Scratch first built up his creepy "dossiers" about Mormon (of course) targets on his blog, and MDB resounded with the oinks and grunts of malicious glee. Then "Mr Itchy" responded by doing the same thing to Scratch (and a few others here) on his blog. Scratch erupted with hypocritical rage that anyone could have the temerity to do to him what he thought himself entitled to do, with impunity, to others. (It was really quite entertaining, and the best part is that he still erupts with hypocritical rage about that; but I digress.) Suddenly, the you and the other Mods became all solemn and po-faced, and then the rule was introduced that in real life details should not be posted. And while, to my knowledge, you've never actually pinged anyone for breaking that rule, you've been reasonbly even-handed about editing out in real life names when they appear. (You were quicker off the mark to do it for Kishkumen than for me, but you still did it.)

Now suppose you were to introduce a new rule: "No personal threads." That would mean no new threads targeting individuals. And suppose you were to even-handedly enforce that rule. Would it make your forum less vulnerable to legitimate grievances?

I think it would.

Would it make your forum in any way worse than it now is?

Well, that all depends: how much does the enjoyment of your non-Mormon and anti-Mormon clientele depend upon the Schadenfreude that arises from seeing Mormon (of course) individuals targeted?

Regards,
Pahoran

The same logic that you use to attach responsibility to Dr Shades for the culture of MDB would indict and convict Brigham Young for the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

So party on Pahoran!

Does anyone see this post? Is this on topic?

No, it's not. It should be removed from the thread and cast into Outer Darkness.

[_Jersey Girl]

I think you need to recruit some more moderators, Shades and rethink suspensions and banning.

Hmmm....I've already suggested (off the board) a possible method of dealing with questionable posts to Shades. I would be very glad to facilitate that during summer (which would amount to go-fer work on my part) to test the method, but I honestly don't think he see's the overall status of the board right now.

Shades, if you are reading here, this is what I referred to when I said I had another idea about this but wanted to "sleep on it".

And then didn't communicate with you again.

[_TrashcanMan79]

A few quibbles aside (and minor ones at that), I like Pahoran's post and think it is worthy of consideration. At the very least, personal threads need to be confined to the Telestial Forum ("the anything-goes forum for flaming, venting, and personal attacks"), and this is coming from someone who likes the personal attack threads.

[_Ceeboo]

Hi Jersey Girl,

but I honestly don't think he see's the overall status of the board right now.

I know that I am a rookie of sorts around these parts but if I may ask you, what do you see as the overall status of the board right now?

(In an effort to be crystal clear, I am simply just curious as to what your take is)

Thanks in advance.

Peace,
Ceeboo