ZLMB -- Shadow or Reality?

[_Nightlion]

Nice summary, EA. I believe I've brought up Pacumeni's preferential treatment of Pahoran around these parts before.

I am confused. ZLMB stands for what then? Not Zion's Lighthouse Ministry Board? ala Sandra Tanner?

The Tanners forum was called ULMB (Utah Lighthouse Message Board). ZLMB (Zion's Lighthouse Message Board) was started in part because the moderation at ULMB was so one-sided and played heavily against Mormons.

So there's some serious irony in MDDB becoming the Mormon equivalent of ULMB.

Thanks, I am always so forward looking that I forget about old stuff. I know I was kicking around in all that back in the day, if only a little bit.

[_Blixa]

Blixa has got her red pencil out. Watch it!
Any place for a half decent pareidolianist on your perfect board?

You know I have a soft spot for pareidolia and an interest in religious/mystic landscape studies. I doubt I'll ever have time enough to do anything but contribute ideas to such a project, but I really wish someone would write a work on landscape in Mormon history/theology. In some ways, it's likely to be only a chapter in a larger study of the politics of American landscape/nature interpretation, but I believe it has a few unique twists of its own to add to such work.

[_Corpsegrinder]

The politics of American landscape/nature interpretation.

That sounds intriguing.

[_Blixa]

The politics of American landscape/nature interpretation.

That sounds intriguing.

Find a way to put my brain into a robot body and I might have time to actually write it.

In the meantime, here are two books that touch upon such a work:

On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians and the American Landscape. Jared Farmer's work concerns the native history of Utah lake vs. the invented "history" of Mount Timpanogos.

Print the Legend: Photography and the American West. Martha Sandweiss's book is about the role photography played in the mythologizing of the American West, but it has far reaching implications for any study of cultural politics of landscape.

I've yet to read this, but I wish someone with an interest in Mormon studies would take a look at it:

The Crimsoned Hills of Onondaga: Romantic Antiquarians and the Euro-American Invention of Native American Prehistory

[_Corpsegrinder]

In the meantime, here are two books that touch upon such a work:

On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians and the American Landscape. Jared Farmer's work concerns the native history of Utah lake vs. the invented "history" of Mount Timpanogos.

Print the Legend: Photography and the American West. Martha Sandweiss's book is about the role photography played in the mythologizing of the American West, but it has far reaching implications for any study of cultural politics of landscape.

Thanks. Will check them out.

From the Amazon blurb of Martha Sandweiss's book:

The story begins just a few years after the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839...

This is most cool. I actually collect daguerreotype-era lenses & images.

[_Blixa]

In the meantime, here are two books that touch upon such a work:

On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians and the American Landscape. Jared Farmer's work concerns the native history of Utah lake vs. the invented "history" of Mount Timpanogos.

Print the Legend: Photography and the American West. Martha Sandweiss's book is about the role photography played in the mythologizing of the American West, but it has far reaching implications for any study of cultural politics of landscape.

Thanks. Will check them out.

From the Amazon blurb of Martha Sandweiss's book:

The story begins just a few years after the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839...

This is most cool. I actually collect daguerreotype-era lenses & images.

She's also got some great stuff on stereo photography. I've been dying to get my hands on an old stereo camera.

[_Jersey Girl]

All,

From what I have gathered, it seems like ZLMB was the pinnacle of Mormon related discussion fora. There appears to have been moderate and fair moderation with participants from both sides of the aisle. It's only shortcoming appears to be that it's dead and gone, with no hope of resurrection. Several boards seem to have tried to resurrect the interaction of ZLMB, usually with a slight tweak, but none have ever managed to pull it off.

Questions:

1) Is the above summary a reality?

2) Was ZLMB just a shadow of the above description, but people just remember it being better than it was?

3) If yes to #1, what could be done to bring something like it back to life?

Aristotle, I seemed to have come on Z just following it's "golden age", having been invited by another poster. After spending some years on a nearly moderation-free board, dealing with moderation took some getting used to. In my observation and experience, the moderation was indeed fair. As others have noted, the mod team were a fair representation of the electic blend of posters on that board.

Once I got used to posting on a moderated board, I grew to love it, mainly due to that electic blend of posters.

What could be done to resurrect it? Probably nothing. Why?

1. It would take an enormous and intentional effort on the part of admin to recreate that climate.

2. The way the board "ended" was such that it served to splinter the community into two polarized groups.

I don't think there is any coming back from that.

In order to pull it off, admin would have to baby the board along and the two groups will likely never stop clawing at each other.


Jersey Girl/Lady Sundancer

[Guest]

That's the thing, though. How much can Mo'ism be fleshed out? It's all been done a dozen times over. Everyone knows exactly what we're dealing with. If Mr. Peterson wants to log-on to the Internet to "discuss" Mormonism or Ms. Liz "Dream Team" 3564 wants to create an echo chamber then... What's the point?

Every_single_issue related to Mormonism has been hashed over, and then re-hashed over.

There's no guessing as to what this or that guy wrote. It is... What it is. You either comply or you don't.

What a bizarre notion that people would be fully informed, yet continue to participate in the fraud. Jesus.

V/R
Dr. C

[_MrStakhanovite]

Respect is the issue. For good solid conversation, discussion, and fruitful argumentation to happen, everyone has to respect the other participants, and not just common civility, but respect that person’s work and whatever abilities they bring to the table. Here is a quote from Jacob Neusner from a blog post of mine called, “Argument as a sign of respect” :

A good solid argument also is represented by the Torah as the right way to address God, that is, as an act of enormous devotion. The founder of eternal Israel, Abraham, argued with God to save Sodom. Moses time and again argued with God. Many of the prophets took up the argument as well, Jeremiah for example. So ours--The Torah’s--is a God that expects to be argued with; and the most profound affirmation of God’s rule and will that the Torah contains--the book of Job--forms also a sustained and systematic argument with God…In my religion, argument forms a mode of divine service, as much as prayer: reasoned debate on substantive issues, debate founded on respect for the other and made possible by shared premises. That kind of contention is not only a gesture of honor and respect for the other, but in the context of the Torah, it forms the gift of intellect on the altar of the Torah.

[_Bond James Bond]

I think that ZLMB is remembered fondly because of the perceived centralization of debate that was occurring there. Today the Internet has allowed the Mormon debate to be thinned out as it's spread to blogs, Facebook walls, message boards, and the like. Today people can set up a board or blog and restrict debate or allow it to whatever level they want. I'd prefer if everyone was posting on one big board, others probably wish that the way things are now was the way things had always been so that they'd never have to talk with someone on the Net who they disagree with. But during the ZLMB time people didn't know any better and just got along as best they could before they learned they could go create their own boards or other sites.

I also think that people look back to ZLMB (perhaps through rose colored glasses a bit) as a time when the Internet was a bit simpler and the major players were almost all centrally located on one board. You didn't have to go here to get Dr. Peterson's story and there to get Dr. Scratch's and over to that blog for whoever and to Uncle Fred's Facebook wall to get another person's version. Almost all of the people whose opinion mattered were posting and debating on one site, so naturally the direct confrontation of opposing groups rather than through board wars is perceived as better, especially in reflection. I myself fall into this type of thinking when I read this board; that things were better back in the "ole days", but I have to remind myself that good arguments are organic and ongoing and happen all the time, and that bad arguing in turn happens all the time to. Just have to stay on our toes and try to catch the good stuff.

Whether the debate is any better or any worse is up to the reader, but I think a lot of people today wish it would go back to that time when everyone's minds weren't already made up and the arguments were fresh. After hearing the garment debate for the 392nd time I'm sure the old hands just wish for the time when they had only had that debate once or twice. I think many people look back on ZLMB, their first Mormon message board experience, because it was new and fresh. Everyone remembers their first time fondly right?