Regarding The Mission and Operation of this Forum

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Jay, you really need to take it down a notch or two with your flippant posts on this thread. You are being moderated because you're being unreasonable. Please reconsider and maybe take a step back for a day or two. This thread will still be open and waiting for you when you come back.

Everyone else is encouraged to make their thoughtful and reasonable posts!
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There are posts by Evangelical on this very thread that are worse than Jay's that went through without the bat of an eye or a whiff of moderation. EvanG called people "delusional" and after being pushed back on he remained "unapologetic" and said "if you want local church people here expect local church answers". And don't get me started on all the countless terrible things both Evangelical and Drake used to say on so many other threads without moderation!

UntoHim, please, with all due respect, the adults on this forum are capable of having adult conversations about a variety of topics that include tense moments, flippant remarks, problematic answers, etc. When those kind of things were posted in the past, the discussion just continued. I recall many times it took quite a few back and forths where it became clear to all that the discussion was being derailed and blowing up into shrapnel before you would step in. That was the light touch that allowed healthy discussion to flourish prior to this point.

Three contributing members - aron, ACuriousFellow, and Jay - have now been moderated in the past few months where they were not even allowed to send PMs, and were not allowed to post anything on the forum before it goes through an approval process, and absolutely none of them have said anything that I would ever consider even close to a real problem on a discussions forum of this type.

Many people have left in the past few years for this exact reason, and you are giving good reason for the remaining few to leave too. Please reconsider the approach you have been taking recently.

I've corresponded with you a few years ago about something similar and always tried to remain respectful, and I recall saying that I would only "push back" once or twice and then let it go because it is not my call. That is still true. This is the only post I intend to write about this unless there is some good public discussion about it that follows. You are welcome to respond publicly by telling me all the reasons I'm wrong or inappropriate, etc, for writing this post, and I won't bite back. I'll let your words stand.

This is what I would suggest - open up a public thread that invites the input of the members and unregistered lurkers. Ask them if they think the moderation here has been healthy moderation or has been unhealthy and heavy-handed moderation. Receive the responses without responding or defending so that people can feel free to be honest without having to worry about getting in contentious back-and-forths. Just solicit the input and that's it. If the responses come in that those reading/writing are fine with it, then so be it - I'm wrong and I'm fine for people to see that I'm wrong. But if the responses come in that there's a problem, then please be willing to hear it.

If you are not willing to do a public thread soliciting input, then that I think will also show there is a problem. But I think you will be willing to do it because I actually recall that you did one similar not that long ago (maybe sometime within the past year)......although now that I think about it, not many people answered, so maybe this will be pointless from the start.

I hope you will leave this post up rather than delete it. There is nothing disrespectful about it or that breaks the rules in it. Thanks for listening.

Trapped