CarrieMpls said:

The thing to remember is just because someone reports a post or thread for moderation, doesn't mean that a moderators has to comply with their wishes. A moderator's job is to look at the post and apply the site rules and determine if it broke one or not, then take action based on applying that set of rules.

When I was moderating and in doubt, I'd look back at the rules.

Yes your right. I'm just saying some member don't take into consideration, that while they are just dealing with conversations or debates, that Moderators, get emails & orgnotes.

Some things are easy and site rules are enough, but other things I will speak with 1 or more other moderators before making a move.

about 2 week ago, I signed on an 1 thread had 10 requests of moderation. On a thread 10 pages deep. A lot of members don't consider that, when excersizing their 'freedom of speech'

CarrieMpls said:

With an open forum, folks should be able to speak their mind as long as they keep to the general topic of the thread. If the thread is about war and someone wants to derail it off into abortion, that's a no-no. But you shouldn't be able to dictate "only people who agree with me can post on this thread" or "only people who say what I want to hear" for that matter.

So if someone wants to say how much they looooooooooooove the song Kiss, they should be prepared to hear the opposite side too.

It's not against site rules to disagree.

Just a few comments in open forums from members on the topic of Religion

You are not the center of the attention. It's stupid, sad and ridiculous that this generalising bullshit just goes on and on against anybody "religious".

"Wait did I say ridiculous? I meant fucking nonsensical!"

I take it seriously not because of Christianity, but because it ruins this site/forum.

Name names? Who do you think you are? Chairman Mao?

First of all, as much as you'd like to believe, I am not Joeseph McCarthy, nor am I composing an org black list to "name names."

I'm an athiest myself, yet I am not compelled to antagonize the beliefs of deist.

Your lot is. I'm merely stating an observation.

You see the same anti religious threads, and you see the same vitriol spewing orgers.

Oh goody...our weekly "stupid religious people" thread.

It's getting to be kind of like the weekly "Prince has lost it" threads in the other forum....SSDD.

It's amusing to think that the OP has been stewing over this since last fall but it's even more amusing to think how things would have turned out if these comments had been addressed to the object of her derision to her face. Why not try that next time and let us know how it turns out.

For example, it can be interesting to post some info about Hitchen's latest blurb or even something of your own experience that informs your position, but people just venting their spleen towards a particular group week in and week out so the usual suspects can pile on with their predicable vitriol just smacks of bait, period, end of story.

cborgman said:

CarrieMpls said:

With an open forum, folks should be able to speak their mind as long as they keep to the general topic of the thread. If the thread is about war and someone wants to derail it off into abortion, that's a no-no. But you shouldn't be able to dictate "only people who agree with me can post on this thread" or "only people who say what I want to hear" for that matter.

So if someone wants to say how much they looooooooooooove the song Kiss, they should be prepared to hear the opposite side too.

It's not against site rules to disagree.

Absolutely. Carrie's articulating what seems to me to be a sensible, 'minimalistic' approach to moderation. If moderation starts curbing debate on religion, or critical input from people on a thread about a given song - or, for that matter, threads critical of certain beloved artists in the MNP forum - that's a real blow for the site, I think. And it does seem, from evidence on recent threads and now this, that we're moving in that direction, which I don't think is a good thing.

toejam said:

^Oldfriends, I think you're just taking this all way too seriously. Sure, there's point where threads go off-topic. And I've always admitted to my share of the blame. It's never intentional. Most of the time I just ask questions. If people don't want to answer, that's cool.

There's nothing illegitimate about your objections to people putting forward a religious point of view, as far as I can see - and I say that as someone with a certain affinity towards religious people, and a dislike of some strands of contemporary atheist argument and the tone in which it tends to get expressed, as well as the sustained nature of the questioning of believers. But that's a matter of personal style and preference, and a matter of the stuff I like not getting an easy ride; it's not at all an issue of violating site rules.

The impasse being described is, as far as I can see, an inevitable consequence of what happens when people with fundamentally incompatible views encounter each other on an open forum. Sometimes, I don't start lefty threads because I can't be bothered getting into it with the libertarians. It's an annoyance for me personally, in terms of getting my particular view across untrammelled, but it's not a moderation issue. In fact, I would say that if we're starting to frame it as such, I think that signals a worrying, creeping overreach in terms of moderation, which I think we need to put a stop to.

deebee said:

cborgman said:

Absolutely. Carrie's articulating what seems to me to be a sensible, 'minimalistic' approach to moderation. If moderation starts curbing debate on religion, or critical input from people on a thread about a given song - or, for that matter, threads critical of certain beloved artists in the MNP forum - that's a real blow for the site, I think. And it does seem, from evidence on recent threads and now this, that we're moving in that direction, which I don't think is a good thing.

no, your making it bigger than what I'm talking about,

Prince.org doesn't have to have all these options of conversations

If in th beginning Ben choose not to have a section to discuss religion

I doubt anyone would feel robbed of something

Im really just responing to issues of Belief/Non-Belief.

Many other members have complained of the same, I posted 3 comments by members of a common

opinion by members, which i;ve been hearing for a while,

no one is trying to curb critical input

(but what you or someone may mean critical input is someting to be defined)

deebee said:

toejam said:

^Oldfriends, I think you're just taking this all way too seriously. Sure, there's point where threads go off-topic. And I've always admitted to my share of the blame. It's never intentional. Most of the time I just ask questions. If people don't want to answer, that's cool.

There's nothing illegitimate about your objections to people putting forward a religious point of view, as far as I can see - and I say that as someone with a certain affinity towards religious people, and a dislike of some strands of contemporary atheist argument and the tone in which it tends to get expressed, as well as the sustained nature of the questioning of believers. But that's a matter of personal style and preference, and a matter of the stuff I like not getting an easy ride; it's not at all an issue of violating site rules.

The impasse being described is, as far as I can see, an inevitable consequence of what happens when people with fundamentally incompatible views encounter each other on an open forum. Sometimes, I don't start lefty threads because I can't be bothered getting into it with the libertarians. It's an annoyance for me personally, in terms of getting my particular view across untrammelled, but it's not a moderation issue. In fact, I would say that if we're starting to frame it as such, I think that signals a worrying, creeping overreach in terms of moderation, which I think we need to put a stop to.

If you see things as being annoying, so you won't even post, what about those that do,

What do you think happens when discussions erupt, you think moderation doesnt become an issue?

Its always been a moderation issue, which is why many people, yourself included avoid P&R or Belief/Non-Belief discussions all together, and many Mods don't care for dealing with this section.

OldFriends4Sale said:

deebee said:

There's nothing illegitimate about your objections to people putting forward a religious point of view, as far as I can see - and I say that as someone with a certain affinity towards religious people, and a dislike of some strands of contemporary atheist argument and the tone in which it tends to get expressed, as well as the sustained nature of the questioning of believers. But that's a matter of personal style and preference, and a matter of the stuff I like not getting an easy ride; it's not at all an issue of violating site rules.

The impasse being described is, as far as I can see, an inevitable consequence of what happens when people with fundamentally incompatible views encounter each other on an open forum. Sometimes, I don't start lefty threads because I can't be bothered getting into it with the libertarians. It's an annoyance for me personally, in terms of getting my particular view across untrammelled, but it's not a moderation issue. In fact, I would say that if we're starting to frame it as such, I think that signals a worrying, creeping overreach in terms of moderation, which I think we need to put a stop to.

If you see things as being annoying, so you won't even post, what about those that do,

What do you think happens when discussions erupt, you think moderation doesnt become an issue?

Its always been a moderation issue, which why many people, yourself included avoid P&R or Belief/Non-Belief discussions all together, and many Mods don't care for dealing with this section.

I don't think moderators should start 'legislating from the bench', as it were. We've signed up to site rules, but we haven't signed up to any slate of individual mod preferences. So, if there are offences that specifically violate the site rules we have all agreed to (e.g. name-calling, being abusive, etc), mods have a mandate to snip them. That seems quite appropriate. If, on the other hand, a moderator finds him/herself peeved because a discussion is not panning out in a particular way, or the kind of interventions don't reflect the particular aspects of the subject at hand that he/she is interested in, that's an annoyance - I sympathise with it - but there's no mandate to go snipping.

I might well love to make P&R my pulpit from which to preach a daily left-wing sermon without interruption, but if people that don't share my views want to challenge me, they absolutely have a right to do so, providing that they do so within the terms that we signed up to (i.e. civilly, etc). That might frustrate me, and it might irk a mod who happens to share my views, but there's no mandate in the rules we agreed to to go editing the discussion. At that point, we'd simply be enforcing the preferences of a particular mod, which isn't what the role is supposed to entail.

OldFriends4Sale said:

deebee said:

Absolutely. Carrie's articulating what seems to me to be a sensible, 'minimalistic' approach to moderation. If moderation starts curbing debate on religion, or critical input from people on a thread about a given song - or, for that matter, threads critical of certain beloved artists in the MNP forum - that's a real blow for the site, I think. And it does seem, from evidence on recent threads and now this, that we're moving in that direction, which I don't think is a good thing.

no, your making it bigger than what I'm talking about,

Prince.org doesn't have to have all these options of conversations

If in th beginning Ben choose not to have a section to discuss religion

I doubt anyone would feel robbed of something

Im really just responing to issues of Belief/Non-Belief.

Many other members have complained of the same, I posted 3 comments by members of a common

opinion by members, which i;ve been hearing for a while,

no one is trying to curb critical input

(but what you or someone may mean critical input is someting to be defined)

At the very least, then, you should draw up a list of which 'options of conversations' you'd like us to have, and give us the option of agreeing to that, like we had with the site rules when we joined. But, until then, moderation should be based on the site rules we agreed to, not a particular set of preferences we didn't.

deebee said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

no, your making it bigger than what I'm talking about,

Prince.org doesn't have to have all these options of conversations

If in th beginning Ben choose not to have a section to discuss religion

I doubt anyone would feel robbed of something

Im really just responing to issues of Belief/Non-Belief.

Many other members have complained of the same, I posted 3 comments by members of a common

opinion by members, which i;ve been hearing for a while,

no one is trying to curb critical input

(but what you or someone may mean critical input is someting to be defined)

At the very least, then, you should draw up a list of which 'options of conversations' you'd like us to have, and give us the option of agreeing to that, like we had with the site rules when we joined. But, until then, moderation should be based on the site rules we agreed to, not a particular set of preferences we didn't.

Well thank U, that's what I was looking for, That's something simple, and could easily deter derailment of a thread, and less need for moderators to jump in.

But again, you are jumping the gun. If anyone one of us were trying to change things on some personal preferences, you probably would have notice it. But you haven't because it's not happening. If a mod did, he/she would definately not try to communicate with other members about issue in the org, especially issues that other members have brought to their attention.

If the site Owner and moderators are working on tweaking things, then I think it would show a sign of respect that we would communicate with the members of the org in the process, to see if even something can or should be done.

U and I agreed to

Moderators have final say.prince.org administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit, relocate and/or remove any message, at any time, for any reason. Consider all editing decisions final. If you don't agree with a decision, you may discuss it with the moderator who made the judgment in private. If you cannot reach resolution with the Moderator in private, contact the site administrator via e-mail (ben@prince.org), explaining the entire situation, with all relevant links/excerpts/emails, etc. Under no circumstance attempt to start a 'debate' about specific moderation decisions in a public forum.

OldFriends4Sale said:

deebee said:

At the very least, then, you should draw up a list of which 'options of conversations' you'd like us to have, and give us the option of agreeing to that, like we had with the site rules when we joined. But, until then, moderation should be based on the site rules we agreed to, not a particular set of preferences we didn't.

Well thank U, that's what I was looking for, That's something simple, and could easily deter derailment of a thread, and less need for moderators to jump in.

U and I agreed to

Moderators have final say.prince.org administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit, relocate and/or remove any message, at any time, for any reason. Consider all editing decisions final. If you don't agree with a decision, you may discuss it with the moderator who made the judgment in private. If you cannot reach resolution with the Moderator in private, contact the site administrator via e-mail (ben@prince.org), explaining the entire situation, with all relevant links/excerpts/emails, etc. Under no circumstance attempt to start a 'debate' about specific moderation decisions in a public forum.

That's based on moderators enforcing the agreed rules (e.g. no flaming, no abusiveness, etc). Its point is that should a moderator have edited a post, believing it violated those rules, that decision cannot be publicly argued over in the forums. It's not supposed to be a trump card to give moderators the go-ahead to enforce their own personal preferences without any recourse. That would be an abuse of the position.

If moderators are openly saying that they'll use it to enforce personal preferences not site rules concerning conduct, that's a worrying development, and possibly it is time to take it up with the site administrator.

deebee said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

If you see things as being annoying, so you won't even post, what about those that do,

What do you think happens when discussions erupt, you think moderation doesnt become an issue?

Its always been a moderation issue, which why many people, yourself included avoid P&R or Belief/Non-Belief discussions all together, and many Mods don't care for dealing with this section.

I don't think moderators should start 'legislating from the bench', as it were. We've signed up to site rules, but we haven't signed up to any slate of individual mod preferences. So, if there are offences that specifically violate the site rules we have all agreed to (e.g. name-calling, being abusive, etc), mods have a mandate to snip them. That seems quite appropriate. If, on the other hand, a moderator finds him/herself peeved because a discussion is not panning out in a particular way, or the kind of interventions don't reflect the particular aspects of the subject at hand that he/she is interested in, that's an annoyance - I sympathise with it - but there's no mandate to go snipping.

I might well love to make P&R my pulpit from which to preach a daily left-wing sermon without interruption, but if people that don't share my views want to challenge me, they absolutely have a right to do so, providing that they do so within the terms that we signed up to (i.e. civilly, etc). That might frustrate me, and it might irk a mod who happens to share my views, but there's no mandate in the rules we agreed to to go editing the discussion. At that point, we'd simply be enforcing the preferences of a particular mod, which isn't what the role is supposed to entail.

That's what you seem to be missing, in most of the Belief/non-Belief threads, there is a flow of things that happen in the same fashion everytime.

And a mod sharing similar views definately has nothing to do with it, I've helped the OP of a Wiccan thread, Satanist thread, Gnostic thread, and more recently Gnostic Christian and an Atheist-Agnostic thread.

It's the civility that always breaks down, very quickly in these topics. Much different than a topic of Politics or a song. in Religion as Imago said in one his comments [It's like gangs] 1 side tries to change the thinking of the other. Maybe you haven't viewed any of these threads? No one in cyberspace is going to convince the other that they are wrong. It's not even minimally sensibly possible. That is the humor I find in these threads. It's not going to happen, why debate. Because it's the same members different thread. Same arguement, same beliefs. That's why you yourself do not take part in them.

I see a big difference in discussion that, religion or atheism, may be mixed into the topic. Those can be kept civil and have members more easily stay within the rules of the org.

Religious and racial tens...ch society

Muslim Gangs Harras Homos... of LONDON

The Republican Party seek... your help

YES PLEASE: Glenn Beck t...t be taxed

Faith

Pat Robertson Challenges Creationism

Why American Jews don’t (and won’t) vote Republican

The Church and the Homose...tive, 1979

Lumbees say they’ll kee...st the law

Now Arx started a thread called: Atheists: are you gnostic or agnostic?

I don't see anything wrong with a thread looking for information to share or exchange from people of similar background. The thread stayed on topic, there was only 1 post that needed to be deleted because it attempted to derail the thread.

Most threads that are a post of a 'news article' type tend to be easily kept civil. The ones that people start out of their own personal issues are the messy ones.

No mandate in the rules we agreed to, to go editing the discussion? Seriously?

Moderators have final say.prince.org administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit, relocate and/or remove any message, at any time, for any reason. Consider all editing decisions final. If you don't agree with a decision, you may discuss it with the moderator who made the judgment in private. If you cannot reach resolution with the Moderator in private, contact the site administrator via e-mail (ben@prince.org), explaining the entire situation, with all relevant links/excerpts/emails, etc. Under no circumstance attempt to start a 'debate' about specific moderation decisions in a public forum.

But the general Belief vs Non-Belief threads the have no purpose than to fight, name call, put down, ridicule, try to change the minds of others

If you do not believe in ... evolve...

Why do believers give the...on to God?

The ridiculous thinking o...ous people

Is it ever OK to hate all religions?

These are posts made by members in Religion threads, there is no way there can be any kind of civility when these are the attitudes.

Name calling, snide remarks, and disrespect fills the threads.

* This to me sums up so much religous thinking in a nutshell. In short, it is ridiculous, and I have a hard time summoning respect for any grown adult who engages in it

* Did I say ridiculous? I'm sorry, I meant fucking nonsensical.

* Religion is bullshit, we're on our own, no deity...we just have us

* It's like the muslims and all those virgins they get when they are dead

* Certain people who has a disdain for God, I am willing to believe they were the very ones abused by authority figures

* This forum really does have a hard on for religious people lol

You might hate them, but you LOOOOVE talking about them.

* I am sure that no person actually believes that god really exists. they just like to play along and fool others or even themselves. and nothing you can do or say will convince me otherwise. those are the facts: no one believes in God. everyone is an atheists. some just hide it

* You are never going to convince them otherwise, so it's futile to keep pointing out the inconsistencies, cause their faith will always win the argument, no matter how hypocritical it is.

So as an Athiest, i feel it's a waste of time to point out the obvious to them.

* You don't think what you've just written is antagonising, let alone condescending, to a believer? You've literally branded their beliefs hypocritical, delusional and a dysfunctional crutch to the psyche. And yet you complain of others being antagonising and spewing vitriol? Let's ask a believer just how respectful your "mere observation" is.

* Exactly! This thread is about how ridiculous, some of us believe, religion and religious views are.

* Ooooh resorting to infantile name calling.

How mature of you. Your mother must be proud.

* What evidence is there that there was/is a creator? Where did he come from? What's the purpose of his existence? And if there is a creator, what makes you think he cares what we think, or don't think, about him?

* Am I trying to convince people not to believe in God? Well, I think the reasons for believing in the God of the Bible are seriously flawed, and I try to show people that where I can - as people who do believe in him try to show me. Isn't that why we have forums like P&R? But I'm also open to the possibility that mimric's, and/or your God actually does exist. Maybe he or yourself can convince me? What evidence have you got?

* Just wait until there's a ressurgence in the ever-popular Catholic-bashing threads.

No mandate in the rules we agreed to, to go editing the discussion? Seriously?

Moderators have final say.prince.org administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit, relocate and/or remove any message, at any time, for any reason. Consider all editing decisions final. If you don't agree with a decision, you may discuss it with the moderator who made the judgment in private. If you cannot reach resolution with the Moderator in private, contact the site administrator via e-mail (ben@prince.org), explaining the entire situation, with all relevant links/excerpts/emails, etc. Under no circumstance attempt to start a 'debate' about specific moderation decisions in a public forum.

deebee said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Well thank U, that's what I was looking for, That's something simple, and could easily deter derailment of a thread, and less need for moderators to jump in.

U and I agreed to

Moderators have final say.prince.org administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit, relocate and/or remove any message, at any time, for any reason. Consider all editing decisions final. If you don't agree with a decision, you may discuss it with the moderator who made the judgment in private. If you cannot reach resolution with the Moderator in private, contact the site administrator via e-mail (ben@prince.org), explaining the entire situation, with all relevant links/excerpts/emails, etc. Under no circumstance attempt to start a 'debate' about specific moderation decisions in a public forum.

That's based on moderators enforcing the agreed rules (e.g. no flaming, no abusiveness, etc). Its point is that should a moderator have edited a post, believing it violated those rules, that decision cannot be publicly argued over in the forums. It's not supposed to be a trump card to give moderators the go-ahead to enforce their own personal preferences without any recourse. That would be an abuse of the position.

If moderators are openly saying that they'll use it to enforce personal preferences not site rules concerning conduct, that's a worrying development, and possibly it is time to take it up with the site administrator.

Since I've been here, I don't know of a Moderator that's not been accused of moderating according to their own personal preferences, And I doubt you can point to anyone doing it.

Because a member didn't like something that happened, Every Mod that tends to be very active gets that accusation.

Members as well don't get to push personal preferences for how they think we should moderate.

Right now we have a good number of members publicly and privately fighting us for the right to post Prince video, boot links and such, accusing the site of taking away freedom of speech.

No one is enforcing personal preferences. And the moderators I work with, we communicate with each other on (non simple) moderation duties. via orgnotes & Mod portals. There is an accountability. You can ask any current Mod & Ben, if OldFriends4Sale accountable. And i get the same requests for 2nd and 3rd opinions from Luv4u LangBleu and others. Because I still ask questions on the simplist things, to cover myself. If I'm taking part in a discussion I will ask another moderator to handle any moderation in that thread.

But again, you are jumping the gun. If anyone one of us were trying to change things on some personal preferences, you probably would have notice it. But you haven't because it's not happening. If a mod did, he/she would definately not try to communicate with other members about issues in the org, especially issues that other members have brought to their attention.

If the site Owner and moderators are working on tweaking things, then I think it would show a sign of respect that we would communicate with the members of the org in the process, to see if even something can or should be done.

And you yourself have taken the purpose of this topic into your own direction, not having even answered the basic questions of the original post.

OldFriends4Sale said:

These are posts made by members in Religion threads, there is no way there can be any kind of civility when these are the attitudes.

* I am sure that no person actually believes that god really exists. they just like to play along and fool others or even themselves. and nothing you can do or say will convince me otherwise. those are the facts: no one believes in God. everyone is an atheists. some just hide it

* You are never going to convince them otherwise, so it's futile to keep pointing out the inconsistencies, cause their faith will always win the argument, no matter how hypocritical it is.

So as an Athiest, i feel it's a waste of time to point out the obvious to them.

* Exactly! This thread is about how ridiculous, some of us believe, religion and religious views are.

* What evidence is there that there was/is a creator? Where did he come from? What's the purpose of his existence? And if there is a creator, what makes you think he cares what we think, or don't think, about him?

* Am I trying to convince people not to believe in God? Well, I think the reasons for believing in the God of the Bible are seriously flawed, and I try to show people that where I can - as people who do believe in him try to show me. Isn't that why we have forums like P&R? But I'm also open to the possibility that mimric's, and/or your God actually does exist. Maybe he or yourself can convince me? What evidence have you got?

As I've already argued, if there is name-calling, abuse, etc, mods can apply the rules we signed up to and snip that. If what we're talking about is giving a mandate to start deleting the kinds of statements above, particularly the last two, I think that's exceeding the mandate of a mod and 'legislating from the bench' based on personal preferences we have not signed up to.

Gotten some pretty good feedback from different angles

Would like to hear from a few more members [on the opening post]

Then this is done

Am I the only person who thinks the thread title reads like a Zen Koan?

"Simple" question about "P&R"

imago said:

Am I the only person who thinks the thread title reads like a Zen Koan?

"Simple" question about "P&R"

lol no your not

definately a type of oxymoron

I've been on this site since the beginning and have noticed a change in the P&R forum the last two to three years. This change isn't positive in my view. What I mainly see, and also know that many others see, is a change towards the negative as in the way religion is discussed or debated.

That negativity is clearly and overwhelmingly directed at Christianity or people of Christian faith, even sometimes at orgers themselves. The 'discussions' where this takes place generally are 'supported' by some random blog or news article (often with dubious sources), or even some personal anecdote, where some Christian or Christianity is put in a negative spotlight.

The question whether the negativity is right or wrong aside; very often such "news" or "opinion" isn't followed by a serious comment nor any intent to start a serious discussion, but merely by some (super) negative comment or outright judgement on Christian faith or Christians in general.

For example, just recently somebody referred to some obscure article referring to some flawed study 'suggesting' some criminals use religion to justify their crimes. The only comment the OP felt he needed to make along with this 'news' was: "Christianity, doing more harm than good? What else is new right?"

That's just an outright and unfounded attack. No intent to "discuss" or "debate" whatsoever. And that's just one thread out of many, in what increasingly seems to be some kind of campaign to "purify" the P&R forum of all its Christians. I hope of course that this is not the intent, but I can tell that many orgers with Christian faith feel the atmosphere in P&R is THAT hostile towards them.

The negativity is also there in 1 on 1 discussions that are most oftten initiated by a certain section of P&R orgers with what they call atheist beliefs. Not naming any names nor meaning all of them and some positive exceptions certainly provided, but they know who they are, when I say that there is a pattern of discussion there that is negative. You can call it "criticising" or more friendly "challenging" somebody else's opinion, but almost always these 'debates' turn into contentious, bitter, personal diatribes. 'Debate' that more often than not turns into: a person who is a Christian is somebody who is a backwards person or an idiot for believing in ridiculous fairytales, flying teapots, spaghetti monsters or other negative and degrading descriptions.

Even when something positive is posted about Christianity, more often than not also, somebody will still chip in to say something negative and or derail the thread towards the negative.

The pattern I am speaking about here is overwhelmingly clear, since there are seriously dozens of threads just from the last couple of months, where a certain group of P&R posters show their anti-Christian opinion, that more and more seems to entail some weird kind of propaganda agenda. I am not going to list the threads here, but OF4S already posted a bunch of comments as examples and everybody that regurlarly visits the P&R forum knows this.

So yes, there is a problem. P&R is increasingly turning into a place where being of Christian faith is not really a good idea to go and make public, nor is it to engage in discussion on it with others. If you are a newbie here, somebody new who would like to share some of his or her thoughts or beliefs on Christianity and discuss them; next to a thread of anti-religious-in-your-face threads, you might also see that your faith, and perhabs even you personally, gets attacked with a viciousness that will soon cool down all your wishes and desire to ever do so again.

As they say in British parliament: Shame.

[Edited 3/16/13 21:06pm]

That stuff i've already suggested above is all you need to do.

If you're going to have P&R at all on this fansite, expect heated discussions.

The value of the posts and validity of the statements will always be suspect.

If they're suspect in congress or parliment, keyboard commandos won't do any better.

P&R is fine the way it is.

Well, it's dysfunctional. It's as fine as it can really be the way it is.

imago said:

That stuff i've already suggested above is all you need to do.

If you're going to have P&R at all on this fansite, expect heated discussions.

There is nothing wrong with heated discussions. I welcome them in fact. But that's not the same as the campaign that I am talking about above. What you suggested is not a bad idea but it's not enough.

There shouldn't have to be a disclaimer above every thread asking those who only want to argue or attack people with faith, to stay away. It should be obvious that people do not get attacked on the basis of their beliefs at all. The rule:

Disagree if you wish, but do not attack other individuals on the basis of their beliefs.

Is clear, simple, and concise. But gets violated all the time.

Tremolina said:

imago said:

That stuff i've already suggested above is all you need to do.

If you're going to have P&R at all on this fansite, expect heated discussions.

There is nothing wrong with heated discussions. I welcome them in fact. But that's not the same as the campaign that I am talking about above. What you suggested is not a bad idea but it's not enough.

There shouldn't have to be a disclaimer above every thread asking those who only want to argue or attack people with faith, to stay away. It should be obvious that people do not get attacked on the basis of their beliefs at all. The rule:

Disagree if you wish, but do not attack other individuals on the basis of their beliefs.

Is clear, simple, and concise. But gets violated all the time.

guuRRLLL

imago said:

Tremolina said:

There is nothing wrong with heated discussions. I welcome them in fact. But that's not the same as the campaign that I am talking about above. What you suggested is not a bad idea but it's not enough.

There shouldn't have to be a disclaimer above every thread asking those who only want to argue or attack people with faith, to stay away. It should be obvious that people do not get attacked on the basis of their beliefs at all. The rule:

Disagree if you wish, but do not attack other individuals on the basis of their beliefs.

Is clear, simple, and concise. But gets violated all the time.

guuRRLLL

What? Youare saying this rule is bullshit?