[RESOLVED] Why was this thread locked ?

[Niya]

I just noticed that Dee-u's God thread was locked. The discussion there was actually quite interesting. There was no explanation why it needed to be locked. Can anyone provide some background into this decision ?

[brad jones]

Usually i close that type of thread. However, this time, it wasn't me.

[Niya]

Yea but why close it ? Whats wrong with that "type" of thread ?

[Nightwalker83]

I think there is a rule stating no discussion of a persons' religion (not sure if it was on vbforums or a different forum I'm on).

[brad jones]

In general, discussions on politics and religion often degrade into comments that violate the AuP. The above thread is one of the very few that I've seen in over a decade of working with forums that hasn't gone really bad....

If you look way back in some of the posts from about 10 years ago, you'll find a lot of political and religious threads that did go bad. Since then, we've tended to avoid them on this forum.

Brad!

[techgnome]

maybe Dee-U is the one who closed it... *shrug* yeah, I was a bit surprised to see it locked as well, with no explanation. Usually the mods are pretty good with the "here's why I closed this thread" explanations... the lack of one suggests that maybe dee-u is the one who closed it.

-tg

[Siddharth Rout]

What Brad said is absolutely true.

In general, discussions on politics and religion often degrade into comments that violate the AuP.

Dee-U feared the same and hence the thread was closed as per Dee-U's request. And No, I didn't close the thread .

[Joacim Andersson]

I closed the thread because Dee-U asked me to do so and since he was the OP and felt the discussion had gone a bit overboard I complied. Personally though, I have no problem with these kind of discussions, but you're right, I should have posted a reason.

[Niya]

Ahh ok....What a shame though The discussion was interesting. Strange he was ask that after such a long time. That thread was like 4 years old.

Resolved.

[Nightwalker83]

I closed the thread because Dee-U asked me to do so and since he was the OP and felt the discussion had gone a bit overboard I complied. Personally though, I have no problem with these kind of discussions, but you're right, I should have posted a reason.

Although, with discussions like that it become heated quickly because you don't know how strongly someone might feel about that particular subject.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'd have to say that people on this forum are generally a whole lot more thoughtful and polite than the average. Frankly, I think that this is partly due to some vigorous moderation over the years, which led to vigorous moderation on the part of the users. There were some early threads that went kind of wild, such as the immigration thread where somebody started off on a fairly xenophobic subject...then got worse. Though the OP deleted the thread in that case (they could do that back then, if I remember right), I felt it was fairly gratifying that nearly all of the responses were relatively tactful disagreements with the original statement.

On the other hand, I'm not surprised that Dee-U became dismayed by the general trend. What a buncha doubters!!

[brad jones]

Go back and look at my first 100 posts or so. I don't recall what they were, but I'm guessing you'll see most centered on issues with religious and political threads. For those that were around, You'll recall that a few of my first posts when internet.com took over the forum were about closing religious threads because there was a member or two spinning them all out of control.

This community was savage at that time. I took a beating from many of you.

[brad jones]

The other thing about religious and political threads is that when they offend, people tend to simply leave. You don't really know how many people are lost that way.....

[Niya]

I'd have to say that people on this forum are generally a whole lot more thoughtful and polite than the average.

You have no idea how true that is. I've lurked in many communities around the 'net. Everything from PUA communities, feminist communities, white-supremest communities(for kicks, I don't subscribe to their idiotic views), gaming communities, yahoo comments, youtube comments and I have to say that this forum has by far the most reasonable membership I've ever come across.

For example, there was a thread here that was recently bumped where one member verbally attacked Jmc with such venom that the forums had to censor it and his response was quite cordial and polite. I don't know a single other community online where such a thing wouldn't devolve into a vicious flamewar which usually ends with the banhammer smashing a few people, and a thread lock. I've never seen the level of reasonableness that I've observed here, anywhere else online.

[Niya]

This community was savage at that time.

Despite being here only a short time, I cannot imagine this....

[Niya]

The other thing about religious and political threads is that when they offend, people tend to simply leave. You don't really know how many people are lost that way.....

I'd say let 'em leave. Why do we have to keep bending over backwards because of people's idiotic beliefs in fairy-tales. I'm so tired of this with religious folk. They always wanna play the martyr. You don't see us "heathens" acting so childish when people come around talking about how we need to be "saved".

[brad jones]

actually - as your response illustrates and to make a broad generalization - the "non-religious" people tend to be more zealous in their beliefs than the religious members.

And I should add.... your post actually violates the AuP because you are attacking a category of people with your own broad generalizations. I don't play a martyr, yet I fit into the category you just attacked as well.

I'd say let 'em leave. Why do we have to keep bending over backwards because of people's idiotic beliefs in fairy-tales. I'm so tired of this with religious folk. They always wanna play the martyr. You don't see us "heathens" acting so childish when people come around talking about how we need to be "saved".

[brad jones]

(and so you see how quickly this thread spun out of control.....

[Niya]

I'd never be that zealous to leave just because a few guys hold a different view point. That's very childish. I have no problems with people believing in Christ or the Tooth-fairy or whatever fantasy makes them happy but if you choose to open the topic for discussion, I'm going let you know what I think about it. If you can't take the fire, stay out of the kitchen. The thing with religious people is that they can't take when people disagree with them. They have an arrogance about them such that they believe that everyone must accept what they say as truth and not question it.

However, what you say has weight. Non-believers are just as passionate about their non-belief and "we" can be quite unreasonable at times but I mean come on. Can you really blame us ?

[Niya]

(and so you see how quickly this thread spun out of control.....

We're just having a friendly discussion

[brad jones]

We're just having a friendly discussion

Ahhhh.... but you see... People cruising by might not realize this is a friendly discussion. They don't know you, and they have no context by which to judge whether this is friendly or adversarial.

More importantly - broad generalizations about any group of people that make negative comments are attacks. I don't think you realize you - yes you - are attacking. Attacking and generalizing an entire group of people.

Where is the attack? In this quote:

They have an arrogance about them such that they believe that everyone must accept what they say as truth and not question it.

You see. You just called me - and a number of our members arrogant. You just made a huge generalization. Your generalization is not true. Your statement might be true about a number of people, but not about all.

This is why the focus on forums should be about technology and not other topics. Having debates about whether squigglies should be on the same line or a different line or whether C# is better than VB is where the heat should be.

OF COURSE.... Everything I say is true and you shouldn't question it. That's not because of religion, but rather become I'm the all powerful admin. And we all know you never question an admin..... yeah, stop laughing....

[Niya]

Where is the attack? In this quote:
You see. You just called me - and a number of our members arrogant. You just made a huge generalization. Your generalization is not true. Your statement might be true about a number of people, but not about all.

Apologies, I did not mean to offend. I've had to deal with countless people in my life telling me all how all sorts of things are wrong with me because I don't share a belief in their gods. Maybe there is venom in my words when I speak about religious people but I'll be honest, I really really really can't help it. I give it the same way I get it. Sorry for that.

Having debates about whether squigglies should be on the same line or a different line or whether C# is better than VB is where the heat should be.

What blasphemy is this!!!! There shouldn't be a debate....Everybody knows VB is better

[Shaggy Hiker]

Despite being here only a short time, I cannot imagine this....

Look up the snake thread (if you haven't seen that, it's always a good read anyways). The language used in that thread is now pretty much all censored out, but the heat still comes through, and that's one where pretty much everybody (except the OP) was on the same side. In the early days there were no particular filters and no particular rules. Those earlier threads hold lots of asterisks these days. Back then, they weren't so much into asters, so they just had lots of risks.

As for people leaving, that's clearly happened. A couple of them were probably rather interesting from a psychological perspective, and certainly added lots of local character, but they also tended to offend a fair number of people. One in particular managed to get himself into the red. I rehabilitated him (I have a pretty high rep power by now) because he did have some good posts, but then he faded back again.

Aside from the marginal personalities, pretty nearly all the arch-conservatives have left the forum, such as homer (who did revisit recently and acknowledged that his views were in the distinct minority), schoolbusdriver, xanith (though he only ever showed up in the moribund world events forums, so it may be that the forum left him rather than him leaving the forum), codedoc, and eventually we will probably lose moonman. Meanwhile, the arch-liberals, such as myself and Funky Dexter, are still plenty visible. It is entirely possible that there has been equal attrition of both left and right leaning people, if there was a predominance of left leaning people to begin with, but it seems like the departure on the right has been nearly 100%, at least from Chit-Chat. This is rather unfortunate. I felt that Xanith was a brainless parrot when he first showed up, but over a couple years he began to have increasingly reasoned and effective arguments, so I was happy to read what he had to say. For others, I've tried to keep people from jumping on the marginal personalities because I didn't want them to leave. Others joined in on this effort, too, such as towards the end of ThE ImPs long running thread on whatever that was (which was quite properly closed, as it was spiraling into some serious and derogatory insanity).

Unfortunately, we seem to be becoming increasingly homogenous in Chit-Chat, possibly because those with fringe views are pressured not to express them.

[Niya]

That was a very informative post about the culture here. I'd have never imagine that political leanings could be such a divisive issue and to be frank I don't get it at all. I can't honestly identify myself as either left leaning or right leaning. To me they're American concepts that seem to almost encourage an 'us vs them' attitude in any group that choose to adopt them. I am me, and you are you. I don't see another human as left or right or pro-choice or any other divisive ideology. They're people with complex personalities. We can all benefit from each other. No one here knows everything but everybody here knows something that someone else doesn't and this is the benefit of such communities. Yes I think Jesus and God are just bronze age nonsense and while I won't hide that fact from anyone, I have no compulsion to flee from people who believe otherwise. These differences mean nothing when compared against the grand tapestry that makes the human soul what it is and from this point of view I think we'd find that we are far more similar than we're different. I'm sure that the there are things that I can learn from those who differ from me in any regard, be it religious or otherwise. To leave just because of a few differences is not a very enlightened thing to do. It really can hurt your growth as a person if your modus operandi is to run away every time your world view is challenged or worst, shown cruel indifference. It can really benefit you as a person to try and understand why others think differently than you.

[dee-u]

maybe Dee-U is the one who closed it... *shrug* yeah, I was a bit surprised to see it locked as well, with no explanation. Usually the mods are pretty good with the "here's why I closed this thread" explanations... the lack of one suggests that maybe dee-u is the one who closed it.

-tg

Not sure but I think only the moderators are allowed to lock threads right? I thought about deleting that thread but instead asked that it just be locked. As the thread starter I tried my best to be courteous to the belief of the non-believers but somehow some posts got offensive which muddles the reason why I started that thread hence I asked that it be locked already.

[dee-u]

On the other hand, I'm not surprised that Dee-U became dismayed by the general trend. What a buncha doubters!!

Not really about the doubters but somehow I just felt it was not right to ridicule the other's beliefs. But somehow, when the topic changed to eggs vs chicken I was having fun again reading the posts and my request to lock it was earlier before the eggs and chicken came into the picture. And I though that chickens should have come first since there is no one to nest on the eggs if the eggs came first. =)

[Niya]

I just felt it was not right to ridicule the other's beliefs.

Apologies if I offended you. I don't meet reasonable believers like you all the time

[brad jones]

It can really benefit you as a person to try and understand why others think differently than you.

Totally agree.

That's why we didn't close the chit chat thread early on. If the focus was solely on learning, expressing one's thoughts, and listening to others, then there'd be no issues.

The problem with discussing religion and politics is exactly the same thing that happened in this thread. When people start talking about beliefs and opinions, many start making generalizations, or they make comments about other people's beliefs rather than focusing on their own. This is often followed by criticisms of people who believe differently. Many of the generalizations that are critical can easily be seen as negative comments towards others. In these kinds of threads, the people posting have to be very thoughtful of what they post to avoid this.

Just as I assume the negative generalization or comment wasn't intended above (in this thread), it often isn't intended in other discussions. Unfortunately, however, those unintended generalization were made and they could easily be seen as negative comments towards other. In fact, they *are* often seen as negative comments by some.

The irony is that wars in our world have been started over less....

[FunkyDexter]

It is entirely possible that there has been equal attrition of both left and right leaning people, if there was a predominance of left leaning people to begin with, but it seems like the departure on the right has been nearly 100%, at least from Chit-Chat.

I like to think we won the debate with our well reasoned and erudite arguments. I suspect the truth is we were just alot more stubborn.

I have to say, I do lament the passing of many of the different characters from active membership. The world events forum used to be a great place to thrash out opinions and generally stayed pretty reasonable. There were always the occasional threads that blew out of control but it was generally a good home for well reasoned argument. Now it's as dead as a door nail.

Personally I'd like to see just a little bit of heat back in the forum but, from the moderators point of view, it's got to be like grabbing a tiger by the tail

And I though that chickens should have come first since there is no one to nest on the eggs if the eggs came first.

HERETIC! BURN HIM!!!

[brad jones]

I generally have eggs for breakfast and chicken at lunch and dinner. As such, eggs come before chicken.

[dee-u]

There were banned members who got unbanned to give them another chance, perhaps to give the thread another chance then I don't mind if an administrator will unlock it and I won't again ask that it be locked, I will leave it to the discretion of the moderators to moderate it just in case.