sandman,
I don’t feel it is fair to characterize my decision to “remove” [and you are perceptive, sandman] the thread as a “knee jerk reaction”. Indeed, I feel the Mormon thread stayed up “too long” while we vascillated behind the scenes.
Our saying that we don’t have time to “moderate” the forums is lame, but it is true. Even setting boundaries, or swearing off any boundaries at all, takes us time because we have been burned more than once for making quick but not altogether thought out decisions.
Removing the Mormons thread and suspending posting capabilites in R&R are meant to buy us time (and possibly so at a high cost). I did not join this project to create a billboard to attack a highly visible group in Taiwan (or any group, for that matter). At the same time, neither did I ever expect that the name “cranky laowai” would appear on the front page of a daily newspaper because of something he posted (in R&R, no less).
Is “buying time while we continue to be indecisive” a wise strategy? I don’t think so, but it is a better one than letting the threads continue to accumulate flames (for both its subjects and us!) ![]()
As a philosopher said somewhere, “I know I suck, therefore I don’t suck!” I hope this can apply a bit to my decision.
quote[quote]Can we please have an explanation as to why that thread was removed... Why can people freely criticise teachers... but not criticize Mormonism... [/quote]
Bri,
Thanks for taking the effort to bring this up. I have come to expect good questions from your posts, and as usual you don’t disappoint.
By removing your thoughful post, I take it you are wondering if we have thrown out the baby with the bath water. I look at it more as we have put everything away for now while we figure out how to drain the basin (sigh – I can just picture Christine ![]()
scratching her head at my latest poor attempt at allegory).
In plain (but still confusing) English: Did we delete your post? No. We have learned to not delete anything anymore. So will your informative messages return? Yes, but I don’t know when (same difference?).
We actually have someone interested in moderating R&R (yes, it’s true) – but we first must discover more about him and our own position with R&R and inflammatory threads before “we can act responsibly”.
Why is it ok to attack teachers, but not Mormons? In my personal opinion, it is not OK to attack teachers, or to create threads specifically to harass other members. (Uh, and I don’t mean to imply that you are guilty of any of this – I’m just citing examples ![]()
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However, as you noted above, this is a bit more of an apples and oranges situation (profession vs. set of beliefs) than not. I don’t recall any threads that exhorted others to “spit” on teachers, “kick them in the goolies”, or out right say, “I HATE YOU”.
In another thread, you invoke, “give them (those who post negative/defamatory comments) enough rope to hang themselves with”. Well said, and basically, I agree with you. But until we can measure how insignificant such postings are to “building community” – we will err on the side of conservatism.
(btw, Bri, I don’t know if you got my Private Message this morning regarding your comments in the Feedback Forum. I will re-post there soon ![]()
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