Religion forum needs to calm down (atheist, quote, Christians, believers)

[Hoosier]

I have been going through the threads and have seen numerous flame wars and little petty jabs back and forth. This type of behavior really needs to stop. This forum is not about Christians against atheists against whoever else.

Please respect one another and remember that we are all adults here. I'm absolutely amazed at how some of you treat one another. Would you treat your family and friends the way you do people in this forum?

On a note about myself, I am here to moderate and as I've said before, my Christian worldview does not come into play when I moderate. I post my opinions per my worldview, and moderate per the TOS.

As many of you know I am very open to receiving pm's and will be more than happy to answer questions and concerns. If you see a flame war or absolutely inappropriate post by anyone, please report it to me via pm, or click on the icon to report it to the mods.

I do have a full time job and am on the forum because I truly enjoy CD and it has enriched my life immensely. Please respect me and the other moderators and know that we are here doing this job at the request of the senior mods and administrator for no other reason than we are looking out for you and the best interests of CD.

If you have personal issues with each other or myself please use the private messaging system.

[Lulu_IWG]

Hoosier,
I totally respect you dude!

I'll do my best to make my responses to others respectful also. Thanks for bringing this up though as there is alot of personal remarks happening out here.
LuLu

[kawgpz550]

I'm right there with Lulu!

We need some kind of City Data Pledge or something!
Just kidding

Seriously, I agree 100%.

[Ms.Charlotte]

I've been seeing it too, Hoosier. I still read some of the threads once in a while but stopped posting for the most part because of all the bickering.

Hopefully, it will slow down. I respect what you do-it can't be easy!

[Hoosier]

Thank you! Since I can't be in every thread and some member are upset that I allow specific posts to go unmoderated please realize that I may not see that post. Use the at the top of the post and report it. Other mods will be on the job to help me out. I'm only human and do miss things...help me by using the above icon. We'll all have a much better experience in this forum if we work together.

[brittZ]

I'm bettin this will get censored, but with the exception of Hoosier, I am beginning to have some problems with the mods on this forum. If part of the job of the mod is to moderate and make sure people adhere to the TOS, then they need to not be is such blatant disregard of the TOS. I have seen mods being higly insulting and venomous to posters. I have seen personal insults hurled with no regard. I have seen atheist posts which corssed the line go unscathed, while posts from believers get modified, censored, or even cut entirely. I think some of the mods need to realize that if they are going to enforce the rules, they need to hold themselves to a higher standard than the TOS and not stoop to levels below some of the posters. I'm sure I will get another warning, if not a ban for this but fair is fair and if you want to rule the roost, you better realize your setting the example and the standard.

Thanks for being the stand-out mod Hoosier, you have always been fair and consistent.

[jeffncandace]

Brittz, I already got my spanking yesterday.

Of course your post is about me. It gets difficult to keep one's cool sometimes, and to get caught up in a debate. I publically apologize to anyone I offended.

Not to excuse myself, but to give some background...I had to go to court yesterday, and ended up with a financially devastating judgement against me, simply because I couldn't afford an attorney or to pay for expert testimony. I had an excellent case, but I could'nt afford to be represented properly, and lost. This is especially devastating because we are a single income family with 3 small children to take care of.

So, I left court, and came in and logged on to city-data. The rest is history.

Again, that is no excuse for getting carried away.

I would, however, like to point out the moderator's do this job for free. We do indeed need to hold ourselves to higher standards, regardless, and I haven't always done that. I am 3 weeks new to moderating, and have only been on CD for a few months total. I ask for patience! Also, I don't know exactly how this works yet, but Religion is not officially my forum. I am supposed to moderate for MI, CA, and OK.

I love a good debate. The time may come that I may feel I would rather have more freedom in my posts and may ask to step down from moderating. Until then, I will try to keep in mind that certain conditions are put on mods, fairly or unfairly, and that I have to abide by that.

If someone's gonna delete your post, it won't be me, lest I be accused of abusing my powers.

[brittZ]

Originally Posted by jeffncandace

Brittz, I already got my spanking yesterday.

Of course your post is about me. It gets difficult to keep one's cool sometimes, and to get caught up in a debate. I publically apologize to anyone I offended.

Not to excuse myself, but to give some background...I had to go to court yesterday, and ended up with a financially devastating judgement against me, simply because I couldn't afford an attorney or to pay for expert testimony. I had an excellent case, but I could'nt afford to be represented properly, and lost. This is especially devastating because we are a single income family with 3 small children to take care of.

So, I left court, and came in and logged on to city-data. The rest is history.

Again, that is no excuse for getting carried away.

I would, however, like to point out the moderator's do this job for free. We do indeed need to hold ourselves to higher standards, regardless, and I haven't always done that. I am 3 weeks new to moderating, and have only been on CD for a few months total. I ask for patience! Also, I don't know exactly how this works yet, but Religion is not officially my forum. I am supposed to moderate for MI, CA, and OK.

I love a good debate. The time may come that I may feel I would rather have more freedom in my posts and may ask to step down from moderating. Until then, I will try to keep in mind that certain conditions are put on mods, fairly or unfairly, and that I have to abide by that.

If someone's gonna delete your post, it won't be me, lest I be accused of abusing my powers.

Obviously you are part of my post, but there are other mods as well. Some of us ran into a situation last week where a mod who had never been seen here before came in, handed out warnings, deleted, modified, and censored posts from believers and allowed the flames from the non-believers to run rapant. Then the mod just disappeared. I know it is a tough job so I try not to say anything, but when things happen that blatantly cross the line i will speak up. thank you though for allowing my post to stay thus far.

I am sorry to hear about your legal difficulties. I have been fortunate enough to never find myself having a reason to be in court and I truly hope I never have to face the monolithic monster of our judicial system. You have my condolences.

[jeffncandace]

Originally Posted by brittZ

Obviously you are part of my post, but there are other mods as well. Some of us ran into a situation last week where a mod who had never been seen here before came in, handed out warnings, deleted, modified, and censored posts from believers and allowed the flames from the non-believers to run rapant. Then the mod just disappeared. I know it is a tough job so I try not to say anything, but when things happen that blatantly cross the line i will speak up. thank you though for allowing my post to stay thus far.

I am sorry to hear about your legal difficulties. I have been fortunate enough to never find myself having a reason to be in court and I truly hope I never have to face the monolithic monster of our judicial system. You have my condolences.

I've heard others mention this incident, and that's not fair. I don't know exactly what thread this happened on though.

I myself am a Christian, but am a liberal one, so I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I honestly don't think I've ever played favorites, or hope I haven't. I'm more guilty of "getting into it" during a debate than anything else, or going off topic (which to me seems SO easy to do). When it comes to using mod powers, I try to be very careful about it, because sometimes you are accused of abusing your powers when in fact you are very innocent of the accusation. It can become very frustrating when someone is going over the line, you call them on it, and because they know your general opinion, they think you are abusing power. I had someone accuse me yesterday of deleting posts I don't agree with, which SERIOUSLY angered and insulted me. I asked the person to point out where I had done that, and they didn't answer.

I moderate the most for the Michigan forum. Michigan is not doing well economically, has alot of racial/racism issues, and I would venture to guess that it is one of the "hottest" forums on city-data. The debates in there get quite heated. There is a particular poster who is a racist. Her posts disgust me, and we get into it quite frequently. But, someone started insulting her, and I had to delete it--even though I agreed with the person insulting her! I just tried to find the thread, but couldn't...

Thanks for your condolences. I left court feeling the most jaded and cynical I ever have in my entire life. Basically, if you don't have money, you don't get justice--you get screwed.

[kaykay]

Sounds like you did have " a bad day at Blackrock," Jeff! All the legal trouble and then all the CD trouble! Hope today is going better for you!