What have we learned?

[rayliotta]

Originally Posted by OBW

Oh well. As I said to Ray. This is way too much attention paid to someone who does not deserve our attention. But I will continue as long as there is a clamor to bring him back without our moderator's endorsement. I don't care what kind of stupid statement can be made like suggesting that the moderator is trying to replace Lee as a father figure (as awareness did).

"Someone who does not deserve our attention"? How can you even say that? That sounds so cold and callous. Are you so unwilling to feel for someone whose background is so different from your own.

I'm tired of all-or-nothing positions. I'm not saying that nothing was of a "censorable" nature. But it's all too clear that there's a serious generational gap at work here, as well as a difference in cultures ("geographical gap"?)...

P.S. Didn't really expect this topic to get resurrected...

[OBW]

Originally Posted by rayliotta

"Someone who does not deserve our attention"? How can you even say that? That sounds so cold and callous. Are you so unwilling to feel for someone whose background is so different from your own.

Did you pay attention to his rants? Did they offend you? When I said "does not deserve our attention" I meant that what he was spewing did not deserve to be placed in front of us to pay attention to. And there are remedies for people doing such things. He is not a child. He is an adult. He was warned. He ignored every request to tone it down and be pertinent to the forum.

Originally Posted by rayliotta

I'm tired of all-or-nothing positions. I'm not saying that nothing was of a "censorable" nature. But it's all too clear that there's a serious generational gap at work here, as well as a difference in cultures ("geographical gap"?)...

Where is the all-or-nothing position? Someone carries things to extremes and gets the boot. Sort of like getting a few speeding tickets and eventually loosing your license. Willful disregard of the rules has consequences. Since when is that treated as being something extreme on the part of the police and the judge? The "extreme" was on the part of the miscreant who refused to abide by the rules. Just sped away from each traffic stop by going faster.

I'm tired of the excuses for errant behavior. They don't work. They just encourage more of the same.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

It depends on what you want for the forum. In our school, an inner city HS we have many cases of kids that do things that we would want to expel them for. What we have learned is that different students respond well to different teachers for who knows what reasons. So if you want to try and keep your students what you do is find who they work with best and get that person to talk some sense into the kid. From this thread I would assume that Awareness might have been the person to talk sense into 11of101. This will not cause a magical transformation, but it may allow many more to stay within the bounds of what is civilized.

But how you deal with kids in a high school is a somewhat controlled environment. You have the ability to try various things, then ultimately fall back on the final remedy of expulsion if certain extreme behavior does not cease.

You can say the same about this forum. But it is limited. Unless you can create a space that does not appear on the general feed and is closed to everyone but the persons involved (like private messages) then you force everything going on into the public eye.

What is posted for everyone's consumption has bounds. Go outside those and you get a warning. Do it again and the warning goes up. Be belligerent about it, even making nasty comments about the one responsible for enforcing the rules and you evidence that you do not intend to change. Up the ante every time someone requests to tone it down and you prove your disdain for anyone but yourself.

We are not talking about controlling a student. We are talking about an adult behaving worse than a rebellious child. One who refuses all authority. What do you do with a child in your classroom that constantly disrupts the class with irrelevant, nasty, out-of-bounds speaking? What if there were no way to stop it but to expel that child from the school? This forum can only be likened to a single classroom. You are either in or you are out. You have privileges or you have none. What do you do then? Just let the purpose of the class go down the toilet?

I doubt it.

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

One thing I would hope for this forum is that we would make an effort to help those damaged by the LRC. I understand that you did try to help this member, all I am saying is that if those running this forum would like to keep it vibrant with many ex LCers coming and sharing their testimonies and opening up, then an approach to mediate disputes that takes into account that people work better with some than others may help.

This forum has always been ready to help people damaged by the LRC. But you can't force help on those who won't accept it. And you can't allow that help for all the others to be undermined by the disobedience of one.

I realize that this is the age of grace. But even "love your neighbor" is not an unlimited thing. Do you love yourself so much that you think that everyone should simply allow you to spew filth in their presence and just get over it? No, you expect that others have boundaries, and that putting limits on you is a reasonable thing. That is how you love yourself (I hope). To the extent that you recognize that you are not everything and just free to do as you will. So that is how you love others. You don't have to let them treat you how you would not treat them. You just can't treat them in a way that you would not want to be treated by them.

Eventually, there are consequences. Many postmodern Christians are concerned that the God of the OT was too violent. He condoned the wipe-out of the Canaanites. But if you look at it. he gave them generations in which to repent. And they did not.

Our job is not to pass sentence. But removing 11of101 from the forum is not necessarily a permanent sentence. It is merely a consequence of constant and willful misbehavior. It is a necessity to keep the forum able to operate. And he is not refused the ability to reapply. And expunging the offensive posts is to be expected. If they require censure, then why would we leave the garbage lying around to keep offending?

It will not simply be due to time that he his kept out or allowed back in. Unlike the way Phillip Lee was coddled and asked for forgiveness for being excommunicated, it will (and should) be the other way around. It requires that the one excluded evidence a true change of heart. I think awareness knows him well enough to actually contact him outside this forum. If he can be regained to a level of compliance, he can be allowed back in.

If we were simply going to throw every contrarian out, then no one would still be here. Awareness would be long gone for his constantly off-the-wall statements and his propensity to declare the clear reading of scripture as evil, and declare God to be almost evil. (Yes, if you look long enough, you will find statements that imply those. And he got push-back on them. But he was not expelled.)

Last, I wanted to comment on a previous post. You essentially made nonsensical statements when you said "since I lack any real understanding of what 11of101 said or did" and only two sentences later said "I think it is very clear to me," going on to say that 11of 101 should never have been excluded. Can you defend that kind of statement? Is that a reasonable basis for reconsidering his inclusion? The "very clear" assessment of someone who lacks "any real understanding" of what it is all about?

We aren't going to be able to give you the quotes. His existence was removed. His blog eliminated. With no actual record of participation. Asking for what you cannot now have is not going to make your case from a "lack [of] any real understanding" any stronger.

[Cal]

If we were just starting out on this with no experience I would say give people a lot more leeway. But I've been posting on forums and Usenet for over 15 years. I've seen patterns. I've learned a few things.

The thing is when you have a problem poster you initially don't know what you are dealing with. What I've seen is some of these people just crave attention and can only get it by being irritants. They never change. If you give everyone an extended amount of time to come around then all you are going to be dealing with is them and their behavior. Basically you just end up with a nursery school and a lot of screaming and crying and bellyaching and blaming. I've seen it too many times. It makes it very hard to have a productive experience of discussing things and, importantly, creating a public record of ideas which can be helpful to those seeking truth about the LRC, or whatever subject the forum is devoted to.

If someone cannot summon the civility to behave on a public forum, then they have problems which go way beyond having been in the LRC. I encourage anyone who has the heart to try to help these people one-on-one outside the public arena to do so. But as far as the forum goes, if I were the owner, a lot of these people would have been gone a lot quicker than they were.