Mister Scratch wrote:It has been less than a year, and already the stability of the aptly named MADboard is beginning to fritter away. With the recent announcement issued by the MADmoderating team that a certain contingent of that board would be, essentially, "migrating" away to ldsforums.com, I think it is worthwhile to once more take up the question of who the actual "owner" of MAD really is. Certainly, many have speculated that it is Dan_G. He played a crucial role in doing the cyber-bidding of Scott Gordon, Allen Wyatt, and John Lynch. But is he going solo nowadays? Or is juliann a major player as well? Who, at base, is calling the shots?
Another reason I ask is this: the announcement regarding ldsforums.com seems epochal. It is yet another retreat on the part of the online Mopologetic community. It also signifies, perhaps, a shift in power and control. I have to wonder: is this all happening in an effort to "get rid" of juliann? It seems that so much of the online Mopologetic drama was the direct result of trying to cater to her rather neurotic needs.... Is this yet another symptom of this ongoing disease?
What I wonder goes back to the thread I created a week or so ago about satisfaction with the current state of the board. Despite the refusal to admit that MAD and FAIR are the same entity and despite the insistance that a bulletin board is very different than the serious scholarly medium of a conference, there is most certainly a desire for FAIR/MAD to be scholarly. And with the exceptions of Bokovoy's attempts to translate a religion that is thousands of years old into the 21st century terms of a remote splinter group of Mormonism known as Internet Mormonism, there isn't a lot of technical discussion. Honestly, most of these threads read like teen threads. Even the horrific reasoning you'd find at the original FAIR still left one with the impression the contributors were adults.
So, if I may indulge in some armchair psychoanalysis, I think there are two thoughts within the FAIR/MAD mind very much in tension. One thought believes that FAIR/MAD is scholarly. Arrogantly, this thought worries that the great scholarly depths of the apologists are too much for the less intelligent, simple TBMs who now abound at FAIR. This thought harbors a maternal instinct that seeks a refuge for these poor and helpless chickeedees from the great intellectual storm the hardened apologists are capable of stirring. The other thought believes that FAIR/MAD isn't scholarly and wishes nothing more than it to be scholarly. This thought holds great contempt from the green contributors, some of them who are perhaps Chapel Mormons that still believe everything the prophet tells them. This thought would like to offload the unwelcome bunch. But, it's not quite so simple. The bet is hedged. Because as long as it's very unclear that FAIR/MAD board will ever be filled with scholarly discussions, FAIR/MAD can control this lesser entity, "LDS Forums", people it, and define MAD against it. The MAD posters who visit LDS Forums are like ministering angels from a superior realm, there to aid the simpletons.