DiscussMormonism.com

I know I said I wouldn't do this, but wow, are we getting personal on both sides. I find I can't get through even interesting threads if there's a lot of personal animus and insults going on. And it's on both sides. I'm glad we don't have heavy moderation here, but that really puts the responsibility for decent behavior on all of us. I hope I'm not annoying anyone, but please think about the people you are conversing with. I doubt any of us would use the words we use here if we were in a face to face conversation, even with someone we heartily dislike.

It's nice to know that no moderator is going to scold me for being a "net nanny" here, but I'm just asking for a little kindness toward each other. It's not impossible, is it?

It's not impossible for individual posters to make the decision to try, as best they can, to refrain from personal attack. But I don't think it's realistic to expect everyone to do so, particularly when the whole question of what is acceptable and what is not is so subjective, as well as what really constitutes a personal attack in the first place. I've participated on numerous boards over the past decade that I've been on the internets, and every single one, regardless of the subject, with one exception, had similar issues as this board has. The one exception was a board for parents with children struggling with one particular health issue, so we were bound together out of need and even desperation, so that was an unusual situation. My boyfriend used to post on a board devoted to... wait for it...people who are "flashoholics" - no, not pervie flashers but people who collect flashlights. Let's pause for a moment to let the full effect of that geekiness sink in. Yes, beastie is in love with a geek.

Ok, now that that awkward moment has passed, the point is that even on a board devoted to something as innocuous as daggone FLASHLIGHTS, they still had flame wars. Unbelievable, but true. I saw it with my own eyes. In part, it's just the nature of the beast, the nature of internet communications which tend to dis-inhibit. So to expect a board devoted to a truly divisive subject - religion - to remain flame free is probably unrealistic.

Did you ever participate on ARM as a believer? If you think this place is bad, lawzie, you should have seen that place. We're fairly tame in comparison. I only lasted a couple of months before quitting.

beastie wrote:My boyfriend used to post on a board devoted to... wait for it...people who are "flashoholics" - no, not pervie flashers but people who collect flashlights. Let's pause for a moment to let the full effect of that geekiness sink in. Yes, beastie is in love with a geek.

Ok, now that that awkward moment has passed, the point is that even on a board devoted to something as innocuous as daggone FLASHLIGHTS, they still had flame wars.

With knowing that lantern's are the only true light source, how could the hostility not occur?

Runtu is right. We should not be oblivious to the effect our words can have. Even when we have our feelings stepped on by other's words, it is good to take a few minutes to let our anger diffuse and not seek to respond in kind.

beastie wrote:Did you ever participate on ARM as a believer? If you think this place is bad, lawzie, you should have seen that place. We're fairly tame in comparison. I only lasted a couple of months before quitting.

Yeah, ARM is where I "cut my teeth" as an apologist, as it were. I think posting there made me sensitive to personal attacks. Sorry if I'm out of line for saying what I said, but I don't want this place to become like ARM.

Runtu wrote:

beastie wrote:Did you ever participate on ARM as a believer? If you think this place is bad, lawzie, you should have seen that place. We're fairly tame in comparison. I only lasted a couple of months before quitting.

Yeah, ARM is where I "cut my teeth" as an apologist, as it were. I think posting there made me sensitive to personal attacks. Sorry if I'm out of line for saying what I said, but I don't want this place to become like ARM.

You are not out of line, Runtu. You're entitled to speak your mind, the same as everyone else. And we'd all be a lot more effective if we stuck to arguing about the issue instead of arguing with the person.

Runtu, I think it might be possible to get along if we weren't discussing Religion.

Just my opinion.

Barring that, no. I don't think we can all get along. Here or on MADB. Or any place else.

There's small minority who want to get along on these boards. The rest enjoy bickering and insults--It's just part of the expected board experience. They also resent any requests for civility as nagging and board nannying-so even if the mods don't complain, other posters will.

No, runtu, you're not out of line at all. And of course we would all have more productive exchanges if we stuck on topic and left out personal attacks.

Over the years, though, I have come to the conclusion that - outside of religion in general being a sticky topic - communications between LDS and exLDS are plagued, or even doomed, for other reasons. I've talked recently about how problematic I think it is that the LDS church has an engrained set of teachings that leads its members to automatically view apostates with suspicion, distrust, and linked to all manner of moral failings. Then the exLDS are feeling betrayed and angry, not just in reaction to dsicovering the church is not what they once believed it to be, but also in reaction to all these engrained prejudices against exLDS. LDS get upset when exLDS keep dragging up ancient history,but the reason exLDS drag up ancient history is to demonstrate, look, I'm not a bad person, or lazy person, or superficial person, and here are the legitimate reasons I lost faith. So it's a vicious cycle.

The primary reason I stopped posting on MAD is connected to this - a poisoning of the well has taken place before the first word is uttered between any LDS and exLDS. I don't want to participate on a board where, just by the fact I'm exmormon AND still talk about it, I'm pegged as bad in some way. There is just not enough benefit,as far as I can see, to participating under those circumstances.

For whatever reasons - personality, most likely, or life experiences which lead them to question dogma - some LDS and exLDS are able to rise above the "training", so to speak. But they appear to be in the minority, and that is why, in my opinion, there will always be a degree of personal nastiness on boards such as this.

I dunno, runtu, while I do agree with you in large part, to some degree I don't think things here are that bad. I briefly posted on the first Shades bullentin board, but gave up because I thought it was getting dominated by silly, sophomoric name-calling (in particular a slew of homophobic slurs against a particular poster).

That was a long time ago, and I just started reading posting here again, recently. What brought me over was reading through a MAD board thread on DCP's recent nazi-RfM "arguments." I thought that some of the descriptions of "cespool" were about RfM, then noticed that they were actually directed towards this site, so I wanted to take a gander. And I have to say the board has nowhere near the level of repetitous slander that it once looked like it did to me.


So far I've mostly been "catching up:" following the saga of various F-board purges, and noting some familiar posters from the Z-board. I never participated much in either (never at F-MAD) so I don't know the myraid personal histories and find some interesting, and some dull.

I think that this forum's allowance of direct commentary on other boards is also something that is integral to the level of discourse here, as well as, as others have noted the usually tendentious topic of religion combined with the emotional investment all sides have in their positions.

But above all, I have not yet encountered anything here near the level of utter human depravity I've read on F-MAD. One of the last things I posted about on the original Shade's BBS was a post-Katrina thread over there, in particular a post by a certain central MAD cast member. This poster, "in real life," is probably a very sweet grandmother, and people I know who have had off-board correspondence with her have remarked on her niceness. Nevertheless, one of her posts betrayed an indifference to human suffering that was truly staggering. It still creeps me out.

And while that was the first really fascistic thing I'd read on that board, since then, hardly a week goes by without some borderline psychotic defence of god-mandated violence.

Anyway, maybe it all comes down to picking and choosing. Once you've sorted out how things work on a particular board, you can kind of avoid the posters most prone to irrationality.

At least that's how I tend to function in cyberspace...