MG 2.0 wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2024 10:54 pm
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2024 10:27 pm
I’ve moved posts that discuss the quote from Brooks’ book on constructionism to a pre-existing thread where the same quote is the topic. viewtopic.php?f=4&t=158676&start=10
UR 4
I do not agree with the splitting up of what I believed to be an on topic conversation. It’s been taken apart and dismantled so as to disrupt the flow of discussion. I don’t know if this is a recent moderator tactic to derail a discussion or a decision you made with full integrity and fairness.
As it is, I have no control over what you did. The only control I do have is whether or not to continue a discussion that was deliberately chopped up for one reason or another.
Dang. I wish you hadn’t done that.
But it is what it is. I can see things potentially going sideways at this point and the thread devolving into a tit for tat kind of thing. I will leave it to others to carry on the discussion in a manner that they see fit.
Thanks for the civility that existed in the original discussion once I came into the conversation. I am disappointed in this decision.
The split wasn’t necessary. And I’m not going to argue the point.
Crap. Way to blow things up, Res Ipsa. I was hoping to see more fair mindedness coming from you. But I will hold no ill will. You did what you thought was the right thing to do in following board guidelines/rules come hell or high water!
Once you do something like this the train of thought is derailed.
Regards,
MG
That’s a lot of arguing, for not arguing.
I decided to split the original thread using the same general criteria I always use. First, I looked at the scope of the thread as originally described in the OP. That scope was quite narrow: a specific book promoting a specific theory on the authorship of the Book of Mormon.
I then looked at how the thread had proceeded, observing subsequent posts and what I think of as the “conversational meander” that naturally occurs in most threads.
When you initially entered the thread, it appeared to me that you had introduced two topics that were potential derails: the annotated Book of Mormon and the quote from David Brooks. I let the thread go for a while to see what developed. Ultimately, I concluded that the annotated Book of Mormon functioned as a brief detour that hadn’t derailed the thread. But the Brooks quote I found to be a significant change of subject that had derailed the thread from the scope as set in the OP and the natural meander of the conversation.
Having decided that the thread should be split, I had to take into account that there was an existing thread discussing the same quote that I had determined had derailed the thread. I thought it was appropriate to move the posts from one thread to the other. However, I’m not wedded to that aspect of the action I took and would be happy to put the posts I moved into a new thread instead of merging them into threads where they are now located.
This is not personal. I’ve derailed threads by posting something that was related in some way to a post in the thread, only on reflection (whether prompted by myself or another) to to realize that, while my post flowed from the post I responded to, what I posted a conversation on a different topic from that being discussed in thread. Most folks do the same thing every once in a while. If I thought that your intent was to derail the conversation, I would have moved your post to outer darkness, as what we call a “malicious derail.” So, my action in no way represents a criticism of you — it’s me playing traffic cop to keep threads on topic.
I looked at the thread pretty closely, and I don’t think that my decision to split was even a close call. The topic of the thread was narrow and clear. The theory that we construct our own reality, which I think is a topic well worth discussing, is a completely different topic than a specific theory about Book of Mormon authorship.
I completely understand your desire not to get spread too thin by several different threads. I acknowledge that splitting the thread frustrated that desire and apologize for doing that. I also acknowledge that splitting the thread, as it does in many cases, interrupts the flow of conversations. It’s especially problematic when people include responses to the original and new topic in the same post. When I split threads, I do my best to keep the flow in both posts as coherent as I can. If you think there is a post or posts that ended up in the wrong thread, let me know and I’ll be happy to take a look.
I can understand why you feel angry and frustrated. I’m sorry for that.