Concerning RND

[Allyn]

RND, do you understand how far is too far. It becomes less an exchange of thoughts and more about agenda and I think you know the difference. I suggest you be a smart person and just contribute more and preach less.

[RND]

I suggest you be a smart person and just contribute more and preach less.

Allyn, I have been hammered here for doing both.

[darinhouston]

I try to do that only when it's off-topic. Feel free to create your own new topic and ask folks to direct those discussions to that topic, but if it continues and RND or others fail to honor those requests and we continue to get complaints, we'll have no option but to ask RND to go elsewhere.

[steve]

Peter,

I know what you mean. You are having a civil discussion with someone on a topic, and the next thing you know, someone has posted some dogmatic offering that calls for a response. His statements are sometimes so outrageously misinformed, or so misrepresenting of someone else's comments, or so abusive of scripture in such a way as to compel a response, when you would rather just ignore him and continue on your original track. But as soon as you respond to him, he takes that as an invitation to dominate the thread, and even to add a plethora of new, equally invalid points in every fresh post, in order to keep you engaged in correcting him. It is hard for me to think that someone could be doing such things deliberately, just to keep the attention on himself, but then, it is hard to interpret the behavior in any other way.

In response to your comment:

I would like to make the request that posts after "Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:19 am" on this thread be moved into a new thread (e.g. same title + "FOR RND") or even deleted. I am not offended if you disagree and feel this request is unwarranted, or has been placed to quickly.

I have no objection to your suggestion. It will have to be done by one of our other moderators, who actually know how to do that.

I believe that there is a legitimate complaint here. RND does not seem to understand it, and so I am not eager to blame him. It is even hard to put into words what I have long felt about this, but I will try...

There is a certain kind of person, wishing to engage in a certain kind of discussion, that we are trying to accommodate at this forum. The few times that I have visited and read the posts at other forums on the internet have led me to believe that many of them do not exist for the same purpose as we exist here. At these other forums, it is common to find immaturity, vindictive attitudes, closed-mindedness, and apparently no set standards for intelligence, teachableness or ability to communicate. My experience with internet message boards is more limited than most of yours, so I did not, until visiting these others, fully appreciate how refreshing the environment here used to be.

When the old forum got started up by John, he approached me with the request that I would answer Bible questions for people who wished to post them. I had never been to an internet message board before, so I didn't know what to expect. However, it was a great experience, because quite a lot of intelligent and amiable students of the scriptures joined me here, both as questioners and as answerers of others' questions. Eventually, I was so impressed with answers that other participants were giving, that I did not feel the pressure to answer every question myself. The standards of civility, intelligence and integrity remained pretty high here for a few years (with a few exceptions), whether I was actively participating or busy with other matters.

However, there were a few exceptions. There were occasionally participants who seemed to want to push for some particular doctrine or movement, whose tone conveyed that irritating pretense of superiority and expertise, who would ignore valid questions that others would put to them about their views, who would quote irrelevant scriptures without exegesis, and refused to interact with others about the validity of their use, who would feel the need to post their opinions on every conceivable topic (whether they knew anything about it or not), sometimes posting large cut-and-paste pieces without expressing their arguments in their own words, and who would sometimes act just plain disrespectfully toward anyone who disagreed with them. Thankfully, we usually only have had one (or two) such people to deal with at any given time, but all of them either went away on their own, were banned, or, in a few cases, grew up and learned how to behave among adults.

It is hard to maintain a high standard of interaction here and to guarantee that no one of the troublesome type will show up, since it is obviously a public venue. When "that type" do appear, you can usually recognize them for what they are within the first two or three posts that they contribute. There is a certain "spirit" or "air" about them. It is tempting to simply ban them as soon as they become obnoxious, but I am slow (probably way too slow) to take that action, because I never know if, given a little more time among us, they may get off their high horse and figure out that not everybody who knows as much as (or more than) they do must necessarily share their viewpoints.

Right now, there are two participants whose posts almost always (there are a few exceptions) tempt me to reach for the "delete" button. Our friend RND is one of them. I bear him no malice. I just wish he would have the humility that befits a novice, and act like somebody who (like the rest of us) might have less to teach than he has to learn.

I am glad to be hearing from so many who seem to have the same complaint (so that I know it isn't just me getting cranky in my old age, which I was beginning to wonder). RND has shown himself capable of discussing some issues in a mature manner, and I am hoping that he may be wise enough to hear these criticisms and either change his habits, or else take them elsewhere. Worst case, he will have to be banned. If others think I am too slow in making that particular move, the other moderators are free to take that step ahead of me, whenever their patience runs out.

[Allyn]

I suggest you be a smart person and just contribute more and preach less.

Allyn, I have been hammered here for doing both.

I personally hold nothing against you RND and you seem to be a passionate person concerning your beliefs, but temper that passion and go with the flow a little. Sometimes it just takes a while to get a feel of the forum here. You will be glad you did if you just take a step back for a bit.

[darinhouston]

I have no objection to your suggestion. It will have to be done by one of our other moderators, who actually know how to do that.

I believe that there is a legitimate complaint here. RND does not seem to understand it, and so I am not eager to blame him. It is even hard to put into words what I have long felt about this, but I will try...

I am very frustrated by the loss of some of our former participants, and am more inclined to ban a user who is abusing their liberties even when not being particularly abusive than to go to such extremes to monitor their usage and to take the time and effort that it takes to set up mirror topics for them on the fly (as if they would even continue to post only in those mirror sites). That isn't a trivial process, by the way, and can corrupt the threads if you aren't careful.

If this continues, and I get pm's requesting same, I'll very likely just ban RND for a time period as we have with others recently.

[thrombomodulin]

Thanks Steve,

Thanks for your length reply - I did not wish to take so much of your time. Your opening paragraph articulates very well my concerns on of the manner of RND's posts on my thread and others. I have no present intentions of taking the time to respond to so many misinformed statements, and to correct what seems to me to be obvious misinterpretations of my words.

Thanks for answering my wife's question today.

Best Regards,
Peter

[steve]

I was just re-reading this thread (I don't know why). RND has been banned now, for some months, and I don't know if he even visits this forum to read things anymore—I suspect not, since my impression is that he only visits forums to write things, not to read or learn anything—and since he cannot do so here, why bother to come around?

While reading here, a thought came to me that would have been a simple solution to the problem of RND, and could be employed in future similar cases.

Once a particular participant has become a problem, rather than banning him (I am never quite sure when to take that step), the simple solution would be to create a category on the forum called "Filibusters," or some such name. Then we could open a separate thread in this category for each problem poster (e.g., "RND's thread," or "Crusader's thread," etc.). The thread could have one introductory post by one of our moderators, explaining why this individual is limited to posting at this thread. If he or she thereafter should venture elsewhere on the forum, outside their own thread, their posts would automatically be deleted without being read. If this happened too often, they would even lose their own thread altogether.

While his thread remained active (i.e., he refrained from posting elsewhere), RND could post on any subject he wished (not that there was ever much more than one topic that interested him!). Thus, his thread could be his own private forum, but no one would have to be exposed to his obnoxiousness who did not wish to do so. Those who wished to do so, could visit his thread and post there in dialogue with him. Others, who found any contact with him to be grating on the spirit, could just pretend that the RND thread was not even there. Periodically, moderators could be assigned the unpleasant task of randomly checking on his posts, just to make sure nothing extremely objectionable was appearing there, in which case, the ban would be complete.

In all likelihood, RND's thread would eventually end up being a monologue with an audience of one, but at least no one could claim that he was being denied a chance to get stuff off his chest! Sounds like a good idea to me. Any ideas about that?

[TK]

i think it is a good solution, although it would likely be somewhat torturous for a "filibuster-er" to be limited to one area of the forum. i am reminded of the Twilight Zone episode where book lover Burgess Meredith is the last man on earth after an atomic holocaust, finds a huge library with books intact, but breaks his eyeglasses right before he sets to reading.

but if the person feels compelled to lay our their case on whatever topic, then this would be viable option.

TK

[steve]

Better that one man be frustrated than everyone else!