GR -- ideas on moderattion?, split from GR -- changes in focus / functionality Options

[darwin]

kalki,

I was going to send you a private message but I don't like sneaking around so I will speak here. I have not read all of what you and Kalisurfer wrote today. I glanced through it. It is really too much time and effort for me. I am writing to tell you I think the moderators may be a lot better than you think. But you can't get anywhere by trying to debate people until they confess. When you disagree with them you should make your point as simply as possible. Repeat your point only if you are pretty sure they missed it or did not understand. I recommend you open a topic and just talk freely about whatever it is you like to talk about. The moderators are probably not going to just change the rules or tell us they are going to change their moderating style from what it was. Even I don't know what I would want them to say. Really we all need to work together with our moderators to just go ahead and start doing what is right and explore what happens. If we are then told no then can we ask them to change. This is how it is done in the real world. Gandhi did it. In America it was done this way. If a law is really bad you stop obeying it so you can go to the courts to show them what is right and they can fix it. That is the only way for our moderators to help us. I have a lot of hope for this forum. One of the things I think I will do is say "the devotees" when referring to people sometimes and say Hare Krishna and stuff like that. Was that against the rules? Or was that just my paranoia? Hare Krishna!

[Tapati]

Darwin, I am really tired of taking the hit for whatever your life was like with your mother. You've mentioned this several times over the years. I am not "sort of" your mom. I am a separate human being. I may have some interests or beliefs in common with her. Kindly quit projecting. I'm sure you wouldn't thank me for assuming you are like my ex because you possess a penis and are a devotee of Krishna.

I felt I had a right to have these feelings that you remind me of my mother because it was you who first projected your feelings onto me. You posted that my talk of men having two wives or a mistress reminded you of your ex husband and you spoke about his abuse of you equating it to the subject matter of my post. If you have a right to have these feelings toward my writing, condemning it because of what someone else did that has no relation to what I do or write then I have a right to have feelings that are in direct reaction to what you are actually doing to me. My mother for years verbally abused me using extreme feminist rhetoric and saying I was horrible because I was a man. You condemned my writing and feelings equating them with unrelated wife beating. I felt emotionally battered by this and I brought it up because this forum still has a stifling political fear built into it. (Actually that word "battered" is just a word my mother talking would use.)

I vaguely remember this topic but unless you can now produce the exact text of what I wrote it's difficult to respond to your assertions. I don't believe I was saying that you were just like my ex, but rather I was trying to communicate what the experience of the women is like in that scenario. (I wrote extensively with someone who had been a co-wife for many years when my ex tried to impose that on me without any choice on my part to refuse. Her experience also informed my comments.)

We do bring our own experiences into such conversations naturally. Now if I wrote something about child-rearing that reminded you of how your mom raised you, fine, bring it up. I don't mind the issues being raised--I just want to be seen as a different person from your mom. I certainly have never viewed you to be much like my ex at all. Just that you were bringing up a very sore subject and I thought I should bring up the other side--just like we all do in discussions.

Now I may remind you of your mother in some ways. I just don't want to feel the weight of your whole relationship with her, good or bad, aimed at me.

I suffered the most abuse in ISKCON by people who ranked probably lower than yourself or any of the moderators here. The low ranking ISKCON members found me to be lower. Just as happens in the rest of society. Often abusers are very socially low ranking and abuse someone even lower. It is humiliating to admit but there is this bag lady who verbally abuses me at Boston ISKCON on occasion. I cannot bring my autistic son there because she abuses him, grabbing him and yelling at him.

Nevertheless, that's not what you were asserting. You specifically said that mods here were authorities in ISKCON. I just wanted to clarify that I was never any such thing. Yes I am well aware of how devotees in general lorded it over anyone who lived outside the temple. It is pretty much like the old saying about the boss who yells at his employee who yells at his wife who yells at her kids who kick the family dog. I had a different view of people who lived outside the community, especially after one of the most notorious of them all took me in when I was homeless and pregnant and later confronted my ex about not providing support.

And for the R guy. I did not know he knew where you lived. I thought it was some work address that you were maybe no longer at. I did make sure he would go after me and not you.

It was my current work place at the time and as an ISP, also the host of my web space. I had to pay extra to make that information private later on but it had already been available to him for months by then. I was trying my best to get the police in your area to take your safety seriously. It was my hope that he wouldn't be able to harm anyone. But laws are such that people have to act before they can do anything.

When I said unfinished feelings I meant that very positively toward you. I feel like I missed ever knowing my mother. Your and my political disagreements are the kind of thing my mother and I should have been having fun arguing about for a decade or two as part of a real positive relationship. I worship my mother in many ways. She was down in the South doing the civil rights things and my father tells of how a redneck started horribly beating him and when he was down on the ground being pummeled and almost losing consciousness all he could hear was my mother telling everyone to remain calm, keep walking and keep the picket like moving. If you broke the precise order the police would use it as a pretext to move in to beat and arrest. My father always loved her when thinking back on the moment.

This is the first time I saw anything positive about your mother. I have always gotten the feeling that it was a bad thing that I reminded you of her.

One major difference is that I wouldn't have been brave enough to go South during the civil rights era. (Well, and I was a child then.) It sounds like your parents were pretty courageous. My mom was stationed in the South as a WAC and she was outraged by the different fountains, restrooms etc. and decided to use the "colored" ones. She was quickly told that it was dangerous to do so for all concerned. (late fifties)

I don't know much about the circumstances behind you're not getting the chance to know your mother better. I'm sorry you missed that. I never got to know my father very well at all so I can relate to the loss.

[kalki]

kalki,

I was going to send you a private message but I don't like sneaking around so I will speak here. I have not read all of what you and Kalisurfer wrote today. I glanced through it. It is really too much time and effort for me. I am writing to tell you I think the moderators may be a lot better than you think. But you can't get anywhere by trying to debate people until they confess. When you disagree with them you should make your point as simply as possible. Repeat your point only if you are pretty sure they missed it or did not understand. I recommend you open a topic and just talk freely about whatever it is you like to talk about. The moderators are probably not going to just change the rules or tell us they are going to change their moderating style from what it was. Even I don't know what I would want them to say. Really we all need to work together with our moderators to just go ahead and start doing what is right and explore what happens. If we are then told no then can we ask them to change. This is how it is done in the real world. Gandhi did it. In America it was done this way. If a law is really bad you stop obeying it so you can go to the courts to show them what is right and they can fix it. That is the only way for our moderators to help us. I have a lot of hope for this forum. One of the things I think I will do is say "the devotees" when referring to people sometimes and say Hare Krishna and stuff like that. Was that against the rules? Or was that just my paranoia? Hare Krishna!

Thanks for your ideas Darwin. The only thing I want to say to that is that I am not really interested in debating at all. I just comment on things and when comments come back to me, I respond. In that, hopefully I am only repeating what was misunderstood or just simply replying to what was said. Yes, as I keep saying, if I am not engaged in small interactions about the validity of the topic, surely I will have space and time to actual approach the topic.

I truly don't have any qualms about the moderators. I haven't made any direct cutting remarks I think. You did I think, but I really don't feel for or against that. I am just interested in the dynamics of language as related to the topic or qualm you originally raised.

[Ananda]

Moderators, like other good net citizens, primarily visit discussion forums to have friendly and insightful discussions. Taking care of a couple of moderation issues once in a while is no problem; but when "moderator problem engagement" begins to take more time than actual positive engagement, moderators begin to naturally (and often quite rapidly) lose their interest in maintaining and advancing a community.

While some members may have a whole lot of time on their hands to spend in campaigning about changes in a forum with a handful of participants, they would do well to realize that others may not have the time to invest into their campaigns. When forum politics gets to truly flourish, people who frequent a site for meaningful discussions gradually stop caring. And when moderators too stop caring, the site usually comes to a halt, and is either closed or archived.

This is why members need to regularly weigh how much they contribute to the community, and how much they strain it in turn. And that is why you don't keep bitching and howling about volunteer moderation — if you want to have a site to return to. Otherwise, it's easier for people to just start their own sites and be the kings of their custom judicious hills. If I were to ever start a truly democratic online community, I'd make it a point to charge a hefty tax in compensation...

[0Sophia0]

I think this is just a forum, not "one big happy family". So things shouldn't be taken so personally, and instead there should be focus on the topics - and I mean topics like "proofs for the existence of free will" or "recipes for beans" and such.

[darwin]

Ananda I thought you are hoping to earn a living doing internet things. Don't you see that the problem is technological and organizational and once the proper technology and system is discovered and put into place all the present problems will cease? Good moderation and creation of volunteer moderators is a natural process. We just need to discover the system and technology to put in place to facilitate this. Look at wikipedia. It is like the un-burning of the library of Alexandria. And you talk about money, I think. (a hefty tax) Do you really get .4 US dollars if I click on one of those adds? What if I keep clicking on the different adds? Do you keep getting that much? And how do I send you money right now? Isn't paypal getting easier and quicker? Everyone complains about ISKCON's former business activities. But I was involved in the Boston ISKCON flower business and found it invigorating. Does this google add stuff really work to make money?

[Brainiac]

Can't answer for Ananda but I use Google Ads on an old blog of mine. Yep, it makes money.

[Homer]

Ananda sez:

"I am happy to keep hosting GR either 1) as an archived forum with no new posting, or 2) as an active community, for as long as it continues to have meaningful discussions in a spirit of goodwill...."

Ok children, you've been told to be meaningful. Now get to it!

I had no idea that we were teetering on the edge of the cyber abyss or that Ananda was holding all the cards.

I used to be involved in a musician forum that had a couple of hundred thousand members but it got too bitchy for my tastes. I do often visit a forum for the IT types that comprises 432,417 registered members. There is always a lively discussion in the news sub-forum. Having so many members does creates a certain dynamic and there is always something interesting going on somewhere there. The moderators can be very strict and their red-flagging of technical posting fouls does seem to be very moderator mood-dependent and subjective. One thing that is not tolerated is any discussion of Israel vs Palestine. As the owner of the site is Jewish I suppose that is fair enough - it does stifle the discussion of current events though. The point is that the mods are quite strict and unless one's post is a very pertinent to the topic at hand you can expect to be excluded from the discussion. Imagine how having hundreds of thousands of members all posting their opinions can be a real challenge to control while at the same time not stifle interaction and meaningful (there's that word again) debate.

This forum has the most exclusive membership base on the net, or at least close to it. Our little group of a dozen or so posters may have their water balloon fights now and again but usually it is in good jest. Meaningful? This forum has been very meaningful in many ways for myself.

If the guillotine is to fall on the neck of Gaudiya Repercussions then I will bid a fond farewell to you all.

[Dhyana]

We all want the job that we do -- moderating, or in Ananda's case forum hosting -- to feel meaningful. Same for all forum members who read and contribute.

I realize you are wondering what is brewing since we have had this extensive "changes to GR" forum thread plus a lot of other things happening that have called the way GR functions into question.

We will be getting back to you shortly.

[darwin]

Ananda complained about the human behavior of forum members and complained about natural forum dynamics. I think he should see it all as an opportunity. What if a system and technology could be invented that would automate forum moderator creation. Probably it would also grow new forums that split off the original.

Last night I laid in bed a while theorizing about this. I think the first step is to develop a basic logical forum moderation theory. (My mind is too lazy to do this right now.)

If any automatic forum software ever gets invented, it will involve intensive dynamic polling of posters and readers to assign new moderators for subforums or individual topics. (actually a forum right now could enable any member to moderate the topics they create.) And the dynamic creation of polls and polling is something I think is something that will take off if it ever gets going.

Ananda is there good open source forum software people can build on? And the database stuff is really hard to learn, isn't it?

As for a forum getting new membership, can't forums use facebook accounts so they can log in? And the spammers could be easily filtered out with the right settings.

Weren't ISKCON members on the internet creating communication software and communicating at its very beginning? Like in 1993? Does Dyana know about this?

Many of us are sort of experts in forum dynamics. Some day someone like us who has the skill and the drive will create a system and technology to harness these natural forces. Posters and readers will self moderate, assign themselves new group moderators, and automatically split off into newly created forums.

[darwin]

This forum has been very meaningful in many ways for myself.

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind
I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.
--Neil Young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKwjxF7ilI

.

[ePiTau]

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind
I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.
--Neil Young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKwjxF7ilI

.

Excellent. Thanks for posting, Darwin.

[metamorphosis]

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind
I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.
--Neil Young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKwjxF7ilI

.

Excellent. Thanks for posting, Darwin.

Yes, thanks, it touches me to hear.

[Kalisurfer]

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind
I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.
--Neil Young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKwjxF7ilI

.

Excellent. Thanks for posting, Darwin.

Yes, thanks, it touches me to hear.

Triple thanks from the kid who became the old man who did take a look at himself, and I am a lot like like him ... wow!

[Homer]

Neil has moved on to the past...

http://www.spinner.com/2011/06/12/buffalo-...oo-2011-review/

"Buffalo Springfield Have Their 'Greatest' Night Ever at Bonnaroo 2011"

If he can do it I say we can too! Let's get back to the future!

[darwin]

Here is an article that talks about the so-called "political correctness" that has taken over much of the culture of the West. All of us who care about the future of the Hare Krishna movement, the future of the culture of and discourse with those who have left the Hare Krishna movement and those who want this forum to work should read this. The article lays the blame not with the so-called "liberals" but with us conservatives for being cowardly.

In a speech in Sydney, Brendan O’Neill called on critics of PC to stop playing the victim and to start acting like proper, self-respecting heretics.

I also had sex with men for money two or three times. I hope now I can start writing again.

I didn't mean imply that this was part of my undercover assignment here.

View at Youtube

[darwin]

Hi kalisurfer. I found the full "don't say penis in this house" scene from Born on the Fourth of July, about a paralyzed Vietnam soldier returning home. It is probably the roughest part of the movie. I grew up in a college town and I remember seeing guys like this in wheelchairs. I think this scene is a good template for some of the kinds of interactions we should be having here. Watch the scene to the end and you can maybe see why I have faith in this kind of thing.

View at Youtube

[Kalisurfer]

Hi kalisurfer. I found the full "don't say penis in this house" scene from Born on the Fourth of July, about a paralyzed Vietnam soldier returning home. It is probably the roughest part of the movie. I grew up in a college town and I remember seeing guys like this in wheelchairs. I think this scene is a good template for some of the kinds of interactions we should be having here. Watch the scene to the end and you can maybe see why I have faith in this kind of thing.

View at Youtube

That's a good question little brother Darwin, "Whose going to love us, whose going to love us while we are in these damn mental wheelchairs?"

Faith thee have, and it calls me to answer, and I hedith the Tube of You passage that cries like the child man missing his member, like some of us do on this 4rum, cries for the missing member who can no longer stand erect. So faith thee have, and Faith was my first female friend in 4th grade before she moved to the suburbs, where all the men and women look and talk the same and fear is something held for the unknown future. Oh Faith where are thee? Oh yeah, on BookFace, of course, how silly of me, remember ... holy books, book cases, book bags, bead bags, garbage bags, faces with smiles and tilak for strangers and smirks for those they lived with, oh yes, all now on FaceBook, the book of faces we knew, know and oh no, even tried to forget, yep, push the like button and leave a comment, where all the repercussions that once graced these pages now seem to reside or hide ... oh Faith where are you, oh you have her, so take good care of her little brother of faith, yes, take good care of her.

[kalki]

I have some ideas that are new, at least to this forum. I will post soon. Until then, I have already posted in "new ideas for the forum" thread, regarding the board rules and any outdated material on them.