Stigweard

Recent events prove you wrong. Sorry Mal, its true.

This is offensive Mal. I don't want you guys to "have a plan" for us that you are working on in secret. I don't want you "managing" us. I want us to have the free will to be self-determined. Where is the consultation? Where is the discussion? Daoism, the whole purpose we are in this community together, is about LIBERTARIANISM. It is about the nurturing of individual liberty; its about human beings being able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions. Autocracy, the system that you clinging to, is an infringement of our free human rights and is a profound offense and insult against both us as members and also against the spirit of Daoism. Have you become so insulated in your Concierge's Dungeon Mal that you can't see this? Are you so attached to your position that you somehow think we "need" you? Sorry to let you know Mal, but TaoBums does NOT need you! We don't "need" a new moderation plan developed in secret by just a handful of non-democratically appointed members. We don't "need" an minority upper echelon of members deciding whats best and right for the majority. Our only "need" is to allowed the liberty of free-spirited universal beings. THAT is the purpose of Daoism if ever there was one. Personally I don't want your clarifications on how your rules might work. I WANT US TO WORK IT OUT FOR OURSELVES !!! Invest in loss Mal, learn to let go of your attachments to control. Learn what it is to be a regular old free-spirited TaoBum again. I have been on both sides of the fence as you know so please take a moment to consider my perspective. You are not the same Mal my friend, just like I became not the same Stig. I have remembered who I am in here, I wish you would do the same.

OK fair point, arbitrary has dual meanings and I certainly didn't mean it in the sense of "random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system." More like "autocratic in the use of authority". Apologies if my poor use of words relayed the wrong intent. In terms of the PMs sent, I say "STOP IT!" For goodness sakes let us work it out ourselves in an open discussion, albeit in a quarantined area. We are not children who need your babysitting. The more members are treated in an autocratic fashion the more you will have this business of members acting like children who NEED an autocratic system. The social environment CREATES the way people behave. If you want members to behave in a mature self-moderated fashion then create the social environment that ENCOURAGES that behavior.

Well every time you mess up like you did with the decision to suspend Scotty for merely being a provocateur, then "YES" I gunna shove that arse-faced Klingon in yours.

It would be nice wouldn't? That we were all adults who just handled things respectfully and worked things out. Sorry ... I didn't notice you "simply stop replying to Scotty or even put him on ignore."

No-one's views should ever be invalidated. Again, every member has the unalienable right to: * to seek information and ideas; * to receive information and ideas; * to impart information and ideas. If I feel that an situation needs to be brought up for moderation consideration than I have the RIGHT and the FREEDOM to do so. Just as you have the right to tell me that you think I am being over-sensitive. Both my view of the said offense and your views of my view can and should be a part of the conversation that emerges about the situation. If I hold my view back and you hold your view back than we are doing everyone an injustice. So that's why I am saying, let everyone have their say. If you are interested in the situation you speak. If you are not interested in the situation you stay quiet and allow those who speak work it out. And in terms of "what was the point?". Well I was trying to prove a point to those who think my ideas are too idealistic and not realistic. I grabbed an offense that was well and truly actionable (unless you want to go back and contest that - which of course you are welcome to do), brought it to public notice and gave what I thought was the best course of action. The parties involved engaged in the discussion giving their views about the situation. Compromises were suggested and the members themselves decided to retract and adjust their posts. And then the original discussion continued on its merry way with the whole moderation conversation kept out of the post. No moderators, no judgments, no suspensions. THAT was the point!

LOL and I am saying that moderators should be stepping in AT ALL and it should be members themselves sorting it out just like we did here: [Moderation] -- tulku

Yup But it's sounding like just another rule for the Mods to try and navigate. I mean with the current "No Insult" policy, where's the definition of what is an "insult". Do we be rules judges and jump on everything that may possibly look like an insult?? If someone feels insulted by something that someone says, is that actionable? Where is the definitive line?? The truth is there is none and therefore the Mods are always going to come off looking like assholes. And I am sorry but these folks are my friends and I don't want them being continuously harassed for just trying to do their best for this forum. If we supplanted it with your idea "no disturbances to the ongoing functioning of this forum". Straight away we have to create definitions and distinctions of what is and isn't a "disturbance", which brings exactly the same problems to bear for moderators. At the moment the only "quality control mechanism" is the moderation team but its not working. They are too slow to react (because they have to wait for enough of them to come online to discuss the issue before they can act), and the small initial problem has become a bigger problem with more people involved by the time they do react. Because it's an authoritative model it actual CREATES the culture of people acting like children dibberdobbing each other to teacher/headmaster/mommy/daddy and then waiting for the "high poobahs" to pass down their judgement. It is simply NOT working. Especially on a spiritual forum where, hopefully, we are for the most part all trying to become more evolved, self-dependent individuals. Whereas if the "quality control mechanism" was in fact members working through issues that arise themselves, issues can be raised quicker and easier and resolved to a far greater degree than just having moderators slapping down their judgements. Case-in-point: [Moderation] -- tulku. This issue was raised, discussed, solutions offered and executed BY MEMBERS and I can bet that even now the moderators haven't had a chance to discuss it properly. Now if we had just sat back, hit the "Report" button and waited for them to react I could GUARANTEE you that there would right now be a shit-fight with its appropriate degree of forum stench going on in the original topic. And if precedent is anything to go by I would reckon we would have to wait another 24hrs of it going on before mods could get to it. But it was done and sorted with the original discussion now progressing on its way.

Yes you are absolutely right! Offense is a damn hard thing to moderate and I would not expect for a moment that moderators can or should try and moderate this. At best all they can do is try and enforce the "No insult" policy. Because the degree to which people may take offense varies, or that the offense taken may be the result of unjustified prejudice, a number of factors need to be taken into account when applying the “offense principle”, including: the extent, duration and social value of the speech, the ease with which the offense can be avoided, the motives of the speaker, the number of people offended, the intensity of the offense, and the general interest of the community at large. But this is NOT to be adjudicated by moderators. What I am suggesting is that we have a forum (this one will do as a defacto for the time being) where on-forum issues about moderation can come to be sorted out and discussed by members. And allow people to get angry and passionate and vocal. Get it out, get it said and heard and get it sorted BY THE MEMBERS.

An excellent post SZ!! I agree with you on many of your points, but not necessarily your solution, because you are just replacing the rule, "No Insults", with the rule, "No disturbances". The same issues of people trying to take things to their "logical conclusion" would still occur. The "problem" is that the way moderation is setup at the moment is actually encouraging the sort of behavior you are witnessing with people crying "Foul!" to moderators like children dobbing other people to mommy and daddy. Please check out: Self-moderation as a community effort on The TaoBums for the ideas that I am advocating.

Cheers for the continued engagement dawei. As I outlined, all we would have to do is have a dedicated Moderation Forum where we direct all discussion over moderation considerations/actions. No doubt at all people will fling some crap around, but it would be quarantined in one area rather than having open flaming wars over "he said she said" crap occurring in topics and ruining conversations which is what is happening right now. The problem is that, because mods wait for discussion behind closed doors (which means people don't see anything "happening"), it can take several days before anything gets done. By that stage, and this is happening with more regular occurrence, a good discussion will break down into shit fights on the open forum ruining a good discussion. Then by the time mods "do something" more people are involved and the judgement they hand down looks hypocritical because other people have also stepped over the line. So, as we have just seen, the person who cops the judgement rightfully cries, "Foul", and also rightfully accuses the mods of hypocrisy and bias. It's a system that isn't working and is creating an ever-increasing stench on the forum. In contrast I want you to look at the living example that has just gone down: [Moderation] -- tulku It was seen by members, reported to the open-forum by members, discussed by members, and the perpetrators of said offenses VOLUNTEERED to go back and moderate their own comments!!! A living example of how this idea can and would work, and it did so completely without any moderator having to hit a single key-stroke!!!

LOL Personally I think you should have the right to be as provocative as you want and feel. Every member on this forum should have the unalienable right to: to seek information and ideas; to receive information and ideas; to impart information and ideas. The only reasons that moderation actions should be taken is to: Prevent harm to other members, and Prevent undue, excessive offense to other members. So as far as I am concerned you go and beat your bible or dharma or whatever to your hearts content. You just have to remember that the more you evangelize the more often you will get folks who will stand up and say "Please STFU!" Every time this happens there will be a disturbance on the forum and inevitably someone will slap down an insult and then it becomes a moderation concern. If you are happy with that, and if you are happy with seeing your name pop up for moderation again and again, then fine go your hardest. But if you are wondering why there is so much friction occurring in the posts you are creating than I think you might benefit from having a rethink about the way in which you are posting. If that makes me biased, fine and I will defend my right to express my bias whenever I wish. But I do apologize for making you a scapegoat in a way. I was using you as a means to make a point to the moderators. I actually don't think anyone should be moderated from being provocative, but they have set a precedent and I trying to point this hypocrisy out to them. Please accept my apologies in this regard.

I wasn't suggesting moving the thread, just the bits that concerned moderation. However, as it now seems that all parties concerned have moderated themselves, I am sure the conversation will continue on its merry way. Huzzah!

Thank you witch! tulku, seeing that you have removed your offending comments and witch has removed hers then do you agree that this little 'incident' is over?

If the mods are reading this (and by the good spirits I hope you are), then I want it noted that tulku has voluntarily gone back and edited his posts to remove the offending comments. Thus I retract my earlier request for his suspension. Witch if you are reading this, for the sake of some forum harmony (and even though I found humor in your comments ), do you think you could also remove your comments? Please hun' that would be great! Tulku (who I know is reading this), please consider how the reactions to your contributions is sparked by your fundamentalist and evangelic manner in which you post. If you want to stop the way people are hounding you then could you please consider adjusting your style of posting. You might find that people will listen to you more and engage more in discussion if you stop acting like a preacher throwing bibles at people on a street corner. Just a thought

In the effort to keep moderation considerations out of main forum discussions perhaps we could reconvene this particular discussion to this topic: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/20454-moderation-tulku

tulku if you can discern the difference between witch's comments and your threats to kill someone then I really think you need some time away to work on your cultivation. This on top of your continued provocation (which seems to be the new precedent) then I think a minimum 7-day break is well and truly justified. Edit: I will acknowledge however that you have gone back and deleted your offending comments. This needs to be taken into account now as well. Thank you.

Hmmm ... count nine ... unless there is one on the leg. Groovy

NICE !!! The Golden Light visualization you shared is so similar to mine its uncanny. I will take it as another cross-referencing verification. Thank you!

PM from Scotty, I make no opinion on this, just passing the message along on request:

Sunya I will also just point out some facts. Calling anyone arrogant snob, mentally unstable, a drama queen, and saying that they are acting as a rape victim is a public denigration of another persons character. This is not you stating a fact, it is you stating your opinion. Even if you are convinced of it as a fact, it is still just your personal subjective opinion. If you try and defend your right to declare your opinions as facts and therefore beyond moderation then you have invalidated any claims you might have that it is wrong from Scotty to be hounding you lads as "pseudo-Buddhists". Because on the same grounds as your argument, Scotty's opinion of you can suddenly become a "fact" and likewise be beyond moderation. It means I could say, "Sunya, you are acting like a dipshit moron who has his head so shoved up his own ass he dies from Anal Asphyxiation." Clearly if I said that it would be a denigration of your character ... it's an insult. But if we were to standardize your argument I could demand clemency by saying, "I was merely stating a fact. I wasn't insulting you I was just making an observation." Now clearly Scotty needs to rethink his attitude and behavior here on the forum. No doubt about that at all. And I do think he should take a self-enforced vacation for a week to clear his head. I know he is better than some of the the verbal diarrhea he has been dishing out recently. I think he has some valuable insights and would love to see him give us the best of what he has. I think the same of you Sunya. But I am sorry, your insults are still insults, and I think you should accept that this is a violation of the forum rules and, if you were man enough and achieved enough in your cultivation, you would happily agree to take a 7-day absence from posting.

Well seeing that Dao is to be found in every ordinary mundane moment of life then I say "YES". After all, whats normal?

Hiya Ambrose_Bierce, Just a bit of back-history. I was one of the original mod team and when I first started I too thought there should be a clear set of rules. You can check out my efforts that Mal posted up here: Moderation Guidelines I wanted it to be clear to members what we were looking out for, but also I was trying to set up controls on the mod group to ensure consistency, fairness, and accountability. But I was wrong to try and control the activities of the mod team. I know that now, even though at the time I felt like I was very much right However in saying that, the principle or ideal I was working from was and still is very much right (LOL well I believe so ... hehehe). That is: "The underlying philosophy is that forum administration and moderation should make all efforts not to interfere with member’s free speech and normal activities." But in my efforts to protect the free rights of general members, I violated the free rights of the moderators. So the intent was right but the actualization was wrong. As some folks know I have explored other "ideas" for moderation. Some were obviously wrong as well, but hey, I will keep exploring the ideal that I intuitively know we can achieve. Obviously I think my current "idea" is the right one to explore (but I could be wrong hehehe ) Self-moderation as a community effort on The TaoBums So my current thoughts are: "Invest in loss". Let go of controls, let go of rules, let go of power. Allow members to be self-determining and self-moderating. Become facilitators of people working it out themselves rather than arbitrators of some pre-determined justice. This is more in tune with Laozi's Dao than the idea of creating more rules. Personally I think the results would surprise all of us