If too many have too much of an allergy for the religion forum--why not merely a "philosophical caucus" or "social caucus" thread--maybe in a larger, more general TRUMP Forum or Chat or whatever such.
Seems to me we need something that's easy to exclude obvious, truly obnoxious and prickly, mean etc. trolls from while allowing reasonable good attitude inquiry. And, in the process of those boundaries, making it easier for the mods to enforce the boundaries.
I think the shining light Religion Moderator of years ago made her job manageable by defining what was acceptable and what was not in moderately specific terms.
Personal attacks were not allowed and were much more enforced than in the general forum.
Attacks on a known population group were not allowed, IIRC. i.e. Pentecostals could not attack 'All FR RC's.' And FR RC's could not attack 'All FR Pentecostals." It was tolerable--particularly in temperate language--to find fault with "many" or "most" undefined populations of Pentecostals or RC's around the world.
I wonder if a standard could be defined and supported whereby genuine earnest information seeking questions could be responded to 2-4 times. After that, the seeker could be expected to consult Swordmaker's LexiQon; ransomnote's intro links, Praying Medic's videos etc.
And if a questioner PERSISTED in being 'by the throat demanding' of answers according to THEIR criteria in any perceived degree of obnoxiousness, they could be banned from the thread.
Similarly, Q fans would need to avoid provoking, poking etc. at the perceived assaultive trolls.
It seems to me that there is a particular sort of personality--OCD, RAD ridden, fiercely allergic to or a paranoia about a false positive error; rigid, narrow, prickly, demanding, control freak etc. that SIMPLY DEMANDS that others conform to THEIR constructions on reality or suffer the vengeance of relentless assaults & demands from them.
The Q threads don't need that sort of intrusion and disruption. And, frankly, I don't think FR in general needs such pig poo.
I think the Q fans are among the MOST conservative, loyal, supportive, diligent, bright, collaborative, effective brainstormers etc. of FREEPERS available. We support TRUMP fiercely and FR energetically.
On the other hand, we feel being relentlessly assaulted, insulted, marginalized, demeaned, accused, etc. extremely keenly. And many are increasingly of a mood to take their marbles and go home whether banned, or not. That's sad and unnecessary, imho.
I guess, to me, it boils down to one of 2 basic options:
1. A defined category of thread more or less equal to a caucus thread--within what forum may not matter to most; might to some.
or
2. A FAITHFULLY and diligently APPLIED criteria on the mods part that would prevent such intensely obnoxious, disgusting, fight provoking etc. attacks by obvious trolls.
It seemed to me that the RM of yore would periodically have to train newbies or retrain forgetful folks who were hell-bent on being disruptive in the religion forum. That would likely continue to be true about trolls & the Q threads, too.
I do STRONGLY ENCOURAGE y'all to come up with SOME effective solution. This is tooooo disruptive to FR and to precious FREEPERS who contribute content and/or money to the betterment of FR. We don't deserve such trashy treatment and increasingly--many will simply no longer put up with it.
Besides that, as many of us see it, when TRUMP eventually confirms that the Q-team of mostly military intelligence folks have been working CLOSELY WITH TRUMP low these many months--if FR admin is still SEEN AS BEING on the side of the assaultive trolls--then FR and the admin will look at best extremely foolish if not DESTRUCTIVE to TRUMP, his efforts and goals. You don't need to go there. I hope you won't.
Whether it is accurate, or not, many Q-pers believe that some mods are as hostile to Q as some of the trolls. That does NOT HELP FR.
Jocko, we’ve been doing well until our thread fully engaged disruptors, which is true of any regular thread on the forum.
If too many have too much of an allergy for the religion forum—why not merely a “philosophical caucus” or “social caucus” thread—maybe in a larger, more general TRUMP Forum or Chat or whatever such.
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Moving to a “no debate” thread would kill our friendly debates about theories and data that we use to refine our thinking and build our knowledge base. There’s no way to define a line clearly enough so that friendly debates could be separated from disruption debates.
We’ve grown through our struggles and realize that we are better off not engaging those who arrive to provoke. We’ve got this.