For your consideration.
Caucus and other protected threads are cowardly, in my opinion.
If you can’t stand criticism, send a dang email or something.
Your input is appreciated.
What do you think?
That pretty well sums up why argumentative postings from that individual were removed. I'm guessing that the Hindu was not being argumentative but was being inquisitive.
The cyber-world being what it is, one needs to look at the Religion Moderator's illustration of a caucus thread as being like unto a group being in their own church setting. A disruptive person, member or non-member, is going to be found out of bounds.
It appears you are questioning whether the Religion Moderator had cause to delete posts, however asking it of people who may not, and now can not, see the words of those posts.
In my occasional wanderings into Religion forums, I have NEVER been booted simply because I was not a member of the correct religion when posting in a Caucus thread. While the rules are clear that the caucus threads are for people who adhere to that faith, the PURPOSE of the rules are to allow people within a faith to discuss among themselves differences of interpretation of something in their faith, without having to deal with arguments about their faith vs other faiths.
Most caucus threads seem to invite people outside the faith who merely want to learn about the faith, just as a church might; while they reject the idea of people coming into their caucus threads to argue with them about their religion, something I’m sure they get enough of in the real world, and which they’d rather not have to put up with every single place they turn.
If the religion moderator deleted posts, I have no trouble believing it was because those posts made people feel unwelcome in their caucus thread.
The Caucus rules for religion threads are NOT rules that are to be adhered to “by the letter”. The Caucus rules themselves make this clear, noting that attempts to circumvent the spirit of the rules by applying legalistic interpretations of the literal words of the rules will not be tolerated.
That would most certainly include anybody claiming the right to post in a caucus thread because they were once members of the faith, and therefore while they have “seen the light”, by the tenets of that faith are “always” of that faith. It appeared your discussion above was suggesting that such an argument would have merit for participating in a caucus, and I reject that notion.
There have been times I thought a caucus was being overly protective by posting real news stories as caucus items. But if I cared, I’d just post the same news story as a regular thread, so the rest of us could say what we wanted about it. It’s not like people are limited to posting an article only one time here. :-)
Thank you for wasting valuable bandwidth. Now go make a contribution to the FR funding drive to pay for it.
By and large, the ‘church’ concept is adequate to permit internal discussions minus disruptors. As such I generally have few issues, unless that caucus thread is being used to attack others - then as the RMs rules clearly state - the caucus protection is lost..
In this particular instance, some degree of thought should have been applied - the issue was one that, based upon FR profile of posters - would have had broad support across the board from all branches of Christianity. Instead of an issue that unity could have been formed around - it has now turned into one of division. This isn’t a judgement call on the poster’s motivations to do so to begin with - only an observation of which this current thread makes clear is the end result.
I’d say to all that some discernment should be made by the posters before applying the ‘caucus’ label to the thread.
I appreciate your perspective.
I think you make some good points.
Personally, it is bothersome to disturbing when the boundaries of the Caucus designation are
gamed destructively, glibly etc.
HOWEVER,
I FIND that generally, the RM does a masterful job with all the special categories that Holy Spirit has led him to foster and establish on FR.
There are perverse motivations and actions on the part of some within any large group of
humans
on the planet.
And sometimes, that seems to be a worse phenomenon within large diverse RELIGIOUS groups.
And one (or more) reference groups hereon is PARTICULARLY perverse and bad at such gamey-ness.
HOWEVER, regardless, the RM is usually quickly and certainly with astute sharpness, on top of all such gamey-ness.
It doesn’t bother me when the RM chooses wisdom or even simply a ‘not worth the bother’ response to some such gamey-ness.
I do NOT WISH to bother the RM by wailing needlessly about technicalities and petty details.
The Caucus designation is GENERALLY EXTREMELY WELL RAN.
WE ALL
NEED, AT LEAST OCCASIONALLY, the caucus designation for a safe, warm, familiar setting to have an unperturbed home reference group discussion in. PRAISE GOD, it’s now available on FR. It didn’t used to be.
I wish to support the RM in all their efforts—sometimes—in this case—by shaking my head and refusing to join the
‘yeah, but’s’
insisting on a more RELIGIOUS, obsessive policing of the boundaries of the caucus designation. There’d be no end of such prissy finger pointing.
The RELIGION FORUM has an inherent, chronic infection of prissy finger pointing AT BEST, all the time anyway.
WHO NEEDS ANOTHER CATEGORY OF THAT!
imho, the RM does an excellent job of protecting the basic sanctity of the peaceableness, safety, warm fuzziness of the caucus category for those who set up such a thread.
MORE POWER TO HIM. LONG LIVE THE RM!
I find his judgments in such regrds usually anointed and Spirit-led.
If he occasionally APPEARS human and arbitrary—reflection usually bears out that he wasn’t—he was just labeled so by some special case of at least momentary prissiness.
2. Laws must be published.Bingo.
That was my beef with the other thread.
A simple explanation at the beginning of each "caucus" thread would go a long way towards resolving this concern -- as MOST of us will not post where we are not welcome.
The "regulars" on these threads may all know the rules, but anyone who spends the bulk of their time on the vast majority of non-"caucus" threads posted here on FR (like me, and a couple hundred thousand lurkers) will probably NOT know about these restrictions, unless you tell them.
I have actually been told here that I am still under Rome because my Baptism left an indelible mark on my soul that can never be removed.. I am still under the rules of Rome even if I refuse it ...so your post makes great sense
Personally, I think it's a mistake to have 'caucus' threads that exclude some Freepers because they are not of the proper religion. I've been here since 1997 and have never felt so separated from other good Conservatives here.
These threads are relatively new, and I think it's a mistake to have them. Our Founders didn't aggravate freedom of religion by separating christians from one another and I dont think we should here.
Nam Vet