debate....

[equus]

Debate has rules and manners - one of which is not to attack each other personally, all that shows is a lack of ability and a weakness in a person's own argument.

We cannot disagree? Is that really where it's at? Will each thread only be acceptable if all posters that add to it agree? Will a new post be suggested for any opinion that opposes? Or will it just be that no opposition will be allowed to be posted at all? Will that be across the board, in every forum?

If someone's only point is to suggest another is in denial will that be ok?

I have never seen a big forum die, I can't help but wonder how it would be possible with so many posters, or if it would be possible. It won't really matter who leaves or stays in the long run because new people will always come. But they will also come with opposing views.

Debate is just the process of testing ideas against reason - it is how my own secular ideas are formed, it is how science is conducted, it's how presidents and prime ministers ask for our vote, it has been in existance since the ancient greeks and most likely further back than that. From Aristotle to Stephen Hawkins it has survived. Debate will continue and I guess if it is unwelcome here you'll be left with whatever is left after it has all been removed. At least it won't stop a person shouting denial as that would never had any part of respectful debate.

I guess time will tell.....

[liveweyerd]

Equus, I, too, am apalled!
In university, comparison and contrast are encouraged.
Diversity of opinion is encouraged.
Free expression and discussion is a method of education.
Infomed opinions, uniformed opinions....all are open for discussion.
And logical analysis.
The educated and the uneducated are encouraged to speak up....as the discussion brings forth points of learning.
Someone tonight reminded me of Jonathon Swift's satire of....???? all ready I forget the name...but he proposes babies as a profitable capatilistic venture and food source. It is a satire! Meant to bring forth the realization of capitalism vs humanitarian values! Was it "A Profitable Venture"? About raising babies as crop. It meant enlightenment and was never meant to be taken literally!
Oppressing free discussion...even disagreement...is scary to me!
Disagreement of philosophy is not personal insult, in my book.
If so, I would have walked out of university classes many times.
Instead, I was left to ponder my reactions and the material presented.
I need not agree, but I must be open-minded enough to hear it.
BTW....my fave prof...a devout Catholic...was known to blashpheme. His good works spoke for him. But he liked to shake up preconceptions. I love him still. His good works are with me today. And I thank him for his unconventional but lovely, lasting education!

[equus]

I agree about university - hence me hot tailing it back there!!

I do wonder though how these things work. Debate is so resiliant that no matter what I know it will continue, I suppose in the end that means people collect where it happens and leave where it is disallowed. Except, not everyone is the same, for some it appears to be the most awful thing and a life of agreement is prefered - probably there's huge shades of grey between those two points too!!!

If nothing else this is a chance to watch and see how things play out - are we really polar opposites or is it a matter of clarification and agreement? We are watching a small culture wrestle with power, position, morals, communication, standards, and ethics.

I'm all eyes!!!!

[Ann]

If someone's only point is to suggest another is in denial will that be ok?

Not likely.

The beautiful thing about freedom in today's society is that we all have choices. And with the internet, we have about a million choices of recovery sites, so that we can select the one that perfectly fits our requirements.

Hugs

[equus]

we have about a million choices of recovery sites, so that we can select the one that perfectly fits our requirements.

Yes - I think you are right Ann, those that have the power to choose what this forum will be will also ultimately choose who is likely to stay or go. For me personally I'll wait to see which choices are made before jumping to conclusions.

[historyteach]

Debate does have manners and rules.
And as is seen over and over, too many times people refuse to follow simple rules. And more.
It is ALWAYS a choice to stay and follow simple posted rules or not.
SR has a large door, and all looking for recovery are welcome.
And the door's always open when anyone wants to come back for recovery purposes.

Shalom!

[equus]

You know the old saying about being part of the solution? I'd like to be, because I think it matters to all of us.

With the exclusion of trolls I think often the problem is with interpretation of rules. I'm not saying this because of SR, it's rules or any particular problem recently. I think that rules are only the begining is well demonstarted by law which in the uk begins with legislation but that in turn is refined through case law (I think the US is similar?). Each case or trial is about both the persons actions and whether those actions did indeed break the law, the law evolves through that process of discussion and becomes more clearly understood in terms of examples. This process I think has come about because differences in interpretation of rules is nothing new.

I suppose for me the best of debate is to stay focussed on the discussion rather than become sidelined into motives and personal judgement - I've been to often wrong on that score! For me that is the crux of where I'd like to be, the focus on subject rather than on motivation and personality.

This is not my forum, I'm actually quite fond of the rules here. Perhaps where they are broken it is simpler to make a clear decision, explain why and deal individually where people incist on repeatingingly breaking the rules - just as clearly. In that way we can all benefit from a deepening understanding of how they will be applied which makes our choices accordingly less error prone.

I think it is more helpful to offer to look to where things may have been misunderstood or interpretted differently. Maybe try to clarify, maybe deal individually with people and only last of all see the problem as a result of a single place when evidently it occurs in more than one place.

Just to be clear - anything said here is in terms of offering what I can to a solution, the decidions will always remain SR's not mine and that doesn't make me angry in the slightest.

[cmc]

This is not my forum, I'm actually quite fond of the rules here. Perhaps where they are broken it is simpler to make a clear decision, explain why and deal individually where people incist on repeatingingly breaking the rules - just as clearly. In that way we can all benefit from a deepening understanding of how they will be applied which makes our choices accordingly less error prone.

Hi equus,
What you have stated has been done, ad nauseum. It is sad that a few cannot appreciate what a great place this is and can be. The point is that there are more important issues and people who come here. To constantly have to rehash over definitions and such, is redundant.
This is a major detraction to recovery- to be blunt.
IMO the mods have been way more than fair- only to be disrespected openly and privately too I imagine.
I appreciate your attitude and commments. I enjoyed being involved in some of the threads on that forum.

[equus]

Ok - well there is at least one member here saying loud and clear that with ALL due respect I have absolutely no idea whether debate will be acceptable anywhere on SR, what classes as debate on SR, what happened to result in a forum getting a tempory lock, how on earth 'no debate' can be applied on SR.

It may have been gone over again and again, but obviously I missed that. There is nothing here but questions and a certain way of looking at things - SR belongs to someone other than me and is run by the Mods. I'm not judging anyone, in fact I'm infinately more interested in where things go from here than trying to decide who was right and wrong in getting them here.

I genuinely have no idea why this has happened, why it has gone beyond individuals being held responsible and resulted in a forum seemingly held responsible or what will need to change to bring about a positive result.

It may have been gone over - but believe it or not I'm just as confused....

[DesertEyes]

Hey there Equus,

Your questions are quite valid. If I may take a moment to attempt to address them in turn.

- Reasons why a forum is closed.

The primary reason a forum is closed is because the relevant Mods are unable to attend to matters at hand. Mods have to attend to their personal lives first, such as going to work. When there is more activity on a forum than can be handled in an a timely manner it's beneficial to temporarily close a forum.

The matters at hand, specifically, is a flood of PM's from the membership over issues of contention. All of these PM's need to be replied. In addition, the confidentiality of _all_ PM's has to be maintained. That means that a PM, no matter how offensive, is not to be repeated to the public without permission.

In many cases, various members will beging accusations against each other in PM. These accusations need to be heard, evaluated, and the warring factions encouraged to first calm their emotions, and then arrive at some form of agreement that will allow them to continue to post in a civil manner.

All of the above takes time. A _lot_ of time. If the relevant mods have a life, that time is limited. Hence the temporary closing of a forum untill all the irate parties can come to their senses.

- Debate on SR.

Difference of opinion are always welcome on SR. The many different forums provide some form of structure for those opinions. The rules are necessary because the internet attracts a wide variety of trolls in assorted disguises. The majority of trolls enjoy testing the limits of the rules, and are quite creative in posting subtle insults and condescending remarks. In addition, people under the influence of various chemicals find it entertaining to post on recovery sites.

Rules of civility are quite different than laws of behavior. In addition, a forum staffed by part-time volunteers will never have the kind of resources of a governmnet funded court system. This results in forum rules that must be fairly loose in order to allow open discussion. However, this also alows trolls to find it relatively easy to disrupt an entire forum with only a few subtle posts.

Some trolls are more persistent than others. Some are more literate than others. Here on SR there is an average of one major conflagration per week. Not counting women suffering from domestic violence, minors reporting incest, sundry personal crisis, and other such "normal" occurences. The majority of those crisis are handled in PM, which reflects back on time available to the mods for handling issues of less importance.

- In summary.

Mods must first attend to people in physical danger, the bulk of which is done in PM which must remain confidential. Many PM's are needed to first develop trust, then encourage individuals to contact local authorities and support groups. You may have noticed some activity in the "sticky" posts relevant to Domestic Violence in a couple of the forums here on SR.

Once those emergencies are handled mods can turn their attention to other issues, such as members who are complaining about each other, insulting each other, and otherwise acting out in an uncivilized manner. Threads are locked when the amount of time needed to keep tempers under control exceeds the time available to part-time, volunteer mods. Forums are locked when the PM traffic becomes overwhelming.

Differences of opinion, conducted in a civil manner, will always be welcomed.

I hope this addresses your concerns.

Mike

[equus]

It does Mike - thankyou.

I hope that when all the above has been gone through it won't be a whole forum getting the blame!!

Getting rude and/or offensive in debate shows a serious lack of ability to back what's being said with reasoning - which is why I have never felt it to be in opposition to the rules here. I ended up reading what was left of posts in total confusion and respect that there are reasons I got left confused, but I was still confused.

I hope sound judgement, curteousy, and reasoning can win the day for the secular section over loudness.

Besides I found a flippin' brilliant site on confidence building I wanted to post!! Secular of course (with brass knobs on) but well sourced.

[DesertEyes]

Originally Posted by equus

... I hope that when all the above has been gone through it won't be a whole forum getting the blame!! ...

Absolutely not! It is abundantely clear that there are only a handful of trouble makers amongst the thousands of SR "residents".

Originally Posted by equus

... I ended up reading what was left of posts in total confusion and respect that there are reasons I got left confused, but I was still confused. ...

Another valid question.

When a person writes an offensive post the entire post has to be removed. If the offensivie statements are left on the thread, more and more people will become offended and the situation escalates _very_ quickly. It only takes removing a handful of insulting posts to completely derail the flow of conversation.

If a mod leaves a note such as "post removed by xxx" then the offensive poster becomes even more irate. If the mod does _not_ leave a note then other posters start PM'ing wanting to know what's going on. Many times a mod will simply lock the whole thread in the hopes of preventing escalation.

Originally Posted by equus

... I hope sound judgement, curteousy, and reasoning can win the day for the secular section over loudness. ...

That is exactly what the mods are attempting to acomplish.

Originally Posted by equus

... Besides I found a flippin' brilliant site on confidence building I wanted to post!! Secular of course (with brass knobs on) but well sourced....

Confidence building is an important skill for many of us on SR. As one of the mods for the "Friends and Family" and "Adult Children of Alcoholics" I would be honored if you would consider us as hosts for your comments on that confidence building site until the SC forum re-opens. Although F&F and ACoA are not concerned with "secular" issues, we are always interested in Confidence Building. We also don't care _which_ program, if any, is followed by the membership.

Mike

[doorknob]

Thank you for the thorough explanation, Mike.

Paul

[2dayzmuse]

Last night, entire posts deemed offensive were removed, but were resurrected again soon after. I can't see where that serves as helpful, but as adding more fuel to the fire. Some members may not be aware of the full extent of what has happened and the decisions of the mods may look as if they are unreasonable or premature in their decision, where in there is much more to the story than what meets the eye. I've been guilty of jumping to conclusion before. Later, I got the full version and could understand why the decision resulted in a post being pulled or a thread closed.