THE EVOLUTIONISTS' GUIDE TO PROPER CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOUR

This is a reply to comments from Jet in Message 65 in the A Christian (and creationist)'s condemnation of thread of the Is it Science forum. Jet probably intended to begin this thread with that discussion. I believe the Christian position is that you should treat others the way you would want them to treat you. Christ counseled tolerance, saying that if someone smites your cheek that you turn to them the other. Christ also said not to criticize the sliver in someone else's eye until you have addressed with the timber in your own. Nowhere did he say that there is a different set of standards for pagans, heretics and anti-theists. More evolutionists than not are members of one religion or another, and there is no uniformity in their religious views.But you're not being asked to adhere to Christian principles. I only mentioned it because of my surprise that it is a Christian whose behavior is least consistent with them than anyone else here.All you're being asked to do is to follow the Forum Guidelines. This site is for serious discussion. I've set aside the Free For All forum for those who prefer a freer environment or a less serious focus.My suggestion is that you focus on discussing topics of interest to you and try to leave aside your obvious repugnance toward evolutionists. If you do not your next suspension will be for a week, and the next for a month.--------------------EvC Forum Administrator[This message has been edited by Admin, 12-08-2002]

It certainly has come to my attention, but my ability to detect guideline violations on both sides of the debate is not balanced. That's why we have Adminaquility, and I'm looking for another moderator with a Creationist viewpoint so that both sides have equal representation. You can certainly email me at Evc Forum Administrator if you think someone may be violating the guidelines, but you might also consider emailing Adminaquility.--------------------EvC Forum Administrator

Nominations for a staunch Creationist moderator are now open. Fred Williams has already informed me that he doesn't have the available time right now.

Forgiven, how do you feel about this? Do you have the available time? Are you here for the long term?Any seconds for forgiven? It should come from a Creationist, since the nomination was from an evolutionist.I know I'm carrying out this process differently from when Adminaquility became a moderator, but TB had been here over six months at the time, while Forgiven has been here less than a month, so I feel I need more data. Nope! There's a set of Moderator Guidelines. Moderators can get booted, too. I don't think what happened at OCW was Fred's fault, but was more a result of a flawed philosophy on how to moderate discussions. For example, they attempt to make objective assessments of what are in essence subjective issues, such as whether someone is misrepresenting someone else's views, and then they edit and/or delete posts based on the assessment, something that we don't do here. It's a tough temptation to resist when you're a moderator and you feel that someone is either obfuscating or stonewalling or misrepresenting or purposefully misinterpreting, but you have to keep telling yourself that, number one, you could easily be wrong, and number two, that heavy-handed moderation is counter-productive, though it certainly makes for great entertainment.EvC Forum is a learning experience for me, and I hope for many others. I mean this in more than the sense of just the Creation/Evolution debate itself. On-line public discussions have been taking place on the Internet since the 70s (it was called the Arpanet then), but I don't think we've learned how to do this very effectively yet. In my view EvC Forum is on the right track, but we've still got a ways to go.--------------------EvC Forum Administrator

In case it makes the moderation task seem less daunting, once we have four moderators the plan is to divide the forums among the moderators so that no moderator (except me) would have to moderate more than three forums.--------------------EvC Forum Administrator

Please accept a 24-hour suspension of posting privileges. See you tomorrow.--------------------EvC Forum Administrator

First, please bring violations of the forum guidelines to the attention of one of the moderators. Their emails are Admin, Adminaquility and Adminnemooseus.Second, a search for "shithead" reveals no SLPx post using this word, other than quoting you. Perhaps he edited his original post?Third, SLPx consistently skirts the guidelines without crossing the boundaries, or at least not by much. Suspension seems overly harsh, but then what should be done? I have no answer.Fourth, the board moderators don't have the time to track down every claim, and SLPx's most recent frustration with Peter Borger seems justified since board administration is taking no action when Peter Borger says, "The GUToB is new, my friend. Did you check all 235 google hits?" I didn't check all 235, but I did waste my time checking the first 100. Only a couple hits dealt with Peter's GUToB, and they were authored by Peter. The rest had to do with islands, bays, languages or were in foreign languages or scripts that I couldn't understand. It is a violation of forum guidelines to misrepresent, but board administration does not have the time to check all the claims. I don't blame SLPx for calling Peter a loon. Either Peter is crazy because he thinks every hit is on-topic, or he's crazy to believe other people are that dumb, or Peter is maliciously trying to waste other people's time.All that being said, I have to say that messages from members like Jet and Ten-sai are almost always very interesting and a fun read, but I always apply the heat/light rule. All heat and no light (usually in the form of too much name-calling with too little substance) is a pretty sure route to a suspension.The feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Jet!Your posting privileges have been restored. Enjoy!--------------------EvC Forum Administrator

This thread long ago morphed into an evolution discussion. I will close this thread and open a new thread in the Evolution forum that I'll call "How does evolution explain the gaps?"------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator