Why did "Why so many Atheists" thread got deleted?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The biggest problem I see with the Religious forum is that posters who disagree with one another argue until one side feels that it’s losing and then reports the thread. I am then asked to clean up a mult-page thread. I’m not going to do it. Either report things earlier, get used to threads disappearing, or just give up on moderation all together.

If someone is derailing your thread, report it immediately. If you argue for 20 pages, the outcome may be disappointing for you.

It’s already possible to report derailments, and this isn’t working.

Do you really want to have to adjudicate every time somebody asks if they can leave Easter Mass early with their small kids and an atheist responds with “there is no God” or “I’m an atheist because...”? And religious people don’t want to have to hit “report” constantly for this nonsense. It’s the endless torrent of this abuse that derails, not the single episodes. And so far it’s not possible to report multiple incidents at the same time. Derailment can be cumulative rather than a one-time “aha” and it’s a slippery slope of determining when “I want to talk about my path to atheism instead of answering OP’s question” is really derailment. I don’t think a single person here objects to the occasional “there is no god.” When it’s on every.single.thread, though, that’s when all conversation grinds to a halt.

The atheist posters here know this well, to the point that this is going to be a non-policy.

Yes, that is exactly what I want to do. If you report such posts immediately, it is easy for me to get rid of them. It is much harder to wade through 20 pages in which multiple parties are behaving badly. If religious posters don't want to participate in improving their own discussions, then I don't want to spend my time trying to improve them either. If you are not going to report inappropriate posts, you can either have heavy-handed moderation or no moderation at all. Pick your poison,

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

Ok of that thread, is this how you approach life?

Only your thoughts and ideas are right.

[Anonymous]

Op not ok

[Anonymous]

I am a Christian and I reported the original thread and asked Jeff to either delete it or lock it.

Why?

It was an incredibly stupid subject to begin with, and was only getting stupider as the thread went on. There was no topic being discussed, just people insulting each other. The religious forum is already low-quality enough, but if you don't want to discuss a topic or you are too scared that the big bad meanie atheists will ruin it for you, don't post!

Off topic: the worst threads in the Religion forum tend to be the "performative" Christian threads, where someone is just randomly posting flowery interpretations of Scripture and anyone who doesn't post "Amen" is "derailing" the thread and things devolve from there. Why would someone do this on an open Religion forum? DCUM is not church, it's not your house, it's not a private Christian forum, it's an open forum. Someone who remarks on your post is not a "fascist," they're just wondering why you are being so weird and disingenuous. It's so meaningless to "worship" this way, it's not perceived as beautiful or meaningful by others, and I don't see any other faith traditions doing this on the Religion forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a Christian and I reported the original thread and asked Jeff to either delete it or lock it.

Why?

It was an incredibly stupid subject to begin with, and was only getting stupider as the thread went on. There was no topic being discussed, just people insulting each other. The religious forum is already low-quality enough, but if you don't want to discuss a topic or you are too scared that the big bad meanie atheists will ruin it for you, don't post!

Off topic: the worst threads in the Religion forum tend to be the "performative" Christian threads, where someone is just randomly posting flowery interpretations of Scripture and anyone who doesn't post "Amen" is "derailing" the thread and things devolve from there. Why would someone do this on an open Religion forum? DCUM is not church, it's not your house, it's not a private Christian forum, it's an open forum. Someone who remarks on your post is not a "fascist," they're just wondering why you are being so weird and disingenuous. It's so meaningless to "worship" this way, it's not perceived as beautiful or meaningful by others, and I don't see any other faith traditions doing this on the Religion forum.

Love the term "performative" Christianity. Nice post.

[Anonymous]

I'm an atheist and now, for the very first time ever, I feel the need to check out the religion forum. I think that I may be missing out.

So, mission accomplished, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The biggest problem I see with the Religious forum is that posters who disagree with one another argue until one side feels that it’s losing and then reports the thread. I am then asked to clean up a mult-page thread. I’m not going to do it. Either report things earlier, get used to threads disappearing, or just give up on moderation all together.

If someone is derailing your thread, report it immediately. If you argue for 20 pages, the outcome may be disappointing for you.

It’s already possible to report derailments, and this isn’t working.

Do you really want to have to adjudicate every time somebody asks if they can leave Easter Mass early with their small kids and an atheist responds with “there is no God” or “I’m an atheist because...”? And religious people don’t want to have to hit “report” constantly for this nonsense. It’s the endless torrent of this abuse that derails, not the single episodes. And so far it’s not possible to report multiple incidents at the same time. Derailment can be cumulative rather than a one-time “aha” and it’s a slippery slope of determining when “I want to talk about my path to atheism instead of answering OP’s question” is really derailment. I don’t think a single person here objects to the occasional “there is no god.” When it’s on every.single.thread, though, that’s when all conversation grinds to a halt.

The atheist posters here know this well, to the point that this is going to be a non-policy.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a Christian and I reported the original thread and asked Jeff to either delete it or lock it.

Why?

It was an incredibly stupid subject to begin with, and was only getting stupider as the thread went on. There was no topic being discussed, just people insulting each other. The religious forum is already low-quality enough, but if you don't want to discuss a topic or you are too scared that the big bad meanie atheists will ruin it for you, don't post!

Off topic: the worst threads in the Religion forum tend to be the "performative" Christian threads, where someone is just randomly posting flowery interpretations of Scripture and anyone who doesn't post "Amen" is "derailing" the thread and things devolve from there. Why would someone do this on an open Religion forum? DCUM is not church, it's not your house, it's not a private Christian forum, it's an open forum. Someone who remarks on your post is not a "fascist," they're just wondering why you are being so weird and disingenuous. It's so meaningless to "worship" this way, it's not perceived as beautiful or meaningful by others, and I don't see any other faith traditions doing this on the Religion forum.

Love the term "performative" Christianity. Nice post.

+1. And if you want a forum where everyone is going to agree with you, DCUM is not the place for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The biggest problem I see with the Religious forum is that posters who disagree with one another argue until one side feels that it’s losing and then reports the thread. I am then asked to clean up a mult-page thread. I’m not going to do it. Either report things earlier, get used to threads disappearing, or just give up on moderation all together.

If someone is derailing your thread, report it immediately. If you argue for 20 pages, the outcome may be disappointing for you.

It’s already possible to report derailments, and this isn’t working.

Do you really want to have to adjudicate every time somebody asks if they can leave Easter Mass early with their small kids and an atheist responds with “there is no God” or “I’m an atheist because...”? And religious people don’t want to have to hit “report” constantly for this nonsense. It’s the endless torrent of this abuse that derails, not the single episodes. And so far it’s not possible to report multiple incidents at the same time. Derailment can be cumulative rather than a one-time “aha” and it’s a slippery slope of determining when “I want to talk about my path to atheism instead of answering OP’s question” is really derailment. I don’t think a single person here objects to the occasional “there is no god.” When it’s on every.single.thread, though, that’s when all conversation grinds to a halt.

The atheist posters here know this well, to the point that this is going to be a non-policy.

+1

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a Christian and I reported the original thread and asked Jeff to either delete it or lock it.

Why?

It was an incredibly stupid subject to begin with, and was only getting stupider as the thread went on. There was no topic being discussed, just people insulting each other. The religious forum is already low-quality enough, but if you don't want to discuss a topic or you are too scared that the big bad meanie atheists will ruin it for you, don't post!

Off topic: the worst threads in the Religion forum tend to be the "performative" Christian threads, where someone is just randomly posting flowery interpretations of Scripture and anyone who doesn't post "Amen" is "derailing" the thread and things devolve from there. Why would someone do this on an open Religion forum? DCUM is not church, it's not your house, it's not a private Christian forum, it's an open forum. Someone who remarks on your post is not a "fascist," they're just wondering why you are being so weird and disingenuous. It's so meaningless to "worship" this way, it's not perceived as beautiful or meaningful by others, and I don't see any other faith traditions doing this on the Religion forum.

Love the term "performative" Christianity. Nice post.

+1. And if you want a forum where everyone is going to agree with you, DCUM is not the place for you.

+1

Religion, politics, BF/FF, CIO/AP, SAH/WOH, mortgage:income ratio, etc. Very rarely on DCUM do we ever achieve consensus on any topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The biggest problem I see with the Religious forum is that posters who disagree with one another argue until one side feels that it’s losing and then reports the thread. I am then asked to clean up a mult-page thread. I’m not going to do it. Either report things earlier, get used to threads disappearing, or just give up on moderation all together.

If someone is derailing your thread, report it immediately. If you argue for 20 pages, the outcome may be disappointing for you.

It’s already possible to report derailments, and this isn’t working.

Do you really want to have to adjudicate every time somebody asks if they can leave Easter Mass early with their small kids and an atheist responds with “there is no God” or “I’m an atheist because...”? And religious people don’t want to have to hit “report” constantly for this nonsense. It’s the endless torrent of this abuse that derails, not the single episodes. And so far it’s not possible to report multiple incidents at the same time. Derailment can be cumulative rather than a one-time “aha” and it’s a slippery slope of determining when “I want to talk about my path to atheism instead of answering OP’s question” is really derailment. I don’t think a single person here objects to the occasional “there is no god.” When it’s on every.single.thread, though, that’s when all conversation grinds to a halt.

The atheist posters here know this well, to the point that this is going to be a non-policy.

+1

+1

-1

BS. You all are just too dead-set on feeling persecuted. I report on trolling posts regularly and you know what? It works. Reporting posts that are insulting or off topic keeps threads from devolving.

[Anonymous]

DCUMers who start threads about why threads were deleted are the worst DCUMers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The biggest problem I see with the Religious forum is that posters who disagree with one another argue until one side feels that it’s losing and then reports the thread. I am then asked to clean up a mult-page thread. I’m not going to do it. Either report things earlier, get used to threads disappearing, or just give up on moderation all together.

If someone is derailing your thread, report it immediately. If you argue for 20 pages, the outcome may be disappointing for you.

It’s already possible to report derailments, and this isn’t working.

Do you really want to have to adjudicate every time somebody asks if they can leave Easter Mass early with their small kids and an atheist responds with “there is no God” or “I’m an atheist because...”? And religious people don’t want to have to hit “report” constantly for this nonsense. It’s the endless torrent of this abuse that derails, not the single episodes. And so far it’s not possible to report multiple incidents at the same time. Derailment can be cumulative rather than a one-time “aha” and it’s a slippery slope of determining when “I want to talk about my path to atheism instead of answering OP’s question” is really derailment. I don’t think a single person here objects to the occasional “there is no god.” When it’s on every.single.thread, though, that’s when all conversation grinds to a halt.

The atheist posters here know this well, to the point that this is going to be a non-policy.

+1

+1

-1

BS. You all are just too dead-set on feeling persecuted. I report on trolling posts regularly and you know what? It works. Reporting posts that are insulting or off topic keeps threads from devolving.

Says the person who calls opposing comments "abuse." MMmkay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a Christian and I reported the original thread and asked Jeff to either delete it or lock it.

Why?

It was an incredibly stupid subject to begin with, and was only getting stupider as the thread went on. There was no topic being discussed, just people insulting each other. The religious forum is already low-quality enough, but if you don't want to discuss a topic or you are too scared that the big bad meanie atheists will ruin it for you, don't post!

Off topic: the worst threads in the Religion forum tend to be the "performative" Christian threads, where someone is just randomly posting flowery interpretations of Scripture and anyone who doesn't post "Amen" is "derailing" the thread and things devolve from there. Why would someone do this on an open Religion forum? DCUM is not church, it's not your house, it's not a private Christian forum, it's an open forum. Someone who remarks on your post is not a "fascist," they're just wondering why you are being so weird and disingenuous. It's so meaningless to "worship" this way, it's not perceived as beautiful or meaningful by others, and I don't see any other faith traditions doing this on the Religion forum.

Love the term "performative" Christianity. Nice post.

+1. And if you want a forum where everyone is going to agree with you, DCUM is not the place for you.

+1

Religion, politics, BF/FF, CIO/AP, SAH/WOH, mortgage:income ratio, etc. Very rarely on DCUM do we ever achieve consensus on any topic.

+1 (or is it plus 3?) First poster her nailed it. There are some people of faith here who don't take everything so personally and aren't so sensitive to being offended (which, imho, is more a reflection of that reader, than someone posting).