First off Vyse, I do indeed wish you would have approached myself or another staffer with this before you made this public. This isn't to hide anything or silence your opinion, but rather follow biblical procedures. ""If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." -- Matthew 18:15 But since you have chosen to make this a public ordeal, I will respond to you in kind.
Did you notice the date on your Sabbath thread? I hate to sound judgemental here, but it sounds like you've been holding a grudge for quite some time now. And I remember very distinctly explaining to you (if not myself, I at least remember speaking to another staffer about what they told you) as to why that thread was closed. Yet you obviously chose not to move on and locked it away in your heart for such a moment as this; am I wrong? That isn't exactly the best way to try to prove your point.
Now, on to the heart of the matter. You're really comparing apples to oranges here with these threads. Yours was a very specific, denominational-hinged question about observing the Sabbath. You would merit all manner of different opinions on this which in turn could, and from my experience with forums 98% of the time would, degrade into denominational warfare. Not something I, or my staff, want to deal with, to say nothing of the destructive nature of such threads.
The more recent thread on death was not quite so specific--it was more a general Christianity question that 99.9% of all Christians would answer the same way towards (that doesn't mean if you answered differently than the majority you aren't Christian, so no one even begin that argument). Can you see the difference? One was made by a new member, possibly a non-believer, and the other was a more nitty-gritty "finer points of theology" question. And yes, they mentioned a hentai title but they were spoken to about that.
And I'm sorry about doing this in public, but I'm tired of being hummilated publically by having my threads locked for doing nothing wrong while others are allowed to ask questions openly
When has anyone every publically humilated you? At most, you simply ask the wrong questions at the wrong place. Let me make this clear. CAA is not here to answer your every question about Christianity: we do not have the time, resources, or capabilities to handle that. That's what your local pastors and churches are for; we're not a substitute for that. General questions about Christianity from a non-believer, however, are totally different because we may be the only Christian influence in this person's life.
"On a more administrative note, keep this thread civil and polite, alright? We can express different opinions without being rude or nasty about it."
No one was being nasty or rude in my thread, and everyone was being very civil and polite, I'm sick of being treated like a troll, and its making me feel very unwelcome here.
As for my note--check out any number of touchy threads. The majority of the time, either myself or another staffer will post a similiar message. That's because we believe in precautionary measures rather than reactionary clean up. To put it simply, we're not a clean up crew, we're more like a bomb squad. I would hope furthermore you'd have the maturity to realize that such comments are not directed at you personally.
As for people sensing "tension" or "unfairness" towards you (Vyse), I can't tell you how much that frustrates me. You have no idea how much work we put into wording things just right, or handling situations so that it is as fair as possible. Of course there are members that grate our nerves, but that's why we have a larger staff--everyone knows to ask someone else to deal with the members they have a hard time speaking to without losing their lids. And yet for all this, after all the love, prayer and work we put into managing threads, we're labeled as biased or unfair. Have you ever thought that perhaps the problem isn't in the administration? If you want to know why a good number of your threads are being closed, why not start to examine yourself instead of pointing the finger at us and saying the staff hates you? The same could be said of any member here--we love you guys and we love to serve you; trust me no one here is in it for the money (because there isn't any) or the glory (likewise). As we have advised you in the past, speaking with a voice of gentility and being open to others opinions would greatly decrease the number of threads you start that end up closed.
Lastly, about what is or is not shut down: this is a matter left totally to the decision of the administrators or the mods on hand at the time. This staff is hand-picked of people I trust to make judgements for me when I cannot. They have a sense of what will and will not fly. Thus, what may seem arbitrary to you really does have a reason, and if you ask any of us about it nicely we will happily explain. I'm sorry Tweb isn't as friendly as this place but as I stated we're simply not cut out to be your Christianity Q&A place.
(I thought we were Christians!)
