Introduction to beingpagan

[iamfate]

Hi, we're your friendly mods.

We're starting this off with a fresh slate, but we're taking different precautions. Our rules are posted on the profile page.

Members are to be 18 years old and older. If this takes off for the younger crowd, we may make a seperate community, or open this one to younger membership.

So! It's 18 years old and older, so be sure to act like it. Let's be mature. No name calling and any of that.

No insulting Gods or Goddesses, you never know when you might need them!

After talking with the previous mod, we will give others a chance, and we do have a three-strike-rule. Members that were banned previously will have one strike already against them.

Those members are:
jenett - three strikes. Banned. Drama provocation.
elf

Other members that have received strikes are:
brock_tn - one strike. Drama provocation. If you join just to post a comment about how 'bless our hearts' we won't do things your way, we will consider that starting/spreading drama/trolling. For this, you will receive a strike.

We apologize if this upsets you. However, if after 30 days you don't have another strike against you, your strike will be removed. So! Behave yourself and act like a human being and it should be no problem. Please remember that this is for the safety and security of other members. We hold no personal grudges (otherwise we would have banned you outright).

Also, we would like this community to remain active, so we ask that all members post an introduction within one week of joining the community. If no introduction has been made, you will be removed. Feel free to join again though and make your first post!

Brightest Blessings to you all, and may we all prosper!

Comments

[jenett]

I don't wish to prolong this but:

- No banning was communicated to me, so that's rather a surprise.

- My questions were sincere and trying to understand a different approach to moderation than one I've seen widely used and sustainable for long-term. (I also, as I mentioned, have a professional interest in online community, and truly am interested in what other people make work for them)

It appears that that wasn't taken that way, but since my comments were not directly responded to, I have no way of knowing what was upsetting, confusing, or otherwise a problem. That's one of the reasons I prefer up front communication rather than screening or back-channel communication.

- I'm not interested in participating in a community with your current rules, mostly for the reasons I've already outlined.

However, if you're going to call me out by name, please spell it correctly. Jenett. One n, two ts. It's one of several variants of a classic British name, but there are people out there who use Jennett, Jennet, and so forth online as well. I'd hate to have people think you meant one of them, rather than me.

[laughingman]

Honestly, it didn't seem like you were trying to make any sort of 'communication', rather you were just trying to be petty and pick apart my rules of moderation.

I was up front about my rules. Said straight out what I was going to do, and consistently that wasn't good enough. I try to change things to make them better for everyone, and it still isn't good enough.

You wouldn't like to participate in a community that does what? Spell your name wrong??

No banning was communicated because right after I did it, I deleted the community. And right after THAT I had someone chew me out for it! So no, I wasn't going to communicate banning from a community that quite obviously didn't want me around.

As such, you could have -asked- what happened to the community as a whole, couldn't you?

If you were honestly concerned, you would have conveyed it as such. Not "this doesn't work in my opinion, but this does."

Uh.. no.

How about:
"Interesting. I'm familiar with this sort of modding, but I'd love to see how yours works."

Easy, simple, to the point, and it doesn't hurt me to read your long-winded and passive-aggressive comments!!

And excuse me, but I'd rather screen comments than ban people outright. Would you like to have been banned? It seems not. Or, I could just let you run amok over me, how does that sound???

[iamfate]

This does not belong here. If you have a beef with someone outside the community (the first part of your comment), it belongs as such.

What reason did you outline? It isn't our fault that banning was not communicated to you. It's simply what we took into account when we made the community as a learning experience.

Your name has been changed, and for your snark, you have been given a second strike. Any other comments and you will be banned.

Pleasant day. We wish to know what rules upset you, so that we may hope to advance this community and make it acceptable for as many people as possible.

[jenett]

I've started and erased several different responses here, and none of them seem to be working right. It's clear we've got very different communication styles - as I said above, my questions truly were sincere and interested. It's also clear that's not what came across.

I'm struggling with some health issues that leave me foggy-headed, and that tends to make me overly careful to explain (at some length) where I'm coming from to avoid miscommunication. Most of the time it works. Here, it obviously didn't. I'm also a teacher, librarian, and Virgo who spends a lot of my time around people who value detailed communication, even if it gets long, and it can be really hard for me to switch into other modes.

That said, you did ask for specifics, so I'm going to be detailed below. However, unless you've got specific comments or questions about a detail here, I'm expecting this will be my last communication on this community: it's pretty clear that my style and yours are not a good mutual fit.

Briefly, though:
- I'm uncomfortable with communities of private moderation rather than (at least some) public indication in context of where a problem is.

I don't think all the communication needs to be in public - there are times a PM or email may be appropriate - but it's my experience across a range of situations that a public note helps the entire community understand the boundaries.

- I've got a general ethic of preserving creator access to their own work - screening and deleting content affects that. (Again, sometimes appropriate, but pretty rarely, in my approach.) It not only affects the individual conversation, but other responses in the surrounding thread that refer to the discussion, too.

- I believe in setting limits, but I think a healthy community needs to understand what they are. This conversation is a great example: I think I've been trying to be clear about where I'm coming from and what I care about (but not doing as good a job of it as I would if I weren't feeling lousy and foggy.) You've clearly read it as snarky (since you said so, and I'm taking you at your word.)

There's a middle ground in there somewhere, but it's going to be hard for me (and everyone else reading) to figure out what the concerns are if the comments involved are deleted, screened, or otherwise removed.

On this community's specific rules (again, since you explicitly ask).

You say: Play nice. If you have nothing nice to say, it's probably best you don't say it.

I get where you're coming from in theory - but I'm not sure how to apply it in practice. "Nice" depends a lot on cultural background. One classic example is (for example) my very British family, and a good friend's very Italian one. I'm not wrong for being slow to open up to people emotionally, or for prefering an academic and detailed style of communication - but her family isn't wrong for shouting over each other and arguing and being very out front with their emotions.

If she and I expect the other to play by our cultural expectations of what 'nice' is, it's going to be frustrating, so we need to either spell out common rules of what 'nice' looks like, or we need to agree that both approaches are okay, even if they sometimes make us individually uncomfortable.

You also say: 2) If you insult the mod in any way, shape or form, this will not be tolerated

Again, I get where this is coming from - but what's an insult? Some people think it's being questioned. Other people don't think a stranger on the internet *can* actually insult them, because they don't know enough to do any meaningful damage. Most people are somewhere in the middle, but without more details, I can't tell what you'll take as an insult. (Except that I appear to have been insulting several times over in ways I still don't quite get...)

And your last one - well, I could take that as an insult. I am smart, and I do like words, but I spend my time working and playing and in ritual with people who like to be clear and specific, and most of my communication does the same thing. Yes, that's often long.

Yes, it's also not a great fit for every community, and yes, it's clear that this is one of those places. But it's not coming from "Ooh, I'm smart" (there's easier ways for me to do that.) It's coming from a sincere desire to be clear and give examples of what I'm talking about, not leave someone to guess.

So, why did I give it a try? I care about Dreamwidth (and have, since it was first a glimmer in Denise and Mark's eye.) I'd like to see healthy, vibrant Pagan conversations grow up here, but I also need to understand how the community rules are applied to decide if a particular forum is a good fit for me and my style. That's why I checked out the initial community - and on seeing my name and an interpretation of my actions called out here in specific, wanted to do my best to clarify.

Two last notes:
on the name: my reasons are mostly as I stated originally: there are other people with very similar usernames out there, and I hate to have them mistaken for me. But like many Pagans, I chose that name (and spelling) for specific reasons, and hope others will treat that choice with courtesy.

in general: my own path is one where I find the most growth in challenge - in looking at things that make me feel uncomfortable or defensive, and figuring out why, so I can change that. I also look, in general, for communities where that's part of the culture, because those are the places I learn the most. (I do have exceptions - local communities, very tightly focused topics where challenge isn't as relevant, etc.) I spend a lot less time in fellowship or support centered communities.

I wish you well (again sincerely) in shaping the community you want here - but it's also very obvious that I'm not welcome, and that my style of communication would not fit. So, as I said, won't be back unless you've got a specific question about what I've said here you'd like an answer to.

[cytherea]

FWIW, I didn't think you were being or sounding snarky at all; I thought you were very reasoned, reasonable, and clear.

I rather expect to be at least given a strike for agreeing with you, though. :/

[iamfate]

We will not put a strike against you for stating your opinion. If you are in fear of this, we implore you to rethink.

We are not trying to provoke a fear tactic.
We are simply trying to have others opinions be respected.

It seems to us, and to others that are not close to the situation, that our opinions as moderators (as we set down rules) and to others who have been moderators (who -also- set down rules) have not been respected.

We ask for opinions, however, we also ask that a line be drawn.

If you can not abide by the rules, then we ask how could this be a safe place for everyone? These rules are in place to create as much order as possible, so to prevent chaos. You saw what happened at the last community. It seemed to us (at the time outside of the situation) that several members were just running roughshod and amok, stating what they pleased, acting as back-seat moderators and not bothering to promote positive activity.

There is structure in place now, and that positive activity is encouraged, and, while still making way for drama in its beginning stages, there is positive activity as well.

We ask that you use as much common sense as possible -- if a person makes a small welcome post, are they to be met with pages upon pages (as in previous comments) of 'how-do-you-do' when a simple, "Hello, welcome to the community!" can suffice?

Why is it absolutely necessary to continue drama by commenting to it? Could this not have been made in a private message? Or is it absolutely necessary that you must be seen commenting to this person on a public forum?

We do agree that they were well reasoned and clear.. however, this is not the place to state their feelings if they have already made up their mind about leaving.

It's quite ludacris, really, because, in some circles, jenett could be perceived as a troll. We are not saying they are such, however, the continuation of comments is not necessary. That's the point we're simply trying to make.

Leave your drama at the door. We only promote growth here.

[bohemianeditor]

Ludacris is a rapper. You mean "ludicrous".

And good luck gaining an active membership when you have as many posts as you have people on your "strike" list, and an impersonal mod journal that itself smells of troll (and implausibly speaks in the first-person plural despite a specifically singular username).

This community has created more drama in three posts than artificially strict rules could ever prevent.

[evaelisabeth]

Good luck on building a community here considering your introduction and subsequent posts. I don't think its worth trying to explain why I think you guys utterly fail at this but I would recommend gaining some maturity before launching into this kind of endeavor. Fiefdoms rarely last very long anyway so you might as well give me all my three strikes right now and I'll just toodle along.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

one strike. Drama provocation. If you join just to post a comment about how 'bless our hearts' we won't do things your way, we will consider that starting/spreading drama/trolling. For this, you will receive a strike.

As if I care...

Kids, I've been doing this pagan/esoteric thing since the mid-1970's and this online stuff since 100-baud modems were state-of-the-art and the Word-Wide-Web was still a pipe-dream over at CERN. And all of that experience suggests that what you are doing is setting yourselves up for failure here. Mostly because you don't really understand the nature of the community that you say you want to serve.

But I'll let you figure that out on your own. Or not, as you see fit.

Oh, and just so you'll know, posting lists of people of whom you disapprove in it's own way creates the very drama you claim you want to exclude from your community here. Some people being of a perverse frame of mind, I predict contests to see how soon people can get themselves banned from your little comminity here. I've seen it happen other places, so there's no reason to think it can't happen to you, too. And that sort of thing generally results in the word spreading that the site in question isn't worthy of serious posts. But again, you'll figure that out on your own. Or you won't. Either way, I won't care.

Y'all try to stay out of trouble, now.

[iamfate]

If you don't care, then please don't comment.
You're just proving it right, either way,

Also, if you're so well-versed, you should be mature enough and intelligent enough to.. well, not do what you're doing.

But you'll figure it out on your own, or not.
As if we care.