Moderation on Islam Forum

Mark Hamill

A mod in the Islam forum (irishconvert) is using an unworkable interpretation of an implicit rule to bully non muslims from asking honest questions. I have, several times, tried to discuss this problem with him (in PMs), but they always reach same point (In his eyes, the forums are for muslims to talk about islam, he accuses non muslims of not being genuine in their questions or discussion and then cuts the PMs off, telling me to come here), so here I am.

The rule in question is "This forum is not open for you to attack the Islam religion nor is it a forum for people of that faith to have to constantly defend their faith from attack.", which i argue (and have said to the mod) is implicit. All forums are for discussion of their respective subjects, they are not for people to defend their believes of opinions from constant attack. And yet the vegetarian forum can get by without this rule, by allowing sincere discussion of the diet. The atheism forum can get by without this rule, allowing sincere discussion of lack of belief/non belief. Every forum thrives on conflicting opinions, thats where good discussion comes from. Simply keep it polite and impersonal and the forum will flourish. Except in the islam forum, where this rule is used as shield from honest discussion when the discussion bothers the mod.

The most recent example is the thread "If No One Had Told You About Allah.... Would You Still Believe In Him?". Early in the thread (post 18) the mod accused the non muslims of not being sincere in order to stifle a particular point being discussed. The thread managed to keep going after that, inevitably returning to the same contentious point as before (it was very relevant). Somewhat ironically, the mod wasn't as quick to interfere with the point the second time round, he even took part giving his own views (eg post 46 and post 68), but once again, people had follow up questions or disputes with his responses, so he has tried to intimidate people into silence (post 98).

There are plenty of other threads like this, such as this thread, where questioning about muslims beliefs in djinn was deemed as "serving no useful purpose" (post 26) .

irishconvert's actions are very religiously discriminatory. A hard question is asked, and its some non muslim deceptively trying to attack muslims. Any follow up question to a muslim response is "just picking holes in it for the sake of it" (he has said this to me in several pms, which I still have). To me, he is abusing this rule in order to stop questioning he doesn't like, questioning which, once sincere, is embraced in every other topic everywhere else on the website. It has to stop, it does nothing but damage islam.

Dades

This is being looked at.

Will revert.

Asiaprod

@ Mark Hamill
Thanks for raising the issue.
The Amins and relevant CMods are taking this issue up with a view to moving forward on it in a positive manner. You are not being fobbed off, I'll update this thread when I have further info on it.

Hobbes

Hi,

Did you bother to contact any of the other moderators first? You are in the forum long enough to know how the main rule works.

I even clarified it further in the thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70959966&postcount=42

If you don't believe in Islam, that is fine. If you think Islam is wrong, that is fine as well. But this is not the forum to push that agenda. The comment was also made to those who were Muslim and had started to badger the Atheists.

It is evident from the language used by a number of posters on that thread that they have no interest in the answer they get, just to keep badgering so they can push their agenda.

IrishConvert is doing a good mod job, he is the only one of the other mods stopping me from mass banning people who are clearly just there to either troll or to push an anti-Islam message. Yet he has to put up with muppets because any action he takes as a mod gets undermined because people think they can get away with reporting him.

Take for example where dj357 posts badly quoted comments from an anti-Islam site (which is a breach of the charter). Did he ban him? No, instead he posted a link where he should read the actual correct parts.

People are free to post anti-Islam messages on other forums,but this isn't the case in the Islam forum. I see you are writing in a much more vocal thread in the Atheist forum where you don't have to deal with these restrictions.

Next time please PM the mods are per the flowchart above.

Hobbes

Just to add to this thread. The issue wasn't with Mark as such. The reason for IC comments and mine are due to the comments of a number of users. For example:

So sorry. I didnt realise that unlike other religions you have myth, legend and writings which are true because they are the word of God because the writings say they are the word of God.

I hope Im not against the charter and I have no particular beef with islam but i honestly cannot understand how intelligent people cannot see the bizzarre-ness that amongst all the world religions they can all point to them selves simultaniusly and parrot "Mine is the one true faith and I can prove it... or at least thats what i believe"

You all interpret the word of God in your own way.... EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YE [snip] Sorry... but thats what they all say

As much as it is complete nonsense, i wont argue with you about it here. Your basis points like the ones you raised earlier though are just silly.

At that point IC posted to tell people to stop.

Mark shortly after points out that the people IC was complaining about had a valid question (which is correct), but the follow on comments like above are not needed, nor do they help in the discourse.

Then we have the follow up from a muslim

Dead one, I feel sorry for you. Do not engage with these people. They do not want to debate with you. They want to destroy you. You are engaging as honestly as you can, in good faith. You must understand that these people are "Liberal Fascists" i.e. unless you adhere to their narrow view of the World, then you are wrong.

(skimmed at this point)

someone banned for not following the charter along with request not to discuss mod decisions on the thread.

After this DrumSteve gives a very good example of how you should post, even if you don't believe in Islam, he made a thought provoking question.

At that point I had only read the thread and was responding to earlier posts that the language used should be changed.

A couple of pages later the whole mess starts up again and turns into off topic questions and comments which are more directed for Atheists forum. IC correctly points out that the debate if Allah exists or not is not the forum for this. As well as pointing out that discussing the catholic religion is better suited for the catholics forum.

It then deviates into discussion about Muslim countries and other smart comments made in response to peoples posts. It goes into a loop asking the same questions again and IC points this out.

After that it is continually going around in a circle as one tries to one up the other on who is right or not, when this is not what the forum is about.

Hope that helps in the review.

With regards to the other thread, that was months ago. If you have an issue it is better to bring it up when it happens.

Mark Hamill

Hobbes wrote: »

Hi,

Did you bother to contact any of the other moderators first? You are in the forum long enough to know how the main rule works.

I posted irishconvert several times, then I came here.

Hobbes wrote: »

I even clarified it further in the thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70959966&postcount=42

If you don't believe in Islam, that is fine. If you think Islam is wrong, that is fine as well. But this is not the forum to push that agenda. The comment was also made to those who were Muslim and had started to badger the Atheists.

It is evident from the language used by a number of posters on that thread that they have no interest in the answer they get, just to keep badgering so they can push their agenda.

IrishConvert is doing a good mod job, he is the only one of the other mods stopping me from mass banning people who are clearly just there to either troll or to push an anti-Islam message. Yet he has to put up with muppets because any action he takes as a mod gets undermined because people think they can get away with reporting him.

OK this is an example of what I said in the op. I have no agenda, I am only asking questions and following up on the inconsistencies I see in the responses, and I think that same can said of most of the people in the thread I linked to. Why is it that the islam mods seem to think that islam is above questioning? Why are they so paranoid about non musims? Why do they think the islam forum isn't the forum to discuss islam?
Its incredibly disingenuous to the islamic religion, not to mention insulting to non muslims to accuse all non muslims who dont accept first responses of being trolls. Like I said in the thread: "Asking follow up questions because the first answer you get was not sufficient is not an attack, if it was then every single thread on this whole website would be two posts long. "

Hobbes wrote: »

Take for example where dj357 posts badly quoted comments from an anti-Islam site (which is a breach of the charter). Did he ban him? No, instead he posted a link where he should read the actual correct parts.

The second time he posted them he was corrected, the first time he was banned by irishconvert (post 48).

Hobbes wrote: »

People are free to post anti-Islam messages on other forums,but this isn't the case in the Islam forum. I see you are writing in a much more vocal thread in the Atheist forum where you don't have to deal with these restrictions.

Actually I'm pretty sure that people are not free to post anti islam messages in other forums, I'm really baffled that a mod would suggest such a thing.

Mark Hamill

Hobbes wrote: »

Just to add to this thread. The issue wasn't with Mark as such. The reason for IC comments and mine are due to the comments of a number of users. For example:

At that point IC posted to tell people to stop.

There's nothing wrong with those four posts. The first points out a valid contradiction. The second did come from ignorance and was a bit off topic I suppose, but when posted again at the end of the thread, it actually got a descriptive and interesting answer. The third post again is a valid point, which was in bold because he had made the point several times but was seemingly ignored. The last point was a christian poster pointing out that what a muslim poster was saying about the christian religion was nonsense (which it was).
Again, the attitude of the mods is that if an non muslim isn't approaching the forum on all fours begging forgiveness for the interruption, that they are trolls with hidden agendas picking holes for the sake of picking holes (not that that is actually possible).

Hobbes wrote: »

Mark shortly after points out that the people IC was complaining about had a valid question (which is correct), but the follow on comments like above are not needed, nor do they help in the discourse.

The posts changed tone after your first warning though. Bar dead one, its a whole different set of posters have been posting, and the discussion has been great, irishconvert even posted a few times. Even when dj357 came back with the same controversial question he was banned for in the start (the second post you quote) he was given an answer that showed him he was wrong.

Hobbes wrote: »

A couple of pages later the whole mess starts up again and turns into off topic questions and comments which are more directed for Atheists forum. IC correctly points out that the debate if Allah exists or not is not the forum for this. As well as pointing out that discussing the catholic religion is better suited for the catholics forum.

It then deviates into discussion about Muslim countries and other smart comments made in response to peoples posts. It goes into a loop asking the same questions again and IC points this out.

After that it is continually going around in a circle as one tries to one up the other on who is right or not, when this is not what the forum is about.

Hope that helps in the review.

You do understand that natural conversations move from topic to topic? That people raise new points that get discussed and discussions can meander? Because thats what happened in this thread and it happens in every thread longer than half a dozen posts. I have no problem with irishconvert saying the christianity discussion belonged on a different forum, as there is a specific forum for christianity. But discussions on the existence of allah belong on the islam forum, as does discussions of islamic countries, and this thread, in its posts, delved into these issues because of interesting posts on each side of the debate. But thats what happens in discussions, people raise points and they are discussed and if they are tangential they get threads of their own and if they are majorly tangential, then they go to another forum.

I'm not saying that deep discussions on allahs existence or the "inimitable Qu'ran" belong in every thread of the islam forum (I'm not by any means disputing every mod action taken by irishconvert or Hobbes), but they do belong in the threads that, by the nature of their topics, involve these issues. The mods of the islam forum really need to drop the religious discrimination, both in terms of their paranoia of non muslims discussing islam, and in terms of the islam forum being above this sort of discussion.

Hobbes

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The second time he posted them he was corrected, the first time he was banned by irishconvert (post 48).

Cheers, noticed that. But as I said it is normally a bannable offense. He does make a post after the ban rescinded which clarifies why he posted it and why he got a more civil response instead of another ban.

It all comes down to the use of language when posing a question or a response. Which is why I asked people to change how they are talking on the forum.

Why are they so paranoid about non muslims?

I find this somewhat funny as you don't see what goes behind the scenes. I have already have complaints from the same thread that I am "anti-muslim" for banning/warning Muslims on the forum. Kind of the reverse what IC goes through.

Actually I'm pretty sure that people are not free to post anti islam messages in other forums, I'm really baffled that a mod would suggest such a thing.

When I say anti-Islam, I mean a persons disagreements with Islam. Which does happen a lot. So much so I get the feeling everyone feels some level of persecution.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056182995

Mark Hamill

Hobbes wrote: »

Cheers, noticed that. But as I said it is normally a bannable offense. He does make a post after the ban rescinded which clarifies why he posted it and why he got a more civil response instead of another ban.

Would it not have been better to warn him the first time, give him the chance to correct himself and then give him a civil response?

Hobbes wrote: »

It all comes down to the use of language when posing a question or a response. Which is why I asked people to change how they are talking on the forum.

But what language are you talking about? The posters you quoted above stopped posting after your first warning, and dj357 came back after your second. Between that there was 150 posts, several from other mods joining in the conversation, and no complaints about tone.

Hobbes wrote: »

I find this somewhat funny as you don't see what goes behind the scenes. I have already have complaints from the same thread that I am "anti-muslim" for banning/warning Muslims on the forum. Kind of the reverse what IC goes through.

If you have people on one side saying you are anti muslim, and people on the other side saying you are anti non-muslim, cant you see you have a major problem? What you are doing doesn't seem to benefit anyone, if both sides have problems with what you do. The only outcome is stifling conversations muslims and non-muslims both want to have.

Hobbes wrote: »

When I say anti-Islam, I mean a persons disagreements with Islam.

This is no better position. If someone has a problem with islam, then the islam forum is the place where they are most likely to get informed responses. Sure, there are ways to discuss issues and ways not to, but every forum gets by with people coming in and questioning the ethos (we regularly get people in the A&A forum asking why we always seem to be complaining about religion, as long as they actually respond to peoples responces and not just ignore them, there is no issue).

Asiaprod

Gentlemen as stated above, this is being looked into. Therefore I am going to close this thread for now as this dialogue has wandered too far "off-procedure" to continue.