Islamic forum doesn't allow critics at all?

Cabaal

I'm not here to start a slagging match or anything like that I certainly understand that being a mod is work but just glancing at the Islamic forum in general from time to time I note that very little that is critical is allowed.

It seems anything that is critical of its faith or follows is locked or deleted extremely quickly, now to be fair I'm sure it gets trolls...what forum doesn't. But surely the forum can have some sort of discussion on the topic of the Islamic faith being used and abused as part of terrorism or parts of the faith people don't agree with (views on women etc...to be fair even the christian faith has issues with its views on women both past and present).

To be fair to the Christianity and the mods that look after the forum there are a number of ongoing and sometimes very heated debates that are critical of content of the bible and christian and catholic values and these threads continue. Here's one example and another.

On the other end of the spectrum when it comes to non-faith the Atheist forum has many posters that are critical of atheists wanting freedom for schools to be none catholic ethos etc and they are allowed to post over and over in the forum.

This can be frustrating at times as debating with them can be like debating with a brick wall but it is none the less important and its a credit to the mods that they allow it and I think the forum would be a poorer place without it.

But the same doesn't appear to apply to the Islamic forum, instead anything critical appears to result in threads being locked. There's this example (yes not the best) but rather then locking the thread why not warn the user?

I hope I'm not coming across as harsh on the mod of the forum, thats not my intention. For all I know there's been a sh*tstorm of crap in the forum years back that has resulted in this somewhat heavy handed approach?

Lovely Bloke

yeah, it causes too much hassle for the mods there to allow any kind of criticism, so Islam has a special protected status on this website.

the usual three or four questions would constantly pop up though

was mohamed a paedo?
does the koran tell muslims to behead non-believers?
where in the koran does it tell women to dress head to toe in black flowing robes?
are all muslims required to convert others?

Cabaal

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

the usual three or four questions would constantly pop up though

was mohamed a paedo?
does the koran tell muslims to behead non-believers?
where in the koran does it tell women to dress head to toe in black flowing robes?
are all muslims required to convert others?

To be fair isn't that a somewhat simplistic view?
Its like claiming the christian forum would get the same sort of questions

"are all priests pedo's?"
"do you believe you are eating zombie Jesus when you take communion"
etc

The reality is you might get that from time to time, but you get so much more that adds good healthy debate at the same time.
Anyone that does troll the types of stuff you just posted will rightly get banned.

El Weirdo

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

yeah, it causes too much hassle for the mods there to allow any kind of criticism, so Islam has a special protected status on this website.

the usual three or four questions would constantly pop up though

was mohamed a paedo?
does the koran tell muslims to behead non-believers?
where in the koran does it tell women to dress head to toe in black flowing robes?
are all muslims required to convert others?

Oh look, a thread where you can combine your inssecent need to reform this site with being a massive bigot.

I'd say you came in your pants when you opened this thread.

Lovely Bloke

what?

dr.fuzzenstein

Well that escalated quickly.

bucketybuck

Islamic forum doesn't allow critics at all.

Lovely Bloke

those questions/criticisms did routinely come up on that forum, and the people who used the forum regularly found it tiresome to have to put up with those type of questions every time there was an atrocity of note, and so the forum was turned into a place where muslims can talk about muslim things without fear of facing those types of questions, as if they themselves were to blame.

I'd certainly call that protected status, because, as was pointed out in the OP, no other religion has that status.

I'm pretty sure Dav himself laid this down.

uck51js9zml2yt

I dip into it occasionally to see what's going on and I have to agree with Cabaal, any questioning is closed down and the threats of consequences I saw in the most recent posts are worrying.
While the posters may have been trolling( or maybe not) stopping all discussion just because it questions Islam is peculiar.
I've been in the thick of some of the most heated discussions in the Christianity forum and it would be impoverished if there was no questioning of my beliefs.
For my part,it sharpens me up having to defend my Faith ( not that God needs defending) .

Perhaps Islams lack of traffic is a direct result of the moderation !

Lovely Bloke

Previous thread

Taltos

That thread will be reopened tomorrow and those posts including my own removed.

There is no special protected status.
There is a new mod, me, who has stepped in with a zero tolerance approach on trolling, flaming or troublemaking.

As to the usual threads quoted above, in my short tenure there that is exactly what I've seen.
As to the closed thread, I read it earlier and had no issue with it, but after receiving reports I investigated further to find the poster was show boating elsewhere which with what is going on at the moment isn't acceptable in my view. Harsh I know, but the forum is intended to be a safe place to allow the exchange of ideas and beliefs in a respectful way.

Any deviation from that or risk of deviation and I will act. I'm not going to make apologies for the forum has a tendency to burn out mods, and that isn't on. I want it to be a safe friendly place and if that means I'm a b@st@r* for a bit that's OK. Hopeful soon I can hand the forum to a number of mods who can help shape the discussions without fear of either trolls or fanatics quoting nothing but passages of the Quran, someday soon I hope.

As always this is just my thoughts on modding and if the admin team or HQ feel I've gone too far I'm happy to step away, we all make mistakes after all.

Into The Blue

There's plenty of protected forums.. Ladies lounge, lbgt, Christmas, sunshine & lollipops...

Some things are just not meant to be questioned.

Bongalongherb

Taltos wrote: »

That thread will be reopened tomorrow and those posts including my own removed.

There is no special protected status.
There is a new mod, me, who has stepped in with a zero tolerance approach on trolling, flaming or troublemaking.

As to the usual threads quoted above, in my short tenure there that is exactly what I've seen.
As to the closed thread, I read it earlier and had no issue with it, but after receiving reports I investigated further to find the poster was show boating elsewhere which with what is going on at the moment isn't acceptable in my view. Harsh I know, but the forum is intended to be a safe place to allow the exchange of ideas and beliefs in a respectful way.

Any deviation from that or risk of deviation and I will act. I'm not going to make apologies for the forum has a tendency to burn out mods, and that isn't on. I want it to be a safe friendly place and if that means I'm a b@st@r* for a bit that's OK. Hopeful soon I can hand the forum to a number of mods who can help shape the discussions without fear of either trolls or fanatics quoting nothing but passages of the Quran, someday soon I hope.

As always this is just my thoughts on modding and if the admin team or HQ feel I've gone too far I'm happy to step away, we all make mistakes after all.

I wonder if your practice would be tolerated on all of the other threads as well ? because if you close a thread for something so minor I can imagine boards being a dead forum very fast.

You could have easily given a warning to the person and if that person didn't acknowledge said warning then you ban them, but closing the thread because of that one minor incident is way over the top in my opinion.

Lovely Bloke

yes, in fact, I'm pretty sure either Islam was used as an example for tLL, or vice versa.

tLL is a forum for (mainly) women to discuss womanly matters without the fear of the usual misogyny so prevalent on the internet, with a zero tolerance policy in place.

You just don't go in there to pick a fight with "feminists" or whatever.

Same with the Islam forum, it's there to allow people who wish to discuss islammy things without the fear of having to put up with the usual merry-go-round of the above questions, albeit from different people, every time some nutjob does nutjob acts, in the name of Islam.

It's defintely a protected area, and I don't mean that in a negative way.

uck51js9zml2yt

Taltos wrote: »

That thread will be reopened tomorrow and those posts including my own removed.

There is no special protected status.
There is a new mod, me, who has stepped in with a zero tolerance approach on trolling, flaming or troublemaking.

As to the usual threads quoted above, in my short tenure there that is exactly what I've seen.
As to the closed thread, I read it earlier and had no issue with it, but after receiving reports I investigated further to find the poster was show boating elsewhere which with what is going on at the moment isn't acceptable in my view. Harsh I know, but the forum is intended to be a safe place to allow the exchange of ideas and beliefs in a respectful way.

Any deviation from that or risk of deviation and I will act. I'm not going to make apologies for the forum has a tendency to burn out mods, and that isn't on. I want it to be a safe friendly place and if that means I'm a b@st@r* for a bit that's OK. Hopeful soon I can hand the forum to a number of mods who can help shape the discussions without fear of either trolls or fanatics quoting nothing but passages of the Quran, someday soon I hope.

As always this is just my thoughts on modding and if the admin team or HQ feel I've gone too far I'm happy to step away, we all make mistakes after all.

The Christianity forum is open to all sorts of abuse and questioning and branding everybody something because of a few but are grown ups ( I know... Its debatable) and we answer the questions and rebuff them ourselves when necessary.
We dont have protected status.
From looking at the world in general , it seems OK to question Christianity but certainly not Islam. You can use the name of Jesus as a curse word, but use the name of Mohammed in a similar vein and your open to all sorts of retribution.

Zaph

Cabaal wrote: »

To be fair isn't that a somewhat simplistic view?

It's simplistic, but sadly true. Unfortunately when events like last night's occur the only non-regulars who want to post in the forum generally just want to troll.

Cabaal wrote: »

The reality is you might get that from time to time, but you get so much more that adds good healthy debate at the same time.

The reality in the Islam forum is that what starts as healthy debate tends to turn into a circular mess of an argument in no time at all. As Taltos alluded to above, mod burnout in the Islam forum is probably higher than any other forum on the site. Even trying to get someone to mod the forum in the first place is problematic because of how things descend into clusterf*cks so quickly there. It would be great if people could have reasoned discussions about Islam in the forum, but unfortunately it does tend to be a magnet for the worst sort of dicks and trolls we have on Boards.

Snake Plisken

In fairness boards was threatened with legal action when a poster called the prophet something bad and another poster (Irish I believe) threatened boards with legal action, since then boards in fairness are a private company and need to look after their business so since then they have to avoid threads or posts tat could potentially land them in legal trouble. The sooner the blasphemy laws are thrown out the better!

uck51js9zml2yt

Zaph wrote: »

It's simplistic, but sadly true. Unfortunately when events like last night's occur the only non-regulars who want to post in the forum generally just want to troll.



The reality in the Islam forum is that what starts as healthy debate tends to turn into a circular mess of an argument in no time at all. As Taltos alluded to above, mod burnout in the Islam forum is probably higher than any other forum on the site. Even trying to get someone to mod the forum in the first place is problematic because of how things descend into clusterf*cks so quickly there. It would be great if people could have reasoned discussions about Islam in the forum, but unfortunately it does tend to be a magnet for the worst sort of dicks and trolls we have on Boards.

The Christianity forum has had its fair share of mods. I assume burnout is high there as well but it doesn't have this protected status that Islam has.
We have our heated debates both among ourselves and with randomers popping in but we deal with it.
(I assume the higher number of randomers is to do with the recent heated debates showing up on latest posts)
Giving preference to one religion over another is grossly unfair to the other religious forums.
Either that and give us all the same status and kill the forum in the end or end the preferential treatment and moderate it correctly in line with the usual behavioural conditions.

uck51js9zml2yt

Snake Plisken wrote: »

In fairness boards was threatened with legal action when a poster called the prophet something bad and another poster (Irish I believe) threatened boards with legal action, since then boards in fairness are a private company and need to look after their business so since then they have to avoid threads or posts tat could potentially land them in legal trouble. The sooner the blasphemy laws are thrown out the better!

So I should threaten action on the Christianity forum every time some idiot makes a scurrilous comment about Jesus and God.

Stheno

Taltos wrote: »

without fear of either trolls or fanatics quoting nothing but passages of the Quran, someday soon I hope.

This imo is one of the biggest issues which affects the Islmaic forum, I'm a serial lurker on there and far too often threads turn into almost one upmanship with devout Muslims quoting vast amounts of text in relation to the Quran in response to questions and then non Muslims taking bits of the Quran and it descends into chaos, I can't remember the amount of threads I've started reading and lost interest in due to this.

Youngblood.III

Regardless of our reluctance to confront tough issues or challenging people, we need to. We can’t advance, succeed, or grow without confrontation. Engaging in productive confrontation paves the way for diversity of thought, developing healthy boundaries, arriving at new, innovative approaches, better decision-making, and challenging the status quo, all of which are essential if we want to thrive in our lives

Snake Plisken

Ephraim Eager Quote wrote: »

So I should threaten action on the Christianity forum every time some idiot makes a scurrilous comment about Jesus and God.

In fairness we could luckily enough we don't take religion as serious as the followers of Islam!

Stheno

Youngblood.III wrote: »

Regardless of our reluctance to confront tough issues or challenging people, we need to. We can’t advance, succeed, or grow without confrontation. Engaging in productive confrontation paves the way for diversity of thought, developing healthy boundaries, arriving at new, innovative approaches, better decision-making, and challenging the status quo, all of which are essential if we want to thrive in our lives

Imo that doesn't work in the Islam forum, as you end up with simply having posters with extreme views from both sides posting, and the more moderate voices lose interest.

uck51js9zml2yt

Stheno wrote: »

Imo that doesn't work in the Islam forum, as you end up with simply having posters with extreme views from both sides posting, and the more moderate voices lose interest.

But its as you said, Muslims posting huge amounts of text without engaging in the debate.
I switch off at that point as well.
If you want to "quoran bash" go ahead but its not discussion at that point.
Though grantwd , we have those in the Christianity forum as well, as though church dogma is the end of the conversation!

Taltos

Ephraim Eager Quote wrote: »

But its as you said, Muslims posting huge amounts of text without engaging in the debate.
I switch off at that point as well.
If you want to "quoran bash" go ahead but its not discussion at that point.
Though grantwd , we have those in the Christianity forum as well, as though church dogma is the end of the conversation!

That'll be actioned also as it adds nothing. Change brought in by one of the missed older mods.

Stheno

Ephraim Eager Quote wrote: »

But its as you said, Muslims posting huge amounts of text without engaging in the debate.
I switch off at that point as well.
If you want to "quoran bash" go ahead but its not discussion at that point.
Though grantwd , we have those in the Christianity forum as well, as though church dogma is the end of the conversation!

So perhaps change the charter to reflect that rather than posting endless text without addressing the debate, that posting such text must be used in line with addressing points being raised? I've checked the charter and it currently doesn't have that.

Dozen Wicked Words

Thankless job modding that forum imo. Trolls and zealots, point scoring posts the order of the day, what could possibly go wrong.

uck51js9zml2yt

Stheno wrote: »

So perhaps change the charter to reflect that rather than posting endless text without addressing the debate, that posting such text must be used in line with addressing points being raised? I've checked the charter and it currently doesn't have that.

Good point.
@Taltos - what exactly is going to change? Change like we've seen in the Islam forum will kill any debate in the Christianity forum,and besides, we enjoy the sparring:)
The one thing I would look at is whether the Islam forum should just be shut down based on it's general lack of use.
If its not being used by the very people who protected and its more trouble than its worth - why have it?

screamer

Into The Blue wrote: »

There's plenty of protected forums.. Ladies lounge, lbgt, Christmas, sunshine & lollipops...

Some things are just not meant to be questioned.

that is a pity because if one cannot question one cannot understand.

Stheno

Ephraim Eager Quote wrote: »

Good point.
@Taltos - what exactly is going to change? Change like we've seen in the Islam forum will kill any debate in the Christianity forum,and besides, we enjoy the sparring:)
The one thing I would look at is whether the Islam forum should just be shut down based on it's general lack of use.
If its not being used by the very people who protected and its more trouble than its worth - why have it?

I've certainly learned lots about Islam from the forum over the years, I've a mild interest in most religions, I'd love e.g. to see a forum on Judaism on here to learn about it, the recent AMA done by an Hasidic Jew was fascinating to me.

And there is lots of useful information on there also for Muslims in relation to Ireland, a couple of the recent threads where a Muslim lady new to Dublin trying to figure out where to get foodstuffs, and how schools work, so I do think it serves a purpose.

screamer wrote: »

that is a pity because if one cannot question one cannot understand.

And equally, if one cannot discuss without fear of those who are rabidly opposed to the topic at hand being discussed, one cannot initiate a debate.
As a former mod of the ladies lounge a few years back, we had this issue, with people constantly coming in and throwing topics completely off with extreme views.

There has to be a balance and middle ground, and if strict moderation is the answer, I'd prefer to see that tbh.

Taltos

Um I'm not doing anything in Christianity. The mods there don't' need the help inference.
As to Islam, yes in the short term debate may suffer, but once posts get a grasp for the purpose of the forum and are willing to post in a positive and open way I'm hopeful it will turn around.

As it stands, and as quoted above the lazy and cheap shots serve no one except the extremists on both ends of the spectrum. The decent caring posters willing to help others learn about their faith stay away with the belief they'll be labelled a radical or some other nonsense. It's all too easy to turn any question there immediately into an attack on their faith and frankly they don't deserve that.

It's only through open and safe communication we'll ever come to a mutual understanding and respect and while I see posters trying to cause grief I'll continue to step in as I did earlier, as mod of the forum that's part of my role as I see it.