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.

Tom Dunne

As the former mod of the Islam forum, I believe I have a unique perspective on all of this. For the record, I have lived and worked among Muslims for the past number of years, so I feel I can speak with some authority on the matter. As it turns out, I have probably visited more mosques in the past number of years that I have Catholic churches. Don't tell my mother.

There are essentially three types of posters on the Islam forum.

Type #1 - outraged at tragedies such as the abhorrent acts we saw on Friday in Paris. Or, some other act somewhere that was carried out by Muslims, or claiming to be in the name of Islam. Or, people who get their news from the likes of Sky News/Fox News/Daily Mail and thrive on stereotypes and gross generalisations.

Type #2 - Muslims, the vast majority of whom do not appear to have English as their first language and accordingly are not used to such nuances as the etiquette of the site, various English language constructs and how they are interpreted in a text medium such as Boards.ie. In addition to this, add in various other idiosyncrasies that, to be blunt, drive native-English speakers to distraction.

Type #3 - And I would place myself into this category, people who have a genuine interest in the religion, can see past the extremist views, possibly have a hard time reconciling what went on in Paris, with the claims of Islam of being a religion of peace, yet are informed enough and open-minded enough to appreciate that the type of people who undertake such acts have bigger issues than their faith and that such people are not representative of Muslims and Islam.

In my naivety, I took on the task of modding the Islam forum to try and dispel some of the myths around the religion. Where I work and live, I have found the people to be some of the most caring, friendly, fun-loving, beer-drinking (seriously - I've had more beers bought for me by men in thobes than I ever had in Ireland. Not that a man, dressed in a thobe has ever bought me a drink in Ireland), dope-smoking people, who are a pleasure to be around. Have a look at "The great Ask about Islam thread" it was going well for a while. However, it is clear that there is no room for reasoned debate on the forum. Pretty much all of the Muslims who used to post on the forum have left, I assume continually having to defend your beliefs is just simply not worth it for them.

So all were are left with is the Type #1 poster. Posters who feel they have the right to be outraged (no issue with that, to be honest), who feel the need to vent, yet who cannot express themselves in a civil manner without resorting to jaded stereotypes and gross generalisations. As an example, in one thread, I had to ban discussion of mensuration. Yes, seriously. It got that f**king ridiculous.

I stood down from moderating the Islam forum because, to be frank, I was sick of it. I tried to bring the voice of reason, but neither side was willing to compromise. Sadly, a statement that appears to resonate with the current state of affairs in many places in the world today.

Harry Palmr

Dozen Wicked Words wrote: »

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

and that coming from a Soccer forum mod! :pac:

The level of debate with regard to Islamist inspired actions across boards is barely above playground level. I'm reluctant to start a thread such is likelihood of it being tuned into a ignorant argument with a lot of quoting of context free screeds.

Cabaal

Thanks very much for taking the time to post Tom, its interesting to get some back story into the current situation.
Its very unfortunate that you felt you had to stand down in the end but to be honest I can understand it, I don't envy the job Taltos currently has but I hope that things can eventually change in the forum at some point.

I don't see the forum as getting a special protected status but I can understand why it is the way it is at present. While personally I'm not religious simply outright hating any religion across the board is foolish as they are not going away.

Instead its better if discussions can happen as these can help both sides to better understand each other, we will of course have posters who will troll or just be upset from actions done in the name of a religion and also posters who can't see past their strict religious views.... but they shouldn't stop a discussion in the long term.

uck51js9zml2yt

Interesting post Tom , and interesting that Muslims didn't want to defend their beliefs.
In the Christianity forum, we have no problem being accused, abused and questioned about our beliefs.
The amount of abuse I've received from some Catholics alone who consider me a heretic and aa communist is appalling!
Not to mention the evolutionists who deride my faith.
If people who align themselves with a faith can't defend themselves and need a protected status to even take part in a forum, the forum should be deleted.
Granted, no one should be abused but if they can't be questioned and at times interrogated and give answers for what they beleive , they serve no purpose.
For the record, I've good friends who converted from Islam 30 years ago and were kicked out of their family home. Their father is all leader in the mosque in their city.(not in Ireland). Family ties have healed but no one from their church is welcome in the house, except me when I've visited. Have to say, their openness to me is amazing.

looksee

Presumably Muslims do not defend their faith because they do not know how to - in the sense that they have never had to and have no concept of arguing it. They may not offer individual opinions, all they can do is quote authorities and the Qur'an, which does not make for a very interesting argument.

I agree that religious forums should not have to constantly defend their faith, but defending it against abuse, and discussing it, is not the same thing.

Cabaal

looksee wrote: »

Presumably Muslims do not defend their faith because they do not know how to - in the sense that they have never had to and have no concept of arguing it. They may not offer individual opinions, all they can do is quote authorities and the Qur'an, which does not make for a very interesting argument.

In this day and age I doubt this is the case especially if the person is living in Western Europe, USA etc. I'm sure they've faced critics...unless they've lived a very sheltered life.

looksee

Cabaal wrote: »

In this day and age I doubt this is the case especially if the person is living in Western Europe, USA etc. I'm sure they've faced critics...unless they've lived a very sheltered life.

Not necessarily, many older Christians will refuse to discuss their faith even though there is no restriction on them. There is a sense of its 'not proper' to discuss it. Or they would rather not think about it. Someone who has been brought up not to question will have difficulty doing so.

Cabaal

looksee wrote: »

Not necessarily, many older Christians will refuse to discuss their faith even though there is no restriction on them. There is a sense of its 'not proper' to discuss it. Or they would rather not think about it. Someone who has been brought up not to question will have difficulty doing so.

Never having to listen to critics and refusing to listen to critics are two very different things though

I'd agree that there are certainly those that refuse to acknowledge flaws or abuses by those who also follow the same religion. Hell, I've met Catholics who think the abuse is made up to ruin the church or that it is not a big deal because it happened decades ago so why do people keep going on about.

Some people find anything critical about their faith hard to deal with,

I suppose when it comes to the Islamic forum if people don't want to be involved in anything critical of their faith they are simply not going to post.

For those that simply reply with just religious versus/texts then they need to be told to up their game and actually properly interact in the forum or stop posting, such responses wouldn't be ok in the Christian forum so they certainly shouldn't be ok in the Islamic one.

Taltos

In an ideal world I'd agree with you all guys.

But - just in the last few days we've been dealing with posters who are just outright trolling the forum.
"Islam isn't a religion" etc etc etc and thats the best of the PMs I've had the pleasure to deal with as well as "God Bless you", I'm the mod there, I've never once said what if any faith I am but come on.

Total codswhallop. So with crud like that do you really think there are many folk hanging about trying to help others understand their religion?
Right now as you'd expect we've had a rake of political posts, or rants etc with some posters ignoring mod instruction intentionally or posting vague seemingly innocuous questions which to be frank would be fine except elsewhere they're posting that all muslims are terrorists.

I mean cop on a sec.

So as above we're weeding them out. Trying to create a safe space to get in sufficient numbers of regulars who are willing to debate and discuss their faith in a way that right now they cannot. I mean if mods are being forced to consider their positions as a result of this numpty behaviour do you really thing we're getting a huge volume of regulars hanging about?

As to criticism - that will come - once its constructive and fair and people are open to new ideas. This "Islam isn't a religion" nonsense frankly is only being posted to get a reaction and it will - a ban and deleted posts.

Also to the walls of text or quotes from the Quran - that's been banned for a while now and will result in similar mod action. We all want the forum to be a safe place for the open and frank interchange of ideas from both Muslims' and others. What we don't want is it to be the site to goto when there is a terrorist attack. Being labelled a terrorist just because of your faith or because of where you're from is not nice (speaking from experience here after a train journey up North during one of the London bombing runs), and it's not something I'll tolerate. The problem I face is that some posters are intent on causing mischief, and it's hard to spot them, so I'm relying on reporting posts and their history of posts on Islam to help weed them out - not nice but until we get to a point where we attract and retain those willing and open to discuss their faith to help others learn more about that side of the fence and in turn be open to fair criticism then we've got an up hill battle. As above the old trite posts of M was a paedo is tiresome and frankly insulting. Place yourself in their position, if every other post in Christianity was "Christ bonked and married a whore" or "The Dark Ages never ended, the Church is still killing non-believers but with <insert disease/etc>", how soon do you think it would be before similar hard modding was applied?

Either way this thread has been really useful if only in bringing the challenges and poison being faced by those of the Faith here on Boards. And yes, if this fails and we don't create the safe place then naturally the Islam forum will be closed, but not before we try our best to create a forum relatively free of the dim-witted haters from both sides.

Overheal

looksee wrote: »

Presumably Muslims do not defend their faith because they do not know how to - in the sense that they have never had to and have no concept of arguing it.

Well there's your problem right there regarding the extreme few that commit atrocities in the name of the faith; trying to off people for criticizing them or cartoonifying it.

looksee

I suppose when it comes to the Islamic forum if people don't want to be involved in anything critical of their faith they are simply not going to post.

For those that simply reply with just religious versus/texts then they need to be told to up their game and actually properly interact in the forum or stop posting, such responses wouldn't be ok in the Christian forum so they certainly shouldn't be ok in the Islamic one.

Absolutely agree, I was simply suggesting that that is the only response available to them, it would be great if we got more who would be prepared to discuss and explain their faith beyond 'that's what the Qur'an says'.

Benny_Cake

I think it's a numbers issue in many ways, even the Christianity forum has a very limited group of Christians posting there and there are a heck of a lot more Christians than Muslims in Ireland. To encourage intelligent, thoughtful Muslim posters to participate there does need to be some sort of control exercised over the bigotry that bubbles to the surface at times like this. The Islam forum at its best could be a place for Muslims and non-Muslims to debate, as well as for Muslims to discuss their faith amongst themselves.

On the Christianity forum there was a policy of creating megathreads to avoid other threads being completely sidetracked by repetitive topics (the existence of God, evolution). It had it's pros and cons in my experience, but perhaps it's something that could be attempted?

Cabaal

Benny_Cake wrote: »

On the Christianity forum there was a policy of creating megathreads to avoid other threads being completely sidetracked by repetitive topics (the existence of God, evolution). It had it's pros and cons in my experience, but perhaps it's something that could be attempted?

I think there's certainly merit to this idea, this allows stuff to be discussed but without creating too much noise in the rest of the forum which no doubt would be very off putting to Muslims that did wish to actively take part in the forum....which would be understandable to be fair.

My concern is taking for example http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057522505

The thread lasted only a few days before it was locked perhaps because a user decided to start questioning the mod on the thread.

Now in fairness we all know disputing a mod decision on thread is a big no no, the user claims they are not challenging the mod note but its clear as day they are, so I'm all for action against the user upto and including a ban for this type of nonsense.

However, I'd rather see a thread like the above have strict rules to whats expected and see action taken against users who ignored these rules then see it locked just because one person decides to ignore a site wide rule.

I do understand that there's work involved in this type of thread modding wise but at least this would allow the noise to be limited to a thread rather then numerous small threads that just ended up getting locked.

It would also allow clear rules in relation to posting in the thread to be set out in the opening post. Any thoughts on this Taltos?

zeffabelli

It's not a religion that tolerates criticism. You can't worship and critcise at the same time.

So in order to be respectful to its proslytising fora, it has to shut down the criticism.

NiallBoo

Isn't discussion of terrorist attacks just kind of off-topic for the Islam forum? Isn't it more suited to something like politics?

If there was an IRA bombing, wouldn't the Christianity forum find it a little daft that loads of people were posting topics about how violent Christians are?

Dial Hard

Taltos wrote:

Either way this thread has been really useful if only in bringing the challenges and poison being faced by those of the Faith here on Boards.

Tbh, Taltos, I think that's a really poor attitude. This thread has given numerous valid examples of the issues people have with the way the forum is run and yet you choose to see it as just more Islamophobia.

A lot of people genuinely have trouble understanding Islamic attitudes towards women, etc yet any questioning *at all* is immediately deemed to be trolling and shut down. We can all see the true trolls a mile off, which is why it's become problematic that any criticism of or even curiosity about Islam is cut off due to a unilateral decision by a mod.

Why not have a sticky for the questions that come up over and over and update the charter to reflect that?

Also, personally I think there's a huge double-standard at play when a request for a dedicated Catholic forum was turned down because it was deemed as essentially requesting preferential treatment and wanting to stifle debate, when this is exactly what he Islam forum is getting.

And just for the record, I'm agnostic so have no vested interest on any side.

zeffabelli

NiallBoo wrote: »

Isn't discussion of terrorist attacks just kind of off-topic for the Islam forum? Isn't it more suited to something like politics?

If there was an IRA bombing, wouldn't the Christianity forum find it a little daft that loads of people were posting topics about how violent Christians are?

Not always. You can't talk about modern democracies without Protestantism. Their revolution was all about getting away from Rome and the divine right of kings.

The Middle East has religion, territory and politics all fused, so to answer your question, no.

NiallBoo

zeffabelli wrote: »

Not always. You can't talk about modern democracies without Protestantism. Their revolution was all about getting away from Rome and the divine right of kings.

The Middle East has religion, territory and politics all fused, so to answer your question, no.

Ok, to rephrase. Wouldn't they be better discussed on more relevant forums? Such as politics?

By bringing it up in in the Islam forum it assumes that terrorists are violent because they are Islamic, not because of other factors.
To compare to the IRA again, the IRAs actions are usually explained by things like British oppression etc.(not saying that's right or wrong, just that its the usual narrative), there's never any implication that it's down to Christianity being inherently violent. I think this is a double-standard.

zeffabelli

NiallBoo wrote: »

Ok, to rephrase. Wouldn't they be better discussed on more relevant forums? Such as politics?

By bringing it up in in the Islam forum it assumes that terrorists are violent because they are Islamic, not because of other factors.
To compare to the IRA again, the IRAs actions are usually explained by things like British oppression etc.(not saying that's right or wrong, just that its the usual narrative), there's never any implication that it's down to Christianity being inherently violent. I think this is a double-standard.

Why not?

The IRA was very much tied into the Catholic theocracy that forged the Independent state, to the people that sent their daughters to the Laundries, to the people that let the Church abuse their children....

So yes there is something about Irish Catholicism that was inherintly violent.... it was given birth to by violence.... ffs look athe world wide rep Catholic school has in using extremely cruel forms of punishment.

I think it is entirely valid to ask followers of such ideologiess to ask them selves why they are slaves?

looksee

The IRA were operating in the name of republicanism, the Islamic terrorists are operating in the name of - well - Islam, hence the name Islamic State. Obviously this does not represent all Muslims, and some Muslims are victims of IS, but without discussion it is difficult for outsiders to know who thinks what within Islam.