Bias in moderation?

[Confused]

This is for members who wish to log complaints of perceived bias. First, let me point out our current statistics as of 5/4/09:

Christian moderators: 3
otseng
Jester
Micatala

Jewish moderator: 1
cnorman18

Atheist moderators: 2
McCulloch
Fallibleone

Undeclared: 1
Confused.

Let me take a moment to give you all some insight into a few things. While your reports are always viewed by us, it has come to my understanding that when member don't see responses, they might feel as if their reports have been shrugged off or been ignored based on a "bias". I want to assure you that most often, that is not the case. They are logged in to the moderators section where all of us try to post our actions and any current issues related to the forum. Often, rather than clutter threads with our responses, we will opt to send a PM to the offending poster. When we do so, it is done by private methods so the action and results are not always viewed by the general population. More often than not, issues are resolved this way as opposed to in public. However, that isn't always the case. Despite how it is resolved, a record of the history is kept in our section so we have something to refer to that keeps a cumulative history of the members violations so when we deal with them publicly, even to issue notice of probation/banning, we have a reference of all their violations to review before passing our interventions, warnings, or notices of probation/banning.

As we log our actions into the moderators section, we open the issues up to every member of our team and as such, we open them up to other faiths opinions and advice. If any of us thinks that something was or wasn't justified, we have no qualms about stating such things. Often, when a report is made in a thread a specific moderator is involved in a heavy debate, said moderator will abstain from handling reports in that thread. There are even times when we ask moderators of specific faiths to handle reports about a specific member in the hopes that they might be more amendable to critiques from someone of the same faith.

All we ask is that when challenging us, you don't do it in the threads so as to avoid derailing the topics. Before you consider our interventions as public chastisement or consider our handling reports via PM, I would ask you to consider the following:
If we handle things in private, we avoid the public display of admonishment, but we make it so that members don't actively see their reports being addressed.
If we handle things in public, we risk derailing topics as well as get accused of either being to aggressive or not aggressive enough.

If you feel a PM won't address your concern, could you consider posting them here rather than in the active threads so we can discuss them publicly without the derailment of the other threads? If you have any suggestions that might make for more civil debating while still addressing reports/violations, I am more than willing to hear them.

Thanks.

[Fisherking]

Could there be a liberal bias, regardless of theological stance?
In my opinion there are 5 liberals (or "progressive"), possibly 6 (not sure about you Confused), and 1 that possibly is not.

[otseng]

I guess I would be the 1? However, I'm not sure how I would even label myself.

But in terms of bias, it is only those that we have disciplined that accuses us of bias. To the Christians we put on probation, they accuse us of being biased towards non-Christians. And vice-versa. To me, they're all just looking for some excuse to justify their behavior. However, in all of the cases, appealing to bias has never changed any probation decision.

I would though acknowledge that individually, the moderating team has biases. However, as a team, I would say it is one of the most balanced moderating teams for a religious debating forum. And if anyone does know of a religious debating forum that is more fair than us, I'd be extremely curious to know about it.

[Confused]

Could there be a liberal bias, regardless of theological stance?
In my opinion there are 5 liberals (or "progressive"), possibly 6 (not sure about you Confused), and 1 that possibly is not.

No team will ever be perfect. But that is the point of having a diverse team as well as a team that feels open enough to speak their minds to other moderator team members. It gives us perspectives from many angles. However, we could have 3 dozen members on the moderating team and there will still be some points that may not be equally represented. That is the nature of debating. There are so many angles that it is nearly impossible to find one representative of them all. That is one reason why I wanted to point out how diverse our team currently is... to negate the growing accusations of blatant bias.

The bottom line IMO is it matters not what the members faith is, but rather, the strength of the memgers argument and the adherence of member to the forum rules.

[Goose]

It just seems to me, Easy, that if your tactics drive more people away from your style of belief than they attract, you're doing something wrong; but perhaps that's your intent.

Whatever. In any case, in my opinion, you post the most ineffective, repetitious, and transparently specious arguments on this board, and you do it consistently.

It's no secret that cnorman takes an anti-fundamentalist position but is this rant really appropriate for a moderator? Considering McCulloch had just given 5 warnings in a row right before this for people to not attack the person in this case easyrider (which I appreciate McCulloch doing, BTW). I've been blasted by a mod for as much here.

[otseng]

It just seems to me, Easy, that if your tactics drive more people away from your style of belief than they attract, you're doing something wrong; but perhaps that's your intent.

Whatever. In any case, in my opinion, you post the most ineffective, repetitious, and transparently specious arguments on this board, and you do it consistently.

It's no secret that cnorman takes an anti-fundamentalist position but is this rant really appropriate for a moderator? Considering McCulloch had just given 5 warnings in a row right before this for people to not attack the person in this case easyrider (which I appreciate McCulloch doing, BTW). I've been blasted by a mod for as much here.

I've made a comment in the thread.

[JoeyKnothead]

Yep, not one doofus represented on the moderators' team.

I would be appalled if I knew what appalled meant.

I know I carry on, but I think the mods do the best they can under the circumstances. My disagreements with the particulars are hopefully legit, but I would never claim bias on the mods' part.

[Pastor4Jesus]

I have accused the team of bias but have changed my mind and overall, I agree that its among the best, most fair moderated teams, and site that I have had the pleasure of posting in, and I have haunted many many sites.

Thanks to the moderators and of course the administrators etc of doing a great sometimes thankless Job here at DC&R.

p4jc

[Skyangel]

__
My last violation for being uncivil was on 19 Jun 10. I must work to ensure I remain civil, as it reflects on me and my peers

For what I have experienced in most debate forums is that most people regardless of whether they are Christian or not hate the Truth and get offended by it. They end up reporting the person who offended them to the moderators and then they end up being banned for what? Mainly for speaking the truth of what they are thinking.
I have found Christians to be more harsh and intolerant than nonchristians in this regard.
I believe that If Jesus Himself joined a debate forum today and told religious hypocrites they were hypocrites and told fools they were fools and stuck to the same things the bible says about people who say there is no God, that any person religious as well as nonreligious would ban Jesus Himself and throw Him out for being rude and offensive and impolite.

That is the reality of the Truth. Most People regardless of whether they are believers in God or not, hate Truth.
Jesus IS the Truth.
Christians as well as non christians hate and reject Truth and ban it from their forums as they replace it with political correctness and hypocrisy and some weak attempt to enforce rules that no one can possibly keep. No one person including moderators, no matter how perfect they might be, can live a life where they never offend anyone.


Not even Jesus Himself managed to never offend anyone.
Many were offended by Him and many people still get offended by Truth daily. That will never change.

Mat 15:12 Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?

[ChaosBorders]

__
My last violation for being uncivil was on 19 Jun 10. I must work to ensure I remain civil, as it reflects on me and my peers

For what I have experienced in most debate forums is that most people regardless of whether they are Christian or not hate the Truth and get offended by it. They end up reporting the person who offended them to the moderators and then they end up being banned for what? Mainly for speaking the truth of what they are thinking.
I have found Christians to be more harsh and intolerant than nonchristians in this regard.
I believe that If Jesus Himself joined a debate forum today and told religious hypocrites they were hypocrites and told fools they were fools and stuck to the same things the bible says about people who say there is no God, that any person religious as well as nonreligious would ban Jesus Himself and throw Him out for being rude and offensive and impolite.

That is the reality of the Truth. Most People regardless of whether they are believers in God or not, hate Truth.
Jesus IS the Truth.
Christians as well as non christians hate and reject Truth and ban it from their forums as they replace it with political correctness and hypocrisy and some weak attempt to enforce rules that no one can possibly keep. No one person including moderators, no matter how perfect they might be, can live a life where they never offend anyone.


Not even Jesus Himself managed to never offend anyone.
Many were offended by Him and many people still get offended by Truth daily. That will never change.

Mat 15:12 Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?

Jesus could also perform miracles to show he was speaking the truth. Can you do that? If someone starts performing miracles in front of you and you reject it anyways, then them calling you a fool is fair enough. Someone telling you someone else was performing miracles, with no way of proving that fact, and you rejecting it, does not give the person doing the telling the right to call you a fool as there is little reason for you to accept what you are telling them as true.