Ken, Dave Here is a suggestion

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Hi Ken, Dave,

On several BB's I frequent they have recently added a new feature that may work here. Across the top they added a link to a another discussion page. Maybe you could adda religious link, political link, world news discussion link and a Everything else link. Have it still a part of CS forum only on another page.

Hmmm you could even let the posters vote on a "moderator" :-) might give someone else a taste of your job Ken.

For the religious one I'd vote for Hoot.

Have a great day.

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), June 21, 2001

Answers

Basically that has already happened when forum participants created the Beyond the Sidewalk and Freedom forum sites, which are completely independent of the Countryside forum. I think there is also a Christian Homesteading forum. The intent is to keep this a forum relating to day-to-day homesteading activities.

It is fully recognized a persons religious views, or lack thereof, influence their homesteading, as do their political views. There is not a problem with mention of it in passing. However, when it becomes the focus of a thread, then it becomes another situation.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), June 21, 2001.


ken:

point taken. i hope we can all do better in the future! this is a great thing, and i for one don't want to lose it now that i have found it due to my particular "issues"!

-- marcee (thathope@mwt.net), June 21, 2001.


I don't pretend to know the answer to this. However I keep my religious views to myself(or lack of same) and also political views (well there's that twit....never mind :-) ). I do agree that those more polarizing issues belong somewhere else. Since I am a dunce with this computer stuff, I haven't a clue how you would do this. I do know that this is an interesting forum with some nice, knowledgable people that respond to it and it would be a big loss if it left. so, to you who make it possible, THANKS! :-)

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), June 21, 2001.

"On several BB's I frequent they have recently added a new feature that may work here. Across the top they added a link to a another discussion page. Maybe you could adda religious link, political link, world news discussion link and a Everything else link"

I don't see a need to proliferate a bunch of off-topic spin-offs. Where will it end - are you going to split all the groups into yet more subgroups? Under religion, will there end up having to be seperate divisions for Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists - then split that off into yet more subgroups, for example Moslems include Shiites, Sunis, Sufis, Bahai - Buddhists include Taoist, Zen, and scads of different forms of animistic Buddhism - Christians include Quakers, Presbyterians, Catholics, and 99 flavors of Baptists. Wiccans. "Druids". Pagans of all ilk and manner. Followers of Voudun. Ad infinitum.

Heck, how 'bout a Pokemon section too? That's just about a religion from the way I've seen some kids behaving. And Anime! And Manga! YEAH!

And then you're going to put a guy in charge who has a history of being biased towards a particular religion. The job of a moderator is to moderate and somehow I don't think that's going to happen with that particular person, however much you may like his more restrained (and therefore undeleted) postings.

Of course if you're his brand of Christian then I suppose you might think his brand of censorship is moderation - if you agree with him. If you don't, guess you better agitate for your own little subkingdom to "moderate", eh?

Other folks have said it - this forum belongs to the folks who own the magazine. You can participate or you can choose not to participate. Participating doesn't give you ANY rights of control or ownership (as I saw one poster indignantly proclaim in another thread on this subject). From what I've seen this is not a case of grampa being kicked in the crotch by a snot nosed kid, its a case of someone overstepping the bounds - said bounds being defined and ultimately enforced - and then a bunch of troublemakers, whiners, and rabble rousers getting on their high horse to scream about their "rights".

That's the problem with the new electronic medium. A whole lot of people think because they're not paying for a service, it is therefore somehow free and an entitlement. Well its not free. Running something like this is expensive in time, money, and heartache. Said heartache caused by folks who think they're "entitled" bellyaching. And much as we may love Countryside (and I haven't subscribed myself since they went Y2Krazy, but maybe I will here soon now that that little tempest in a teapot has blown over - without dropping a single drop of rain) the truth is its a small magazine with a small following and a VERY small profit margin. We're not talking Time here. Running this website is a significant expense, whether its coming out of YOUR pocketbook or not. And since its not, that pretty much puts paid to the idea of contributor "rights" or entitlement.

This is electronic PUBLISHING. Are you going to rant and rave that they don't publish everything they receive in the print magazine? Well then why the heck do you gripe about one deleted message on this forum? Whatever was in the deleted message, it was decided by the PUBLISHER of this electronic medium NOT TO PUBLISH THAT PARTICULAR ARTICLE.

C'mon, 20 total posts deleted in 2 years or more is not a record to be ashamed of. Its a record to be PROUD of, because it shows enormous restraint. That's on BOTH sides here, for the folks posting, and for the folks with the power to hit the delete key.

So I sure hope all the bellyaching doesn't drive the poor folks who have to read EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE you guys post to shut down the whole forum. Geez! What a thankless job it is to be editor. And no, sometimes its NOT good to be king ... LOL!

-- Sojourner (sojournr@missouri.org), June 23, 2001.


Well said, Sojourner. Ditto for me, too; I've had enough of the Ken- & Dave-bashing. How EVER did all this get into a freedom of speech thing, I don't know! By the way, check back in with COUNTRYSIDE as they are off the Y2K-thing. It was all good information, though, but they're back to more every day useful articles now. I, for one, stocked up on cat litter and cat food! Oh well, at least I didn't have to buy it for a while! Good to hear some sensible rambling for a change! Aydios from NM. dh

-- debra in nm (dhaden@nmtr.unm.edu), June 28, 2001.


Oy vey!

-- Ardie from WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), June 28, 2001.

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