From Texas Towlie.

Thank you for taking care of this mess.

[font style="font-family:papyrus,'Brush Script MT','Infindel B',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]It and this thread are very much appreciated.[/font]

I am working on getting someone to run.

I was offline in the afternoon and the first time I saw the PM was after thread was locked.

seems a bit dubious. We had a host malfunction and a subsequent host resignation, voluntary or otherwise. The fact that we have partisan hosts and that sometimes some of them have succumbed to temptation and abused their authority is a pretty good argument to just letting the hosting function fade away. The jury system seems to be doing its function of checking overt personal hostility (although it has problems too) we really don't need any new host to start experimenting with hostiness.

To be clear: I am fine with the current set of hosts. I am against adding any new hosts. I would also be fine with all the current hosts resigning and letting the admins take over SOP alerts.

And I know yours.

So forgive me if I don't respond at this time. I will do so within the appropriate thread.

I only hope that we can all have a respectful and productive discussion, from all sides, and leaving personal attacks out of it.

Hopefully,
longship

I was following the thread with great interest and was looking forward to more. Thanks to all the posters who called foul on the lock.

He has agreed to be nominated.

A good egg with steady hand, and an excellent choice.

Or just Renewal Deal. The SOP violations are few so admin could handle it and jurors do the hard work anyway.

I think today's "mistake," as well as similar "mistakes" in the past by current and former hosts, really is proof that hosting in this forum 1) isn't necessary and 2) when the hosts take action, it's usually wrong and results in the retirement or removal of a host.

The only action that a host in this forum needs to make is the locking of a thread that does not meet the SOP of this group and to block serial disruptors.

The locking of posts that don't meet the SOP is rare, even when done for the incorrect reasons.
The blocking of disruptors is rather unnecessary now given the 5-hides-and-you're-grounded rule now undertaken by admin.

So one of the two jobs is done rarely (and often badly) and the other job is made unnecessary by virtue of the software programming.

Why do we need hosts? Why do we need, what, 5 of them?

I think Renew Deal does an awesome job as a host, and an even more awesome job cleaning up the mess of other (now mostly departed) hosts. And I think he is the only host that is needed for the admittedly few times that job #1 needs doing.

I agree that the hosting here has once again become an issue and that the best course of action would be to let it fade away.

It seems the temptation to "use your powers" always ends up being too much for some host or other to resist.

This incident was the first lock since.. well, when?? And it shouldn't have been locked. A host has resigned in disgrace. Can't we at least try no hosts, or the single host, for a fixed period? Say 6 months or something?

Seems when something happens in this room it makes hosts resign. heheh
One host would be fine as far as I can see.
I rarely post OPs but also rarely see an off-topic OP.

Look, you and the three members immediately above you have nothing but contempt for good members who post in the religion forum.

Your reply here is evidence of that.

Now look, you all have your own group where you can play games and insult DU members without fear of retribution and wallow in your whatever it is to your hearts' content.

I'm hoping that Renew Deal will be able to find as good a host as is the one who decided not to waste his time with it.

"resigned in disgrace", yeah, you go with that trotsky.

Putting his personal bias ahead of the group (and hosting) rules. Is that "good" behavior? Is that what you want everyone to emulate?

Never mind. Your documented history of stating that atheists have mental health issues has nuked any chance of you being taken seriously.

What he did was an abuse of power. Either he realized that and resigned (disgrace) or he thinks he's still right and everyone complaining is wrong (cluelessness). Neither are traits for a "good host."

And do you not realize the difference in the stories here. Someone is lying to someone. The OP says that longship replied. Longship says in the thread that he didn't even get the PM until after it was locked. So somebody somewhere is full of shit.

which part of renew deal having to apologize for pinto's misbehavior do you not understand?

My friend pinto feels no disgrace.

There is a tiny pack of members who salivate at any opportunity to disparage other members, facts never seem to matter.

Such behavior is really what reasonable people find disgraceful.

I didn't know that. Thanks. It is an interesting perspective. We could apply that to lots of things. For example, a post isn't an obviously self-serving and dishonest post unless the poster feels that he has posted something that is obviously self-serving and dishonest. There just seems something wrong about that approach. I don't buy it.

Sweeney

So you don't think he was wrong to, seemingly unilaterally but certainly without consensus, lock that thread?

Altering words is.

If you want to see disgraceful posts, I'll point you.

When pinto was appointed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218138175

It is interesting that the people suggesting no hosts at that time were making their case based on histories of personal bias and abuse of power. And here we are in the same boat once again.

I can only imagine the screams if this situation were reversed, and the host who had acted so inappropriately and in a personally biased manner were one of the demonized "religion-haters" like us.

This is the second time a believer host abused their position, so having one seems counter productive to the goal of the hosting concept.

In the OP, Renew Deal says:

I'm telling you what I read in the other posts (without questioning). Longship is telling you his experience. And I agree it doesn't totally add up, but I think you figured it out.

Yesterday was an error. When I was a host here I made errors and I stood down.

That being said, I am sorry that pinto has resigned as a result of what I suspect was just a miscommunication.

At any rate, it doesn't seem like a big deal and it's been fixed pretty quickly.

I will support Texas Towlie for host, but am willing to entertain other possible candidates.

I think Renew Deal is an excellent lead host, but I don't think having a single host would be fair to him.

So, what is clear to this point:

1. pinto goes rouge and locks a thread without any agreement from anyone to do so.
2. he states the reason is because that thread got ugly
3. that thread got ugly because you came in guns blazing for no reason
4. you subsequently had to deal with a good number of people calling you on that attitude
5. pinto is a close personal friend of yours

It doesn't take a Mensa member to figure out why he went rogue. And that it wasn't "just a miscommunication." And it was a "big deal."

She didn't see the threads warren put up.

And it doesn't mean she wasn't told about what was going down.

I take her at her word.

That is really odd.

I see that a thread was locked and from what I can see, pinto thought he had consensus to lock it. The thread looks ok to me, but there is clearly a great deal that I do not see. I am guessing that he locked it because he could see the whole thing.

He has acknowledged that he made an error and that there was miscommunication. In fact, he has resigned because of it.

Looks to me like the problem was addressed and resolved pretty quickly.

Since I can't see the "ugly" in the thread, I think it's hilarious that you hold me responsible for it. Am I really so powerful that I can now control what other people say?

The fact that people came into the thread and got ugly, which you say was calling me on my attitude, is not at all a surprise. The Bat Signal goes up all the time. I can tell because threads become exponentially busy based on post numbers, but they look the same to me.

Pinto is indeed a close personal friend of mine. I have nothing but the utmost respect and fondness for him. If he stepped in to protect me, he did the wrong thing, even if his heart was in the right place. You can call it rogue or anything else you want. He has acknowledged his mistake and resigned. What else do you want from him?

Make no mistake. He and I never communicated about this in any way whatsoever. I did not send or receive a single personal message about this either before the lock or since then. In addition, I was completely unaware that the thread had gotten ugly .

I have already put mechanisms in place to protect myself and don't expect anyone else to do that for me. Pinto was wrong, but I will state emphatically that he is a very good person and did what he thought was right.

That's why you can't see it.

After all, I am an ordained minister.

I also believe in the potential of human spaceflight.

cbayer had the "believer" slot for a while and she's not a theist so you are at least a step above that with being an ordained minister.

That was the state of peace and harmony we long enjoyed in this forum, and honestly, I didn't think we HAD any hosts until this unfortunate fiasco wherein a host attempted to exercise his authority, and bungled it badly.

I intend to return to the tranquility of old, when people could not tell we actually HAVE hosts at all.

If you don't wish to say thats fine.

is free.

I don't know what you mean by that, like you aren't allowed?

Considering it has to be a believer or someone who is sympathetic to believers I can't support AtheistCrusader.

sympathetic to believers. That means nobody can support him. Maybe you meant to say you WON'T support him.

I'm not saying I'm going to do anything. You are saying you can't support a non-believer for a role as one of the believing hosts. Isn't he automatically illegible for the role anyway in this case? Can you support an atheist for the role of the non-believer host position?
It's the word 'can't' that struck me as funny and weird, like you are unable to for some reason, not just you won't, but you can't.

Thanks. You could always change your mind though.. hahahahah

I take moderation duties deadly serious, and enforce rigorous impartiality on my own actions, no matter what my personal feelings might be.

I approach it the same as I do jury duty, principle first, opinion not considered. In fact, I believe most moderation in this forum should be handled by the jury system entirely, ENSURING impartiality. I would only act on a clear SOP violation, after a jury has confirmed.

category.

I am sympathetic to all humans.

I may not be sympathetic to some ideas. Ideas are not people. SOP protects people. My particular worldview is fully capable of seeing and applying that without mistreating people.

I can tell you if I ran for it there would be plenty of objections.

I might object based on a recent experience in the application of priorities, SOP over Democratic Underground TOS, which I disagree with.

In fact, I'd use that as a prime example of how utilizing the jury system produced the correct result.

I declare my candidacy for the next open nonbeliever spot.

You're Biden.

Might drag the ticket down.

What do you think hosts should be doing here that requires being a partisan? Do you think that they should, as Pinto did, decide to lock threads that are not going they way they think is proper?

none of them believers.

We all make mistakes. I stood down when I made one.

You may have made an error here. We all make errors. If you did this to protect me, I think you overstepped but I believe you did it in good faith.

I am sorry that you have resigned, but I hope that you will still be around.

Didn't mean to protect you. Rather meant to protect myself. LOL, a knee jerk response. Could have simply logged out. That would have been the better call.

I got it pretty quickly, though, which is a good thing. And, there were no major injuries as far as I can see.

and take responsibility, and i would never expect anything else from you.

As I can't see much of that thread, I can't really comment on what was going on. The part I can read looks pretty benign, but I gather from what others have said that much of it is not benign at all.

It was resolved quickly and I agree that there were no major injuries.

You take care and, if I don't get a chance to tell you over the next few days, I hope you have a wonderful christmas.

:pal:

Was there an alert? Who by? What was the alert message? Why did you think it appropriate for a host to lock an op based on posts within the thread rather than the op itself? Were there any pms from non-hosts related to this incident? Was this discussed anywhere off site? In both cases if so by whom? What was said? What was the content of the messages between you and other hosts that you "misconstrued"?

Here's the explanatory post I made in this forum -

[font style="font-family:papyrus,'Brush Script MT','Infindel B',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]if that is not possible a vote for AC. If he is not eligible (for obvious reasons) then for Tx Towlie.

I really don't have any objection to any of them to be honest.

In fact, where do I need to go to start a write in campaign for Atheist Crusader for the democratic nominee for [font style="font-family:'Brush Script MT',''Lucida handwriting','forte',cursive;" size=5 color=crimson]President [/font]

PS:

If AC does become theist host, does he have to change his name to Pasta Monster Crusader?[/font]

You can participate in the jury system from anywhere on DU simply by being a poster in good standing yourself.

Sweeney

I suppose trial by fire can be a liberating education.

perhaps.

this objective scientific definition of savagery you are employing in this instance.

Sweeney

I'm sure the poster will be informing us soon, in a very long winded fashion, just how ignorant we are.
Well actually he won't be doing that in this thread.

Sweeney.

of the long-closed Anthropology library at the state instit--university, delving through dusty tomes to find the right resource whose parchment hasn't turned to ash over the years to find just the right dictionary definition of 'savage' that doesn't include the word "darkie" or "Mulatto"

Sweeney

you've been here for less than a month, you already have 2 hides (one for calling Native Americans "Savages&quot , and you obviously have no idea how the jury system or hosting works.

It's bad enough to have hosts who have been here for years and tens of thousands of posts who don't understand a job. The last thing we need is a 20-day newbie who thinks indigenous people are savages and who has no understanding of neither DU rules, nor the jobs of hosts and the jobs of juries (and the differences between those jobs).

Sounds like you have your hands full with tanning goat skins. Stick around a while, get to know how things work.

for continuing to use terms like "barbarian," "Savage," and now Dumb-Ass-Indians to describe Native Americans.

There is no modern scientific use of 'barbarian" or "savage" to describe native american cultures. Perhaps some anthropologist from the 1800's found these terms quaint and descriptive, but we live in the 21st century and hateful words like that have gone out of style. Perhaps you haven't noticed.

I hope your nastiness is hidden. I hope that MIRT takes a look at you, Mr. less-than-a-month poster with a penchant for calling indigenous people "savages" and "barbarians," and who not just uses the terms, but DOUBLES DOWN AND DEFENDS THEIR USE. What's next? Young black men are aptly called bucks? That Dark Africa is a term of endearment? I hope you are banned and that you are able to find your way back to whatever nasty, back-water, mouth-breathing websites you found home for so long, where your antiquated and offensive terms are held much more dearly than they are here.

but I know another newbie poster who dared ruffled feathers was threatened with MIRT by their 40th post.

I guess it's not about ruffling feathers, it's about the bird the feathers are attached to that makes all the difference.

Sweeney

Why aren't they pouncing on this newbie here like they do on every new atheist who posts something they object to here? How come this one gets a pass, huh?

Sweeney

BY HAND GODDAMNIT

and he's not, you know, rocking the boat. Not saying anything offensive (well, offensive to believers). He's toeing the line. He's behaving himself. Just, you know, slurs against indigenous people. No big whoop.

Sweeney

and it took me half a day to be online and see it. Because I have a life, a child, a job, and had to get some sleep.

Does that count as condemnation from a theist?

Meanwhile some of our regulars were off back slapping his posts.

nothing?

at a church rumage sale.

Sweeney