ProjectPeter wasn't a leader, he was a bully. Plain and simple. I honestly think at least part of the reason I went through the colors so fast was because he thought I'd be pliable and he could use me as an attack dog. And for a time I was more pliable - ironically it was during one stage of issues with mods that he told me I shouldn't trust a specific individual (I'll call them X for brevity). That was odd because previously he'd told me I could trust them. So I went through two years worth of Skype conversation archives with both, reading both through a filter of "this is a bad person I'm talking to". With X nothing made any sense at all when that filter was applied. With ProjectPeter most of the conversation still made sense. I don't have a problem with the gifts of the Spirit. I believe they are for today. I also believe that anything to do with the spiritual realm needs to be tested, in accordance with Scripture. By all means have the Dreams Visions Prophecies area for people to discuss those things but focus must include testing, with the implicit acceptance that testing is hard when we know little to nothing about the situation, context etc. If you post a dream and ask "what do you think God might be trying to tell me?" you've got the basis for a rational discussion. If you post a prophecy and declare "God is telling you..." then don't be surprised if readers want more information, if they want to test, and if they outright reject it. For what it's worth my opinion is that prophecy is very much for today but is most likely to be used in a situation where the words lose relevance if removed. Maybe God will give me a word to share with someone in my church that will be useful to them in their current situation but taking that word out of the intended context renders it irrelevant.
And your view has a place at a Protestant forum. And neither of us are bullies with our views. I spent about 2 decades in Calvary Chapel. It was charismatic. But the Scripture has the priority. I can work with that. How you describe yourself is where I was for a long time.
And actually just our little talk there is what in my mind BF should always have been. Christian grown ups talking.....talking about differences, discussing Scripture in a loving fashion (even though our couple posts there had no Scripture quotes - they would if we carried on). That makes for great forum.
While not surprised that only two people voted to ban me and no other members were invited to vote, I was confused as the reason for my ban was "too many reports. Just prior to my ban, I got a pm from Amazzin telling me how much he identified with our small group (still have a hard time recognizing us as a group back then. We were simply like minded but there was no agenda) but Amazzin recognized it as such and said he felt a part of it. Fine. A couple days later, a pm from Project Peter saying he wanted the focus of bf to turn toward prophecy. Stated that his daughter was a self proclaimed prophetiss and wanted all the mods to start promoting prophecy whenever and wherever possible. I responded with that's fine, but I'm not familiar enough with prophecy and don't hold much faith in it, so, I'll bow out and just continue on as normal. Next day with no notice or reason why, a pm from Amazzin that I'd been banned.
... and as you say different opinions work just fine together when they are discussed with respect for each other even if there is disagreement as to just what is correct. If the desire is to look to Scripture to find truth it's hard to see how any harm can come of it. If the desire is to browbeat your opponent into submission with whatever it takes, that's not so good. <---- a non-browbeating pie
It's always interesting to hear things from the other side of the curtain. There were just so many head-scatching decisions around members that, as just a regular member flunky for all these years, it was pretty disheartening. I also recall PP asked me to consider being a moderator at one time. Then completely denied he'd ever asked me some time later.
A lot of what was behind the curtain was pretty much what you'd expect and related to simple day-to-day running of the site, discussion what to do with more troublesome members, and most of it was as respectful as you'd expect. And then every once in a while someone would seem to get a kicking for no readily apparent reason. Usually driven by ProjectPeter, as best as I could tell. Certainly there were times when it was appropriate to read the riot act to members. And there were definitely times when senior staff (most notably PP and the amazing one) were well out of line. My time as an admin was when PP was away. I'm not convinced it was coincidental that his return was a very short time before me being stripped of the red suit. Because of that my admin time didn't overlap with his abuses but one of my own failings as an admin was not standing up to the amazing one sooner and harder. With hindsight had I stood up to him sooner and harder it would probably have simply meant my time in the red suit would have been shorter, but you never know. I'm still surprised that I got away with so brazenly defying PP on the open board over Jennifer's curious "prophecies". I really was at a stage where I expected every post challenging him to result in a cup of coffee. It never came, so I had to make my own.
Even when briefly visiting I see very little in the way of edification or even reasonable discussion. The same old contemptuous, insulting, back-and-forth I noticed at the beginning, only worse. Frankly, i'm glad to be free of the place, though I found it to be intriguing for years. Very little honest, edifying discussion - more about bashing someone's head in and a certain ganging up on users. There exists this popular notion that anyone who diverges from the general consensus is a hopeless puppet of the media. Whatever is the point
BF is much bigger than us (captain obvious....I know) and I think with that comes a mixed multitude that we don’t have to deal with here. If we grew we’d probably have the same problem. We’d have vitriolic folk and sometimes I am guilty myself. Where it should be different, and I think is different here, is leadership. They’ve had some mixed multitude not only in the general population (that will happen), they’ve had it in the leadership.....badly. All leaders are fallible. Good leaders do stupid stuff less often and own up to it when it happens. Over there.......?
I often post and then make quick changes immediately, thinking “I was too harsh”. I try to be kind. Sometimes I fail - at least in my mind.
Agree. Nicely stated. It’s a ‘fight club’ of sorts. Bf has its role tho.. Forums like this, >smaller<, have a good chance of real mentorship. When you get that big, things get tricky.
I took a swing through BF as a guest to see if there's much of interest going on. There were a few names I recognised - Fenris popped up a couple of times, but if I recall he posted mostly in Contro and I don't think I could see that as a guest. I saw Brother Mark's name - I always had time for him even though I disagreed with him on a lot of things, simply because he and I could always talk without getting ugly. A bunch of names I didn't recognise and it seemed there were endless discussions about little horns and Daniel. So maybe ProjectPeter did turn it into a madhouse where people bicker over whether 10 kings refers to the European Union or some other supranational entity while ignoring the more basic stuff like loving one another. From what I could see I didn't feel overly inspired to get my password reset. Leadership is fallible, as you say. The problem arises when leadership acts if it is thinks it is infallible. I have very vague recollections of a situation when a user thought they had been treated too harshly and ended up having their infraction cancelled and an apology. I think it was on BF, and I'm pretty sure the mod issuing the apology wasn't ProjectPeter. My vague recollection is of being involved in some way, although I don't remember whether it was as the mod who issued the apology or the mod who voted that an apology was warranted. But hey, I'm not perfect either. I honestly think respect for moderation staff rises when they are willing to step up and accept they got it wrong, and take corrective action. When staff are little more than strutting miniature Stalins ready to stamp on something in their jackboots it's easy to see why people get fed up, and why a forum ceases to be fun.
Just because I have been there continuously, I don't thing the End Times area has been influenced that way. I rarely, if ever, saw PP in that forum. It is still the busiest forum, but it's been pretty consistently such for quite awhile.
The gradually shrinking, active membership over yonder might also point to a cultural trend away from that type of public discourse where everything has been aggressively done to death, with very little in the way of reconciliation, unity or testimony.
You're correct Tango. There's still members of the admin crew hiding behind that curtain an unwilling to admit to even the smallest errors. My first draft, The Rookie thought to be excellent. His words. BUT, he needed to get all the staff on board and agree. He brought it back with some members thought it was too harsh. Just one sentence really. Could I guess which one and could I revise it? After two more edits and removing admission, forgiveness and retribution. The only thing left and I left it in on purpose, was "mistakes were made." It wasn't until I removed that they finally approved it. Whoever "they" are. Heck, it could have only been one person. The Rookie insisted in had to be unanimous before we could move forward with it. The Rookie was perfectly fine with the first draft and if it were something that could have been handled with a simple majority vote, i believe the first draft would have been approved. The Rookie is willing to stand up and take responsibility. That's a good sign at least the leader has his head on straight. I'll continue talking to him about how the masses would appreciate a leadership more if they're honest and willing to admit mistakes He's a pretty good mediator though. He honored my position. Showed respect. Complemented. Grateful and graceful. The staff must be held accountable. Publicly would be great. Even if was a simply stated, "mistakes were made."
I think stronger minded moderators are needed in both forums . Prophecy and Contro. Having been a mod in Contro it was as simple as getting to know the players and yanking the reins the first sign of conflict. I've found that bullies are just big babies and will cry when their knuckles are rapt with the ruler. They AND the casual observer soon learn the rules. Seldom did I have to call someone to C2M. And even then they were usually the ones going to be banned no matter what or where. Firm and fair. From the beginning.
Yep.... sad but true. I remember a guy on a totally different site I used to use, one that awarded points based on activity and feedback. He was very honest with people, he'd just say it the way it was, and he would give negative scores if something wasn't very good. But take away any of his precious points and the howling started - his comments were helpful, don't you know, so how dare you mark his considered criticisms as unhelpful. I suspect the people who want to merely shout at each other and paint with the broadest brush possible are migrating to faceache, where that sort of thing is pretty much the norm. You know, if you see any merit at all in Donald Trump you must be some kind of inbred redneck hillbilly who is probably looking at your sister and thinking she's kinda cute, and if you see any merit at all in Hillary Clinton you must be a card-carrying communist who won't be happy until the US is destroyed from within and the red flag is flying over the White House. And the attack dogs circle, snarling at each other and making no progress whatsoever while also being apparently unable to understand why their opponents can't see how wrong they are on, well, everything.
Interesting that he insisted on a unanimous vote if he was OK with it. From what I could see most of the staff have changed since I was last there, with the notable exception that the amazing one is still clinging on to some kind of status. Since most of the people on staff now didn't make the mistakes the only reason I can think of for resistance would be the amazing one.