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Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:00:07 -0000

Dear Al:

I hope you approve this post.

This extended personal assault on my character is completely wrong and inappropriate, and I am quite surprised that you countenance it.

The amount of rampant projection and baseless gossip here has managed to exceed even my tolerance level.

Al: whichever moderator told you that is mistaken. You were banned because you persistently tried to circumvent our policies especially when Monshin Paul Naamon, the US Tendai Rep showed without doubt that Prosser was lying about his ordination status. You backed the wrong horse, in the worse way. But you were not banned for starting Open Buddha; we don't and never have banned people for deciding to start new forums. We don't encourage them to advertise them on our forum, however. And you have left out the fact I have defended you on one occasion that you know of, and you should understand that in point of fact, you would have been banned long ago from E-Sangha without my running interference for you repeatedly.

Peter: I was the only person that was opposed to banning you, until you went over the edge here and also at e-Sangha. One moderator did you a disservice--- there was never any hint of a desire to ban you for "...converting to Islam". There was a discussion about "If a Vajrayana practitioner gives up Buddhism completely, how do we deal with this from a samaya point of view."

And as you can see here, other board members i.e. Silent Bob, have also thought you had left Buddhism entirely. So you cannot merely pretend this is something that was obviously perceived to be a joke.

Further, this whole chain of events was started by you, actually: a user complained to me in January that you were harassing them over the question of rebirth, and so we mods started a discussion about you in which the issue of your conversion to Islam was raised. We told the user, actually, that you were not harassing them, since one PM does not and cannot constitute harassment. Of course, what is interesting is that you neglect to mention the scores of complaints you have made about other users, including requests to have so and so banned. So your pretense to democracy and open forums is wan posturing, really.

Dzogchen Community:
As far as Dzogchen Community goes, I am actually at Tsegyalgar three days a week at least; when you log into the Mirror Online, you are using code that I wrote in a solution that I designed. I am a fully paid up, participating member of Dzogchen Community. And yes, I am a practicing Sakyapa, and mostly present things from that point of view, and have a two formal degrees from that school.

People really need to examine their projective tendencies. You are not discussing facts. You are indulging in fantasies and speculations.

E-sangha has all kinds of moderators. form lenient to strict. In fact I do the least moderating of all of any of the moderators and tend to be the most lenient. Here, however, it would seem that I am responsible for all of your woes. Well, I will tell, you are all projecting and indulging in fantasies. Over at E-Sangha, the mods are rather astonished at how badly you folks have it wrong. If anything, they think I am too easy.

Now, I have had my say in this shark pool, you can return to your feeding frenzy of character assassination.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:39:08 -0000

"He is a pompous bully."

Grow up.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:17:36 -0000

Al:

"I’ve met Jion Prosser but I am not a student of his so I hardly “backed the wrong horse.”

He misrepresented his credentials. In this respect, I deferred to Eijo's expertise-- he lives in Japan, and is conversant with what goes on in the Tendai school. Also, Monshin knows the whole scene over there and here. Prosser is not entitled to be called "Ajari". He misrepresented himself. He has received only the minimum training needed to perform minor rituals in people's homes. But you don't have to believe me. You can investigate things yourself.

"“The mods think I go too easy on people” and dismiss it. There is obviously, to anyone but you, something wrong with E-sangha."

Al: I really hope your community grows as fast as E-Sangha. I hope you have to deal with the crazies, the nihilists, and the nay sayers, the spooks, games players, and so on. You will learn a thing or too, I suspect, about being a moderator of a large, diverse religious site with thousands of users with diverse views.

It is completely incorrect to lay whatever complaints people have about E-Sangha at my feet. On line, I persistently see people blaming me for the actions of other moderators which are made without ever consulting me. I rarely personally intervene.

As for Zen priests: all ordained Zen priests can say they are "priests", what they cannot say is that they are "monks"-- because, we, the whole moderating team, have decided that the definition of monk shall be "bhikshu/novice" and quite frankly, Japanese clergy do not qualify as that. We allow them to display their images and so on and advertise as clergy. We require that clergy, whether lay or not, clearly list their credentials. This decision was reached by the consensus of all moderators, including a Japanese priest.

" I can only guess that my blog is one of the few places that ex-E-sangha members here about people speaking about what is really going on there."

No, they can complain in many places besides here. they can and do complain on usenet, web sangha, new buddhist, AOL, and all kinds of places.

Usually people are pissed off at us because they don't like the fact that we don't have room for Buddhism Lite (tm). But it is pretty clear too that they are not talking about what is really going on at e-Sangha, which is quick clear from the massive amounts of unfounded speculation and projection you permit Peter to engage in. For example, it is a fact that Norbu Rinpoche does not like his students to talk about Dzogchen very much. So, we did not shut down all conversation about Dzogchen, we simply farmed the relevant threads back into the Bon and Nyingma forums where the students of Nyingma and Bon Dzogchen teachers can talk about whatever they like. We are still parceling those threads out. We decided that a separate Dzogchen forum was too polarizing and that was not good for the Tibetan Buddhism forum, that and people emailing Norbu Rinpoche to complain is just not a good thing.

The fact is that I have several times tried to leave the position of Admin, and ironically, once Peter himself PMd me thanking me for returning to the post of Admin. I have much better things to do with my time than E-Sangha, actually. However, at this point the moderating staff prefers that I stay on board.

What I think is pretty damn silly is that you all focus all of your resentment on E-Sangha, through me, when actually, for the most part, most people who run into problems at E-Sangha, do so with other mods., and not me.

"I have found you to be pompous, arrogant, dismissive, and, seemingly, awfully ego ridden for a teacher of the Dharma. "

I can't take responsibility for your perceptions of me. You own them, they are yours, and they are not mine. Some people like me, some people hate me, most are indifferent.

What is interesting here is that there is mostly just hot air and projection. The complaints are tired, we have heard them a hundred times. We cannot make everyone happy.

And sooner or later people (apart from those driven by obsessive compulsive disorders, and the net kooks) will find better things to do with their time than complain about me and E-Sangha.

Shikpo:

" I have been practising Vajrayana Buddhism since you were in short trousers..."

Then you should know better than to participate in such blatant character assassinations, and that goes for Peter too. But I am glad your egotism is sufficiently healthy so you can make statements like the one you made here and be completely oblivious to the irony of your engaging in one-upsmanship.

A far as stepping down, the last time I stepped down, Peter wanted me to come back on. Funny how things change in samsara. Well, I expect it.

Say whatever you like, Al, this is exactly the kind of thread that we lock down and prevent on E-Sangha-- no-one has ever been permitted subjected to such a lengthy and unmoderated character attack at our site, not Roach, Gyatso, or anyone.

You have to think very carefully what kind of place you want your forum to be. If this is the kind of thread that will characterize it, no one will come. Or if they do, they will mostly be kooks.

Even Jundo does not permit his users to mar his forum with excessive criticisms of others, including E-Sangha, even though he is truly furious at us at the moment because he was recently suspended again for violating our TOS. His ban was rescinded quite some time ago, you know. And his video attached to this page also is really way out in left field. He has a lot of common sense. You would do well to follow his example and not allow your forum to become a place where people are basically just venting impotent frustration.

N

N

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:27:59 -0000

"In other words, whether others are small or not, you should not, as a teacher, stoop to that level or am I wrong?"

Telling people to "grow up" is not trading insults, nor stooping to a level, it is insisting that people behave like adults rather than small children in a playground.

Frankly, by itself, the name-calling in this thread by Peter, Shikpo and starlight embarrasses me for them. I find it incredible that adults, supposedly functional people with jobs, especially Buddhists, feel the need to indulge in such a vendetta, to engage in such afflicted speech. Whatever valid points there may be, whatever valid criticisms of E-Sangha there may be, are totally invalidated when people engage in such a childish orgy of personal invective.

In short, what you people are playing at is not Dharma, it's just politics.

Yuck.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:32:36 -0000

Al:

"I was making one about the fact that you wouldn’t allow most American Zen priests to call themselves such because their organizations generally broke with the Japanese ones decades go."

No, this is not so. We do not require that from Rinzai and Soto priests because their American lines of transmission are well established and they have an independent body that is in charge of standards for training and ordination.

"Is there a reason why you don’t let users of the site select moderators from their own community?"

We do.

Moderators are selected in one of two ways: one, because they are suggested to the position by other users; two, prospective candidates are vetted by founding members and the other mods.

Originally, the mods were selected by the founding members and Teyes. It has always been an invited system from the beginning. And yes, it is an oligarchy.

E-Sangha, and its mod policies,were formed out of our experience of the totally unmoderated boards at the old Trike site. It was so hellish, Tricycle shut the boards one day without warning.

"... I also allow that people need to vent sometimes and they often need to feel like someone is actually listening to them or shares their feelings. That has happened here, for better or worse."

Peter was one of the most frequent reporters of posts on E-Sangha. He was listened too ad nauseaum. He was banned because he overreacted to a moderator, who incorrectly told him that we were discussing banning him _because_ he had converted to Islam-- we never had such a discussion.

The truth is that we were discussing him because he had been accused of harassment by another user. So in that case, rather than communicating with me directly, he decided to go on a public warpath. That's ok-- in ten years no one will care, in fifty we'll all be dead.

"And that is E-sangha in a nutshell, really. It’s a chance for a select group to play like the self-selected censors for what the Dharma is and to brook no dissent. You guys remind me of the religious police in Saudi Arabia or the clerics in Iran more than Buddhist teachers."

We are not going to permit long arguments about whether the Buddha taught rebirth literally-- he clearly did. Most of the people bitching about censorship on e-Sangha are bitching about this single issue. This also means that the Buddhism Lite (tm) "tradition" will necessarily get short shrift at E-Sangha.

Several Dzogchen teachers have indicated through their students that we not discuss them or their teachings, so we don't. It is not simply Norbu Rinpoche.

The Theravadins are actually the most restrictive bunch on E-Sangha, but we also have a neo-Theravadin section for the Thanisarro, etc., strands.

As far as dissent goes, all people can take up their issues with mods or admins.

As far as you being a moderator-- you have never moderated a large _religious_site. Yes, I know people get religious about Windows, Linux, Mozilla, IE, etc., but it not the same.

The mods and admins are selected by the fifty or so folks who make up the founding members and moderating staff, on Teyes approval. Ultimately, he is the owner of the site, and all serious complaints need to routed to him. Thus far, in five years, he has never once communicated with me about any complaint any user may have brought against the moderating staff. This can mean only two things-- he does not care (which is not the case), or we are functioning in a way he supports and condones.

Ultimately, if someone really wants to complain, they should complain to him.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:37:22 -0000

" You are, personally, a lightning rod for much of the criticism of E-sangha with the behavior that you exhibit but seem to be oblivious too."

This is plain ridiculous, Al. I don't behave in any particular way at all other than tell people what I think. Some people don't like that.

As I said, other mods moderate-- I just write posts, for the most part.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:00:58 -0000

"Surely if anyone was going to be banned in this little scenario ( and no-one of course should have been ) it should have been the moderator that wrongly told him that he was going to be banned !"

Peter may have been misled, he is still responsible for his speech and his actions. The fact that he chose to go to war is his choice. He is still at war, with someone who never had any quarrel with him and never created one i.e. me. As I said, I defended him up to the point where he decided he had to make a grand stand. In fact, when I was trying to sort out whether he really had converted to Islam, which by now we know is not a conception confined to the moderators, he did not bother to answer my emails. So, the fact is that he shut down any chance of effective communication through refusing to answer our inquiries and then going ballistic.

And as I have pointed out, the only reason Peter came to our attention is because another user complained about him.

So while some people may think our role should be one of facilitators, actually, we are forced into a policing role as well because the nature of human interactions are such that people inevitably wind up having conflicts. Our approach to conflict management on E-Sangha is to forbid certain conflicts as counterproductive to the integrity of the board. This is not something I declared by fiat, contrary to opinion of some, but is rather a function of long experience on internet Buddhist bulletin boards by many of the moderating staff and is an ongoing project.

So it would be nice to live in a Buddhist utopia where everyone exercises perfect speech, and everyone posts with thoughts of loving kindness and compassion (you know, the thoughts of loving kindness and compassion exemplified by all of the invective and character assassination here) but the reality of bulletin boards is that people bring their afflicted selves with them (all of us do) and that is what we have to work with.

Al wants to make everything politicized, as far as I can tell, by framing everything in terms of permitting dissent and so on, but I am sorry to say Al, your ideals won't function on a board the scale of ours and you know it to be so.

Anyway, I don't see much use in continuing to discuss things here, as far as I can tell, Peter, etc., are all entrenched in their point of view, E-Sangha is not really committed to working with people who cannot adhere to our basic guidelines, for example, the one that says that one ought not announce grandly one's intent to leave, and then expect to be welcomed back (That, BTW, AL, is what you were actually banned for, not for announcing Open Buddha).

N

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:49:16 -0000

Hi Al:

"Of course, banning a user from a large forum because they announced their intent to leave the forum makes perfect and rational sense."

In fact, all such pronouncements are grandstanding. If you want to leave, leave. If you make a big fuss about it, you are just trying to call attention to yourself.

"...asking “What happened to the long thread that was here yesterday?” is grounds for banning a user from a site?"

That is not grounds for banning. I have never suspended or disciplined a user for asking such a question. It does not happen.

"Effectively, the moderators and administrators of E-sangha have set themselves up as the final authority on what is or is not Buddhism and which Buddhist groups or organizations are really Buddhist and which are not."

We have decided what we will permit in our forum. We have decided, based again on collective experience, that certain topics and groups are not a healthy fit for a forum such as ours, hence no NKT, etc. The internet is a large place, people are free to go where they wish.

"The fact that you can ban anyone who disagrees with you on your own say-so surely doesn’t affect how people interact with you on E-sangha, right?"

I could but I don't. The people I have banned in the past are restricted primarily to those people whom the moderators decide to ban, which is a collective group process, and people who play games and try to use dual nicknames. Other than that, I have not banned anyone.

You are not helping this by making baseless exaggerations such as:

"If they post a picture of themselves wearing their robes, they’ll be banned..."

Any Dharma teacher or clergy person who wants to out themselves as such may do so, providing they provide clear information about their credentials. Prosser, for example, was banned for misrepresenting his credentials. We have banned some other so called "lamas", "priests" and "monks". We have an obligation to protect newcomers from con-men and predators.

"If they, like certain Zen priests, question a literal interpretation of Reincarnation or other doctrines, they’ll be banned."

Literal rebirth is a non-negotiable at E-Sangha, that happens to have been one of the few things Peter liked about E-Sangha, though now of course, he has changed his tune.

As I have pointed out, the vast majority of people who complained about E-Sangha censorship are the Buddhism lite (tm) folks who want their Buddhism to be less filling. They can go elsewhere.

"So, E-sangha is really a web forum for “Beliefs that Malcolm and other moderators approve of coming from lineages or organizations that they recognize” and no one else."

Yes, that covers all Buddhist schools, but excludes the fringes and the post-modern "interpretations". There are other forums where like minded people may go, if they is what they like. E-Sangha is not for them. We are not a suitable forum for everyone, and we do not pretend to be. Our mandate is the propagation of traditional Buddhist schools in Tibet, South Asia and the Far-East and their western off-shoots.

N

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:53:49 -0000

Addendum:

"Our mandate is the propagation of traditional Buddhist schools in Tibet, South Asia and the Far-East and their legitimate western off-shoots."

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:11:37 -0000

Hi Al:

"And you get to decide what is legitimate and what is not, right?"

It is a consensus.

"I’ve never heard of “Buddhism Lite ™” before. It sounds like a straw man that you’ve created though."

It's an old term, and refers to Buddhism without rebirth, without karma (or watered down variants) and so on.

"So, effectively, your final response to all criticisms isn’t to really address the criticisms but to say, “It’s our forum. Lump it or leave it.”"

It is hard to take your criticisms seriously since you don't permit contrary opinions on this thread-- one of the Zen moderators has left comments on this thread you have seen fit not to approve. Who knows who else has left comment, positive and negative.

The only reason you are permitting my comments is that you and Peter have chosen to make things personal. I don't get personal, never have, which is why I can say, as I have repeated, I have run interference for you, and I never had a problem with Peter. But you guys hold an irrational grudge, in my opinion, and personally blame me for practices and policies that were compiled and voted on by the board of moderators and founding members, policies which I have virtually nothing to do with creating, apart from the rebirth clause, which I insisted upon.

And yes, to some extent, we are telling you that if you are not happy at E-Sangha, there are many other places you can find like-minded people,and so you should go there. But I have examined these others forums, and while they are fine as far as they go, they don't have the diversity that we do.

Our forum grew organically, on its own. It continues because it has natural inertia that propels it forward. Like all things, it will eventually decay and die. In the meantime, people can either enjoy E-Sangha, understanding what E-Sangha is and what it is not; or simmer in resentment with misplaced personal grudges that are largely based on projection and fantasy; or, having decided that E-Sangha is not for them, they can just get on with their lives without accumulating further verbal non-virtues.

N

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:08:12 -0000

"However I am more interested in the fact that under this statement is an veiled implication that critisising E sangha is to accrue negative karma."

The kind of baseless gossip, wild speculation and politicking here here is what I am referring to.

"What this forum has done is to provide a platform for views that are widespread on E sangha concerning Namdrol. Indeed I would venture to suggest that they may represent the views of the majority"

This is a total exaggeration. Of course there are people, who for whatever reason, don't like me. I really do not believe for one minute that the majority of the 5000 users on e-Sangha have as negative of me as you pretend. If they did, they would not remain.

N

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:12:29 -0000

"So, if I decided that someone was causing more trouble than they were worth, etc..."

This is exactly the criteria we apply remedies at e-Sangha.

Sorry, you are just being a hypocrite.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:13:21 -0000

"This is exactly the criteria we apply remedies at e-Sangha."

Should be:

""This is exactly the criteria we use to apply remedies at e-Sangha."

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:21:13 -0000

"You have become a byword for authoritarian and deeply unBuddhist nastiness."

It is pretty clear you and Peter are merely carrying out a slanderous grudge campaign, which begins with your dislike of ChNN. You are just playing politics in the name "Dharma". This whole site, as well as Open Buddha is just politics.

The sad thing is that you people waste your time worrying about my person when you have much better things to spend your time on.

Well, I have had my say.

Shikpo, you are tripping, you really need something better to do with your time.

Re: E-sangha Drama Continues

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:04:44 -0000

"I give Malcolm a certain amount of credit for actually being willing to show up and challenge what people were saying in the comments on the post but he did a pretty poor job at presenting a case for how wonderful and neat E-sangha really is and how enlightened (pardon the pun) the moderators are on the site. Most of his responses seemed to really avoid any core criticism of the site."

My point is that you are misdirecting criticisms of a culture at a person. I guarantee that if I were to step down, the culture at E-sangha would remain the same, and dissatisfactory to you.

The reasons that my posts don't address your core criticisms is that frankly, your criticisms are irrelevant to the concerns of the founders of the site, of which I was not one.

E-Sangha is heavily moderated because of a group of users' experience at the old Tricycle boards.

You have permitted the basic message of disapproval of E-Sangha to become conflated with certain ex-members personal bitch fest with me. In that respect, you have become unwittingly involved in the personal grudge match of a couple of users.

In short, you are being used.

But it is your blog, so if you are happy that people are using you for their own ends, that's your business.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:12:57 -0000

"Malcolm, you don’t even have an account on Open Buddha so I really doubt if you know what is going on there. To point out the obvious, the people that you are criticizing here (besides myself) are not even active on the site."

Starlight posts there. And I do examine your site. You cloned our site. Imitation is flattery.

But I don't post at other sites, as I don't have time. There are a lot of them I could post at-- but I am busy.

As I said, I think that you will discover that it is a whole different ball game when you have thousands of users.

And your new post is just recycled complaints. There is nothing new there Al.

There is also a record of your style of interacting with people, Al, as well as Peter's, and so on. It is strange indeed to think that everyone reading these pages will think that your and their words are lovely and wonderful, while mine s horrible, blah blah, blah.

Frankly, most people will laugh at the immaturity of the whole thing. You guys are really creating a tempest in a teacup.

And yes, that is dismissive, and so on. Why is it dismissive? Because you are complaining about things the moderating team is not prepared to change, whether I am an admin or not. So, basically, I think you are wasting your time. But it is your time, and not mine.

N

Re: E-sangha Drama Continues

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:20:45 -0000

"It isn’t like I can’t get on it (I have a spare account even now) but I don’t bother to try anymore. It is a waste of time and a source of the worst kind of meeting of politics and Buddhism at this point."

Of course you have duplicate account, Al-- virtually everyone with any tech savvy can get around our ip blocks and so on.

But the politics are yours, Al, they are not ours.

And you are wrong, people won't stop criticizing me just because I am not an admin any longer, they will keep bitching and moaning about me until they are bored or dead. So, when I decide I have truly better things to do than ban a user every once in a while for being a jerk, or modifying users accounts, and so on, then I will step down and not until then.

One thing that these sorts of threads do, however, is polarize the staff at e-Sangha, and create solidarity amongst them. All Peter, et al's comments have done for the moderating team is confirm for them how right it was to let him go.

Peter once had friends among the moderating team. I think it is safe to say feelings are not so warm towards him any longer.

N

Re: E-sangha Drama Continues

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:01:48 -0000

"Well, anything to help the us vs. them groupthink between the moderator junta and the members of the site, I guess. I mean, the moderators are really the victims in all of this and their draconian and secret policies and methods are all justified, right?"

This is false, al.We don't have secret policies, or secret methods. Your complaints are not being addressed because they are misplaced.

"For someone with no interest in what I or others are saying, you’ve sure posted a lot of messages (more than 20) in the last 24 hours here."

As I said, even my tolerance level for lies, misrepresentation and plain old fallacy has been exceeded.

Re: E-sangha Drama Continues

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:38:09 -0000

"He certainly seems obsessed with this Peter doesnt he ?...."

Umm actually, no, since I don't have a month's worth of speculative annoyed posts going on and on about him. I would say that you and Peter are the ones with the obsession.

N

Re: E-sangha Drama Continues

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:49:38 -0000

"I suggest letting go of your attachment to posts here."

I am not particularly attached to the posts here, but since the door is open, people can see for themselves the pettiness, absurdity and lack of substance of the complaints here.

N

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:51:23 -0000

"That anger is representative of something."

Yes, it represents their afflictions in action.

Re: More E-sangha Thought Control

namdrol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:22:28 -0000

"It must be very frustrating to you not to able to make all this go away by invisibling….."

If it frustrated me, I wouldn't read it and I wouldn't respond. I initially started reading this thread because I could not believe how insane Karma Gendun's complaints were, how disconnected with reality, frankly. Then you and started having a mutual love-in which, and your overblown assertions were also adding fuel to KD's fire. Really, frankly, it's pretty sad.

You and he, and the others do not have any substantive cause for complaint other than your personal distaste for me. Generally speaking, people are not going to judge a whole community because of one person. People who read this are not going to judge all of e-Sangha based on what they read here. Some people will sign on, and they will like it. Other people will hate it right away, and yet others will like it for a while, and then hate it, and so on. We have a 90 percent attrition rate, which is to say that over the past 5 years, 45,000 people or so have passed through, and of those, a bit more than 10 percent are sign on and read regularly. We have about 5,000 active users.

I am responding because you guys simply have it wrong, and you harm your case by indulging in wild, unfounded exaggerations that you then compound things by conflating those issues with my person.

We don't set threads invisible at e-Sangha because we don't happen to like what people say-- we do so because we have policies that are clearly outlined by which we judge certain statements and certain topics to be disruptive to the whole community.

People say all kinds of things at e-Sangha that I don't happen to like very much or agree with. But the fact is that the vast majority of users and posts never encounter a moderator or an admin.

As for other specific bitches, people need to bring these things up with individual moderators since admins have very little daily interaction with users in terms of moderation.

We actually try to do our best to support and help users, answer their concerns and deal with their complaints. In return, we expect cooperation and that people adhere to the guidelines that we have developed over the past five years. Some people seem incapable of this, and so they run into some difficulty.

So, in general, even though I think you guys are wasting your time on all the wild fantasies you have spun here, I really do hope you get one with your lives and stop wasting your precious human birth on being annoyed at an internet bulletin board managed by someone you don't happen to like very much. There really are much, much more important things, like uprisings in Tibet, slaughter of Iraqi civilians by criminals running the US Government and so forth to be worried about-- so put it into perspective-- this is just not an EFF (http://www.eff.org) type of issue, though Al dearly wishes that it were.

N

Re: E-sangha Drama Continues

namdrol — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:28:45 -0000

"Oh you are right there."

Yes, I know. Your complaints are petty, absurd, and lack substance.

I am glad you agree.

Later.

N