What good is an internet forum for JWs?

[divergenceKO]

17 hours ago, JW Insider said:

That's not you playing around with aliases again, just to confuse everyone, is it TTH?

This just proves who the owners really are. Thank you.

Some of us now know who the real Admin and Asst Admin are, TTH, and JWinsider. Some of us also know TTH gives JWinsider the position to "delete" people that are being honest and disagree. You can lie to the people some of time but you can't escape the inevitable when both of you start Instant messaging to get someone banned.

This just means the jokes on both of you.

[TrueTomHarley]

2 minutes ago, divergenceKO said:

Some of us now know who the real Admin and Asst Admin are, TTH, and JWinsider.

Shh. don’t tell anybody.

Besides, I don’t trust that JWI as far as I can spit. He is scheming to become top dog.

[JW Insider]

18 hours ago, divergenceKO said:

Some of us also know TTH gives JWinsider the position to "delete" people that are being honest and disagree.

And if I do a good enough job doing that, TTH will finally give me the keys to delete people who are being dishonest and who agree. But he's a tough taskmaster, gathering where he does not winnow, reaping where he does not sow, etc. etc. And for some unknown reason he always carries a tape measure with him to see how far he can spit!  (?!?!?)

[divergenceKO]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

TTH will finally give me the keys to delete people who are being dishonest and who agree.

I doubt it. You're still here. JTR is still here. You ban someone who can show the dishonesty that compromises your ability to continue that dishonesty, while attempting to have people think by word manipulation you're ahead on the debates. I believe you also call, down-voting (spamming), more dishonesty. This is the only way you can get ex-witnesses to up=vote that dishonesty. It is silly to try injecting humor with something, you and TTH have been caught with. Anna's smiley face won't change what is already known by some of us, with your actions.

[JW Insider]

3 hours ago, divergenceKO said:

You're still here.

So is Allen Smith.

3 hours ago, divergenceKO said:

You ban someone

I have never banned anyone. And if I had the power to ban someone from this forum, I wouldn't.

I don't believe it's useful to ban anyone from an Internet forum. The Internet is full of persons dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorders, manic-depressive tendencies, and a host of other disorders and tendencies and social difficulties. Internet forums attract such persons and we can never tell who is suffering from any of these issues and who isn't. And perhaps that often goes for admins and site owners, too. Who of us when trying to judge others of such things, is fully aware of our own mental and social failings?

As far as I'm concerned, everyone can stay, and forum software should allow individuals the ability to choose who they choose to read from. A forum owner or admin should have the ability to perform some actions against a specific post, if there is good reason and if other persons are bringing it to their attention. But they should not take it upon themselves to remove anyone's posting privileges, and they should definitely not delete all of that person's past posts.  The rebuke of the majority should be enough for them.

Contemporary English Version
(2 Cor 2:6) Most of you have already pointed out the wrong that person did, and this is punishment enough for what was done.

I don't think any of us really can know the effect of upvoting and downvoting on others. I believe that the only person I have ever down-voted, at least in the last few years, is JTR. Never any of Allen's or his minions. I think JTR can take it, and even more of his posts have deserved a downvote, in my opinion, than the ones I have actually downvoted. Upvotes and laughs I give out liberally, but I don't use the "Ha-Ha" as a way of expressing haughty derision the way that Allen and most of his other identities were apt to use it.

Some obviously come here because they love the banter, they love to have their ideas challenged, they love to be provocative, or they love to find persons they can feel 'holier than.' Some come here because they can learn interesting things about subjects they are interested in, things they might not have considered. In the case of Witnesses, I think that many of us enjoyed the challenge of meeting that preacher when out in service who would challenge us and we'd stay for half an hour. (Guilty!) I used to start Bible Studies by the dozens, literally, with college students, for up to two years per study, and many would come up with some difficulties I had never heard of before. A very low percentage were ever baptized, about 3 out of 30. Now, we just don't do that anymore.  Perhaps some of us miss it.

[TrueTomHarley]

27 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

 I think that many of us enjoyed the challenge of meeting that preacher when out in service who would challenge us and we'd stay for half an hour. (Guilty!)

It can be awkward running into one of these characters. Sometimes they start fights with us. Sometimes (alas) we start fights with them.

Recently I spoke with one fundamentalist type and it threatened to go that way. Finally learning, after all these years, I said: “Look, you think we’re doing it all wrong. We think you’re doing it all wrong. We’ll steal members from your church in a heartbeat if we can, and you’ll do the same to us. Let’s just agree on those things.

That out of the way, we were able to enjoy a fine conversation on the importance of faith and the challenge of maintaining it today, knowing that we could always come back and haggle out those things later.

With liberal clergy, I sometimes just ask them to describe what they do in the course of a day. I don’t assume, as I might have when I was younger, that the answer will be: “Nothing.”

Not too long ago I hopped out of the car to do a minister’s home. A sister of the old school wanted to accompany me, but I said: “No, you’ll get in a fight with him.” She felt bad, so did I, and I did apologize. Still, I know how it would have gone:

”Interesting. Thank you for that. Now let’s see what the Bible has to say.”

[Equivocation]

@JW Insider Now that you mentioned that, some who have thr ban hammer sometimes use it with bad intentions. An example would be if you logically defeat an admin in a discussion of, for instance, there are superhero junkies who take it to the extreme, prove the admin wrong and embarrass him or her in front of other users, the ban hammer will be thrown.

There was a forum I use to be on that has some weird global announcement. When someone gets banned or perma banned, large red text will appear on the screen in your English preference and everyone can make comment in a global chat.

At the end of the day tho, you give someone power to do something there's no telling what they'll do.

[JW Insider]

41 minutes ago, Equivocation said:

some who have thr ban hammer sometimes use it with bad intentions.

I'm sure that has happened before.  Although it sounds like a completely different kind of forum where such experiences were known, where the admin was involved with or cared about the topics being discussed. I get the feeling that the admin here is probably not even happy that most of the posts and activity are centered around a specific religion, when he or she would evidently like to see it broaden out. The posts from the admin are almost always outside of the topics that most of us participate in.

BTW, others in the past have pointed out that you have often used a unique vocabulary on this forum (anachronistic slang). Because I have probably created suspicion in the past by pointing out evidence that associates various accounts with BTK/Allen/divergenceOK/etc., I just wanted you to know that I have never considered you @Equivocation to be one of his aliases. This name may very well be an secondary account for someone else, but not related to any from BTK/Allen/divergenceOK/etc.

[TrueTomHarley]

11 hours ago, Equivocation said:

prove the admin wrong and embarrass him or her in front of other users, the ban hammer will be thrown.

Doesn’t happen here. After all that I have said about the Librarian, that old hen, I am still here to talk about it.

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I get the feeling that the admin here is probably not even happy that most of the posts and activity are centered around a specific religion

Mr. Admin takes his seat at the 17th Annual Conference of Internet Magificents. “Seen the latest stats for users on the WorldNewsMedia forum?” he casually mentions to the Reddit founder. “Pretty, impressive, isn’t it?”

“Big deal, they’re all religious nuts,” the latter answers. Come back when you have people who don’t think the world is flat!”

[TrueTomHarley]

On 10/2/2019 at 10:48 AM, divergenceKO said:

you [JWI] and TTH have been caught with. Anna's smiley face won't change what is already known by some of us, with your actions.

You haven’t been around long enough to discern how it works here:

CMP takes the snap and hands off to JWI. JWI looks for a receiver. TTH is way way out there, but usually flubs the catch.  JTR is also wide open, but he generally gets distracted in cursing out the coach. Melinda looks open. So is Aruana.  JWI throws, hoping for the best. 

Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.

After a few such plays, JWI punts. Witness takes the catch and insists that she should have had the ball all along. Sometimes agent JackRyan takes it instead and calls up to a dozen plays at once. Either of them look for receivers. Matthew 457845 is open. So is Shiwiiiiiii. So is Srecko (hehehe). So is JTR, who technically is on the other team, but 85% of the time it is impossible to tell. 

The thrower hesitates. All of these receivers are known to be distracted by Anna’s smiley face, and whenever that happens, they either miss the catch completely or run headlong into the goalposts. Hoping for the best, he or she throws anyway.

Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.

After a few rounds of this, the Librarian, that old hen, blows the play dead, and calls for another one. Admin puts his head in his hands and cries. He once supposed that web hosting would be his path to respectability.

Understand now?

[JW Insider]

54 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Hoping for the best, he or she throws anyway.

It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance

'Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed

 

        --from link--

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance

'Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed

 

        --from link--

When they asked Don McClain what his song meant, he answered that it meant he would never have to work another day in his life.