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I am editing and closing the NOM thread. The link is not to NOM itself but rather to a thread exclusively started to complain about SatyLDS and my moderating. His comments are explicitly insulting of this site. I honestly don’t care about the insults of me, but he is openly saying everyone here is scared of my dictatorial approach. I truly and literally couldn’t care less about that post, except for the way it disparages everyone here and labels everyone who participates here as cowards. He even is saying I am calling NOM an anti-Mormon site, and I have never done that.
I have tried to be patient, but actively trying to pull people away who are trying to stay and find peace and taking them to a site that is full of bitterness and vitriol crosses WAY over the line, particularly when that post does nothing but trash us. That simply is immature and incredibly childish. Calling us unbelievable for not allowing it to be referenced here is just icing on the cake.
I respect Cadence’s response to this whole situation; I have no respect at all for cwald’s.
I vote to ban cwald, as painful (truly, deeply painful) as that is for me, unless he lets up and goes back to respecting our rules. I don’t see that happening, given what he is saying about us on NOM. I also think if we do this that it has to be communicated beforehand to him by someone other than me – and that he has to be told it was not my dictate and not my sole decision.
What do each of you think?
I want your sincere input, no matter what it is. If I am crossing a line and can’t see it, I want to know.Postscript: I wrote a post providing the link to New Order Mormon forum, with a note about it and the appropriateness of referencing it here. I deleted multiple comments from cwald in Bear’s post asking for other “soft” places, since he kept writing insulting comments that kept trying to ignore Bear and promote NOM in that thread.
I agree. In responding to his NOM thread I got the distinct impression that he was talking past me. That he wasn’t really interested in engaging me but instead was looking to attract other disaffected or poke at Ray or someone else. I wasn’t sure if in his references to “carefully crafted sentences”, “coded messages”, and “double-speak” if he was talking about me or not. Perhaps he was painting his brush broadly to include all those that participate here.
I would not mind contacting him – though he does not seem to respect me.
Some family emergencies have kept my staylds time to a minimum but I did take some time to look over the recent goings on. I also read the thread on NOM. Here’s my candid view: I identified the most with cwald than any other user for the longest time. Now I’ve got others, people that I now find myself surprised that I identify more and more with as time goes by. I won’t say who.
:shh: 
1) The other points aren’t ranked by importance but this one is. cwald doesn’t feel validated. All of us post things on online forums (any forum, not just staylds) that go ignored. What do we do about it?
Some people might feel underappreciated and slowly fade away because they don’t feel like their input is as valuable as another person’s input. They stop posting maybe even stop visiting the site.
Some people may talk a little louder than they did before to get the attention. Translated to posting on a message board, they repost the same post, word for word. No one reacted or acknowledged the post the first time, time to reiterate my point because no one acknowledged it, it went unheard. It can also translate to being a little more aggressive in making our point.
Sometimes it’s hard to validate cwald’s points because a) some won’t agree, no one gets validated 100% of the time b) people see how cwald has been moderated and they may fear moderation should they agree.
2) Sigh, I feel dirty saying this, it’s a phrase that many people are unjustly stung by… he might have trouble leaving staylds alone. He may know that staylds isn’t a good fit but he can’t leave it well enough alone. In that sense a banning might be in his own best interest. It would help him stay at a place that’s a more suitable outlet for him. His NOM thread shines a little light on the “you can’t leave it alone” problem that can exist in any environment, not just the church or staylds, he has friends here. He wants to interact with them. He may be trying to draw people over to NOM so he can maintain the friendships that he wants to maintain over there.
3) In his NOM thread he says that the thing that bothers him most is that he says what everyone else is thinking and gets in trouble for it. I completely get that, I even agree. I think we have the additional problem of conflating things. We might say “this one thing out of the whole crosses the line” but he may hear “your whole point crosses the line.”
I hate going to the temple, the church must board them up and give the money to charity. We may say the demand at the end of that sentence is out of line but he may feel like we’re saying that it’s not okay to say that we hate going to the temple… which I’m guessing is okay?
4) I believe we’ve said that we hold cwald to a higher standard than most because of how long he’s been around. I don’t know all of cwald’s issues, we don’t know each other, but perhaps we hold him to too high a standard?
Trying to pull people over to NOM crossed the line for me. I’m still not completely sure what a NOM is but if I have some steam to blow off or something I’m free to do it there, what’s to stop cwald from keeping the comments he knows fit with the NOM community over at NOM and keep his staylds appropriate comments at staylds. Why cross pollinate. I’m not sure what that line is myself but cwald does seem to know it. Encouraging people to go over to another site? I don’t see how anyone would think that would fly.
I’ll say this much. I (me personally)
needstaylds to be a positive place. If it means I have to learn to talk in code and doublespeak, so be it. I’m not saying that we do speak in code and use doublespeak (how’s that for some code and doublespeak!) but if we do it helps us communicate to friends and family in ways that don’t offend them but can still be heard. In that regard staylds may be a practice ground for how to have these conversations in our wards and homes. There’s a spectrum of sites out there and staylds needs to hold it’s ground to make that spectrum cover a wider band. If we need to blow off some steam or whatever there are other sites were we can do that.
Ray, I just saw your thread about NOM in the general discussion forum. Thanks for that clarification. That was a good way to phrase things.
I have struggled with how to moderate evenly and consistently when it comes to long-term participants. If anything, ironically, I have tried to be more lenient with them than with new participants in some ways. I probably am less patient with them, but I have overlooked things a lot that would have drawn comments if written by a new person who might be a troll. I really appreciate the input. I really like cwald, and I have hurt for him and what he has experienced. I have talked quite intimately with him in the past.
I don’t think I have changed in the way I see him, but I know he has changed in the way he sees me. I know he despises me as a prime example of what the LDS Church does to people, since he said so in the NOM thread. I truly don’t care about that on a personal level, except to try to understand if he is right about something I can’t see.
Mostly, I see someone I I used to respect turning into a stereotype – and it hurts. However, I have to take my role here seriously and act when I see someone attacking and insulting everyone here so blatantly – and doing and saying things that he used to label as unacceptable. Cwald has requested moderation of some people in the past who did exactly what he is doing now – but from the traditional, orthodox side of the line. (trying to draw people away from our mission) That hurts as much as anything, since it says something sad about the state of his heart right now.
Everyone else, please let me know what you think. I want everyone to provide input, if you want to do so, before we reach any final decision – and I want whatever we decide to be a group decision as much as possible.
I’m very frustrated with how things have gone with cwald. Historically, I think we’ve all appreciated his contributions. The problem is that he’s got no impulse control at time, and he’s simply bitter. It’s a shame. He really wants allies in what has become a personal squabble for him. Not sure why it has come to this. And I agree that it’s going to be nearly impossible to get him to simmer down and not see himself as a victim here, broadcasting his ill treatment on NOM which is simply too large a community to be all positive or all negative. He now is being encouraged on NOM to PM everyone he knows here and invite them to NOM privately. To his credit, I don’t think he did that. You are more likely to know than I am, since he won’t send me a message, I am sure.
He said he is leaving in the moderation thread, so I went ahead and deleted his account – but left his comments in place. I figured that would force a breather, in case he gets upset again and comes back looking for another fight.
God bless you, everyone, for your efforts here. It is gratifying to know I am not the only one who struggled to know how to proceed. This is where the pain really is, but it still is worth the effort.
This has been a difficult way to end what was a very good Sabbath until I got home. Good night, everyone.
I did see this earlier, but I was having such a great day I put off reading the whole thing, looking at the NOM thread, etc., until now. I would like to tell you all about my great day, perhaps tomorrow. I have also seen an increased bitterness in cwald, and I agree with Nibbler’s point that I think he is having a hard time leaving us alone – it wasn’t that long ago he kind of stormed out and said see you in 6 months or something to that effect. Perhaps it’s like the ex-members who just can’t leave the church alone.
Also like NIbbler, I sometimes go to NOM and blow off a bit of steam but I more often throw in my two cents to correct gross over-generalizations or just plan falsehoods. I dislike the negativity and antagonism there and it bothers me that leaving the church is something celebrated there – even though their mission statement sounds very much like ours. I wholeheartedly disagree with cwald’s attempt to draw others there. I have in fact done the opposite and invited people who don’t really seem to fit there over here (via pm) and some of them have come and contributed. It also bothers me that he is badmouthing us there when most of them won’t bother to really come and see what we discuss – they’ll just take his word for it (as is evidenced in the thread). And, having been banned from lds.net, the moderation is nowhere near what it is like there.
So, yes, Ray, I think he has crossed the line. I think you, Roy, Mom, Ann, me, and others have given him ample leeway and counsel. While in one way it breaks my heart, I support banning him.
I guess I’m too late. I’m seeing a couple of MUCH more moderate/positive comments from him in the last little while, but even before those, I don’t lean toward banning him. However, I can completelyunderstand why someone else could reach a different conclusion. 🙂 And that said, I haven’t read what he’s doing over at NOM. I just think that banning him here might make whatever he’s doing there worse.
I know I have already entered a vote, but I feel like my vote is swayed by my emotions. I am embarrassed to be named specifically on the NOM board. I saw cwald as a friend who had entrusted me/us with his story. I knew he was on NOM, but I feel exposed when he takes our stuff and lists names on the board. That is probably not a good reason to ban someone. For that reason I will rescind my vote and let others decide.
I’m just catching up on reading these comments. I know where cwald is based on his posts over the years, but haven’t really seen him actively go against this mission before, even when he disagrees with us or goes after Ray. I thought I’d reach out to him, PM him and ask what’s up, maybe mediate a bit. But it looks like his profile has been deleted. Don’t see him as a user anymore.
He must have done that. Which shows again…he isn’t where he was at before…he has become more bitter. Which is sad.
He’s trashing Ray over on NOM. I don’t love that. Plus, NOM is enfolding him in their arms and berating us in the process, not by name (except Ray). It was good to see a few people like SunbeltRed stick up for Ray and give proper props. I’m tempted to join their discussion. But probably won’t.
The ironic part is that I didn’t deactivate his account and delete the NOM recruitment thread until AFTER he said he was leaving – and, as I said, I did that to keep him from coming back and fighting us again (and because that thread was completely irrelevant at that point and served absolutely no purpose). It is what it is – and, seriously, the only part that bothers me strongly is that he is trashing everyone here as being cowards.
He simply has to cast himself as a martyr, no matter what – and I have talked with enough people who know him (outside his family, with whom I have not tried to talk at all) about his overall situation and personality to question seriously now the narrative he has told ever since he joined us. I’m not saying his family didn’t contribute significantly to his path and bitterness, but I not convinced it is as one-sided as he cast and still casts it.
Please don’t wade into the discussion unless you can write a comment or two and leave without heartburn. Pardon the old statement and the implication I don’t mean, but wrestling with pigs only gets you dirty – and the pigs like it.
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