What’s the difference between NOM and StayLDS?

[Anonymous]

Thanks Ray for the bump of this old thread. It was just what I was looking for. I do think the phpBB software format isn’t good for keeping track of some really good threads. If it were not for some like you that keep some of the history in your head, this would be not much more than a group stream of conscience diary. That isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t as helpful as having a voted on FAQ section for newbies.

I enjoy the heck out of this site and the wisdom that I feel I can tap into. I GREATLY appreciate each of you that take the time to reply to my questions and others. You have all helped me immensely.

I do feel at times that I am not a perfect fit here lately. I am not fishing for some, “oh we love you” replies. I feel plenty welcome and accepted here. Just as I start to distance myself a bit from church activity. In general I am planning on only attending most sacrament meetings, mainly for my wife, but also a bit to stay connected with friends. So I just don’t feel I am trying really to “StayLDS”. If my wife were to suddenly have a FC and eventually say, “I am out of here” I don’t see myself really spending all that much time back in an LDS chapel.

So a few items I saw on this thread:

Brian Johnston wrote:

NOM = people who want/need to stay positively engaged with the Church, but don’t believe anymore.

StayLDS = people who lost faith, but want to believe again in the LDS Church

Hmmm. I think I am closer to the NOM description.

someone else said wrote:

NOM says, “I’m LDS affiliated, but things just ain’t the same anymore.”

StayLDS says, “Things just ain’t the same anymore, but I will stay LDS.”

Not sure which side of this I would land on. Probably more “Things are not the same any more, but I am not running away from being LDS and want to stay loosely associated with my ward.”

Brian Johnston wrote:

StayLDS is more geared towards people that are largely done with being angry and hurt, who have satisfied some needs to tear everything apart and see how it ticks (this is a positive experience IMO, so don’t read as negative), and who make the decision to move into a new phase of believing and faith (not all go that route). I don’t think NOM supports the group I just described. They can’t so easily. They have a very important but different mission.

I certainly would say I am more on the StayLDS side on this.

I did go look at NOM a bit and I do get a feeling of a lot more angst and anger. It seems that StayLDS is just a bit more “mature” and slow to come to a conclusion and only after really thinking about all angles first. I do like that. I for one am not at a point of saying that there is anything wrong with others believing in the validity of the church’s narative, but I just can’t say I do. Who knows what will change and maybe I will desire like others to become more active after a bit of time of backing off a bit.

[Anonymous]

It’s also important to note that NOM has new administrators. The admin and moderator team of a decade ago is gone. Some because they left, others just got too busy elsewhere. Just like wards or neighborhoods, leadership/social roulette takes over. What may have been moderated one way years ago, is different today. My husband, who is a no-Mo, was a massive NOM-mer. About three years ago he backed off. He felt the direction it was taking didn’t help him. He won’t be a returning LDS-er in any format, but the intense negativity was more than he wanted in his day. (This is not a criticism of anyone on NOM- Just an observation of change).

Many of the admins and moderators that started here are still connected to it. That helps keep it stable.

Also – the past 3 years have been ugly on a LDS cultural front and NOM is a great rage place (that is a no judgement statement). Over here we are a discussion group.Some the very same things tick us off, hurt our hearts, blow our minds. Yes we each vent a bit, but raging doesn’t seem to be a personal style of most of us. We want to think, consider, process. Not everyone here is a “STAYER”. Many have left. Hopefully it was a calmer transition.

In short, it’s a temperament.

[Anonymous]

I sometimes visit the NOM forum and occasionally post there. The difference I see is that most people there seem to be staying because they feel like they have to and that there’s no way out. That is, their spouses and/or other family members are faithful LDS and leaving would hurt them and their relationships. I also see them as more wanting the church to change instead of changing themselves. And of course, there’s always the anger and negativity one can see there, and I frankly don’t like that they seem to celebrate people leaving the church. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad for some people to leave the church, and for some it really is the best thing – but not necessarily to be lauded and congratulated the way I often see it done there. I encountered the NOM site long before I encountered StayLDS, but it wasn’t for me at that point in my journey and isn’t now, either. I like our discussion here much better, and unlike NOM we are rarely derided for a faithful point of view here. In my view StayLDS is for people who want to stay, NOM is for people who feel like they have to stay.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your honest posts, LH.

In some ways…I see different approaches, but some similar goals…just different styles. Some people here at this site don’t believe but want to stay and learn to nuance words and meanings. Some people are really trying to have new meaning to things, and see it from different perspectives, can hold on to belief in things, even if they don’t see it the same as before.

It does seem that it takes some effort to nuance it and go slow and look for meaning and symbolism and try to stand up for yourself at church as the ugly duck.

Some people just don’t want that…it doesn’t work for them. I respect the NOM site and how they make it easier to just be blunt and call it like you see it. No nuance needed. But that doesn’t work for some people because it leads to more negative venting without strategies to look for faithful ways to stay positive about the church and the leaders.

So…I think people in both sites can believe, disbelieve, or redefine belief. The sites just seem to have different styles that work for different people.

I would say I go through different phases, many times more positive tone, many times needing a break. It goes back and forth.

And also….”oh we love you”!! Your contributions help me and I learn from your posts. THanks man.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

I sometimes visit the NOM forum and occasionally post there. The difference I see is that most people there seem to be staying because they feel like they have to and that there’s no way out. That is, their spouses and/or other family members are faithful LDS and leaving would hurt them and their relationships. I also see them as more wanting the church to change instead of changing themselves. And of course, there’s always the anger and negativity one can see there, and I frankly don’t like that they seem to celebrate people leaving the church. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad for some people to leave the church, and for some it really is the best thing – but not necessarily to be lauded and congratulated the way I often see it done there. I encountered the NOM site long before I encountered StayLDS, but it wasn’t for me at that point in my journey and isn’t now, either. I like our discussion here much better, and unlike NOM we are rarely derided for a faithful point of view here. In my view StayLDS is for people who want to stay, NOM is for people who feel like they have to stay.

An absolutely perfect summary, in my opinion!

[Anonymous]

If you look at NOM now it’s not really the same as it was even a few years ago. It seems like NOM has always had more militant atheist types that like to ridicule the Church and religion in general in a disrespectful way as well as people that literally hate the Church and practically everything it stands for than on StayLDS as far back as I have been reading these forums which I guess makes sense given the more lenient level of moderation at NOM and what was generally a larger number of people coming and going at NOM compared to here. However, lately it seems like NOM has reached a relative low point (or high point if you like that sort of thing) in terms of the overall negativity, cynicism, and bitterness toward the LDS Church.

Personally I think the exclusion policy, excommunications of Kate Kelly and John Dehlin, and/or conference talks seen as retrenchment basically caused many of the NOMs that were similar to people you would find at StayLDS to essentially give up on the Church and move on at least emotionally if not physically as well so some of them stopped posting as much if at all leaving behind more posters that don’t seem all that different from what you will find on various ex-Mormon websites. On top of that, it seems like only about 3 of the moderators are still around at NOM and there are some technical issues because the administrators forgot to pay the bills and/or the site was hacked so no new people have joined NOM for several months. Some administrators said they were going to try to fix the issues but I’m not sure they have been fixed yet or if it is even possible to sign up for a new account there now. I would be sad if NOM were to die similar to the way FLAK did but it actually seems like a real possibility at this point in spite of some die-hard posters that have stuck around as long as they have so far.

[Anonymous]

newordermormon has been offline for a while now. I don’t know what the story is. I know they’ve been having technical issues for several months now.

Here’s info that was in one of their threads:

Thayne wrote:

Two things happened.

First, the primary domain that controls NOM, was allowed to expire. This was mostly intentional as I had no desire to maintain it. The mistake was in not replacing it with another domain, which I need to do soon. Some/many of the annoying things like avatars missing and email are related to this issue.

Second, some of the sub-domains, including NOM were ‘hacked’, if you can call it that. Pretty tepid effort by internet standards. Or maybe they were just getting started. In any case, that was easily fixed by restoring the code from backup, and things like the footer and the admin page came back.

Still to do, work with the hosting company to fix the first issue. Update all the software to patch security holes. Evict some ancient domains. Find a new Prophet, Seer and Revelator for this place.

I’ll update again when I’ve fixed the domain problem.

Cheers,

Thayne wrote:

Scared wrote:

Thanks, Thayne! Great news!

Okay – I am curious as to who hacked the site. (Please, please, please make it a serious felony by the COB).

Sorry. Nothing interesting. Just a click farm out of Poland.

The more relevant/recent developments right before they went offline:

1) The site started running slower and slower with many page loads timing out.

2) There were no new users since June but one of the admins manually activated many pending accounts a few days before they went offline. I doubt that had anything to do with the site going offline but the site had just gotten to a place where new people could join again and *poof* offline.

I hate to see the site disappear and I hope things get resolved. It would be a shame to lose a color from the Mormon spectrum.

[Anonymous]

So the difference now is StayLDS is online, and NOM is not!

[Anonymous]

Sheldon wrote:

So the difference now is StayLDS is online, and NOM is not!

I laughed out loud at this, but then I got a little disheartened. I enjoy that site when I’m in the right mood.

[Anonymous]

What happened?

[Anonymous]

When I checked the other day, the NOM site was down (they didn’t pay or the domain registration). Not sure if that what is being said.

[Anonymous]

I’m bummed the NOM site is down, been missing it this week.

[Anonymous]

SunbeltRed wrote:

I’m bummed the NOM site is down, been missing it this week.

nibbler wrote:

I hate to see the site disappear and I hope things get resolved. It would be a shame to lose a color from the Mormon spectrum.

I agree, although I have to say that the comment in your quote above (“Please, please…felony by the COB) is an example of why I don’t feel comfortable there. But when certain people chime in, there’s real food for thought. And a recurrent theme there – a sad one – is how trapped people feel because of their families. Our all or nothing/in or out culture is making family life hard for a LOT of people.

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