The Petra Zone

I have good news for most of you and bad news for some of you. I volunteered to be one of the people banned when Daniel made the offer to get rid of some of us and well, I don't know if that's gonna happen or not, but I have made the decision to take my leave either way. I know this will come as good news for many and bad news for the few who stood with me. I just cannot in good conscience remain here given the behavior I've seen. Some of the new choices in mods proves that the situation is liable to get worse. In fact, I don't even know if this post will survive, but if it does, and anyone wants to find me, I'll be hanging out at the new Classic Petra Fan forum.

http://www.classicpetrafan.рroboards.com/index.cgi

relax Preacherman. I'm not going to act baseb upon my opinions or belief. I hope the others won't either. Everyone is welcome to their opinion. Let's just put all this behind us and try to move on to better things like Petra.

It's definitely not you that I was concerned about. I'm sorry Bakes, but seeing Daniel offer to get rid of certain people as a favor to the certain other people was just way too far. That is probably the most unChristlike thing I've ever seen done on a Christian board and I just can't be part of it any longer.

Absolutely Preacherman,

I'm a new member of the Board, and I just wanted to say that I was a little surprised at the conduct of some of these members on "which version was best"...
And I seriously can't believe that some of you are actually "namecalling" and even "banning" on this board. Guys, we're Christian Brothers in Christ, and we shouldn't treat family this way...

And as for this "classic" version of Petra, sure, some of us may have enjoyed the Schlitt years best, but this "new" cd is still continuing Petra's mission... To reach people for Christ, and to strengthen fellow believers... and that's what Petra's been about since the beginning...

just my "new member" thoughts,
Randy

Where is this offer to ban people to do other people a favor that you are referring to Preacherman? I did look but maybe I looked in the wrong place or maybe I've missed something.

Preacherman,

I know its been frustrating but its time to put it behind us. The oxy guy was told to cool down and stop name calling via pm but unfortunately continued on. You've been around here long enough to know that we sometimes have spirited debates and this truly all what this is. Even though this version of Petra is not my favorite I still love them all like brothers and will support them with my time and money.
I do hope you reconsider and continue coming around.

Good news is that the new Grave Robber is a masterpiece. Bad news is Clean. Please stick around Preacher.

Uh...what? Why would you offer to ban people? There are only two reasons you ban people: 1) They are misbehaving in such a way that they are causing extreme disruption and other attempts to fix the situation have failed and 2) someone asks to have their account shut down. I've been away on vacation for about a week and have just started making my way through the threads, so maybe I'll discover more about what actually happened, but asking people to volunteer to be banned is ludicrous.

separateunion wrote:Uh...what? Why would you offer to ban people? There are only two reasons you ban people: 1) They are misbehaving in such a way that they are causing extreme disruption and other attempts to fix the situation have failed and 2) someone asks to have their account shut down. I've been away on vacation for about a week and have just started making my way through the threads, so maybe I'll discover more about what actually happened, but asking people to volunteer to be banned is ludicrous.

Daniel appointed a couple of more mods, me as 1.. He's not hanging around much right now, he's been really busy.
I'm not sure why we offered but there are not any bans at the moment.

Okay, I think I read the post in question, and here are my thoughts:

First of all, if someone is going to be banned, it should happen privately. Announcing in the middle of a thread that you have banned or are planning on banning someone is a poor way to handle things.

Secondly, as I said before, a person should only be banned if all other attempts to fix the situation have failed or if the person is an immediate threat to the integrity of the board and it's members. Acting childishly or name calling is not an automatic reason to ban someone. PMs should be sent to an offender to attempt to resolve the situation first. This is another reason why bans should not be publicly announced (unless circumstances dictate that the board has a need to know): a mod or admin could have been PMing back and forth with the offender and made no progress, but the board has not seen this, so the announced ban could come off as harsh.

Thirdly, moderation needs to be handled fairly and consistently across the board (no pun intended). I have brought this up several times before, but I believe that a set of forum rules should be written up and another forum should be set up just for the mods and admins so that they can discuss infractions or issues without putting all of our baggage out there for the whole world to see. This would also help when a mod is feeling overwhelmed by what is going on so that they can vent to the rest of the mods and ask for advice (Daniel, I'm looking at you).

If anyone has left the board over the banning situation and is still reading these posts, I implore you to give the boards a second chance. Despite the fact that people could learn to be a little less sensitive and a little more grown up (that goes for all of us), I have not seen anything that is worthy of someone being banned. I will do what I can to make what I've talked about happen. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to PM me.

Thirdly, moderation needs to be handled fairly and consistently across the board (no pun intended). I have brought this up several times before, but I believe that a set of forum rules should be written up and another forum should be set up just for the mods and admins so that they can discuss infractions or issues without putting all of our baggage out there for the whole world to see. This would also help when a mod is feeling overwhelmed by what is going on so that they can vent to the rest of the mods and ask for advice (Daniel, I'm looking at you).

Something I was thinking about as well.

Good thoughts, SU. That might help in minimizing some of the conflict around here.

I'll go out on a limb and say I haven't always agreed with everything Daniel has posted, but at least he doesn't have a double standard and hide an arrogant, self-righteous attitude behind the guise of "I'm just stating my views" and then complain that people who state their views are obsessed/jealous/bitter/unChristlike, etc.

But again, that's something we all need to guard against...If you want the freedom to state your views you should be willing to allow that for others too and not act like your opinion is all that counts or take it as a personal affront if people don't agree with you.

Shell wrote:Good thoughts, SU. That might help in minimizing some of the conflict around here.

I'll go out on a limb and say I haven't always agreed with everything Daniel has posted, but at least he doesn't have a double standard and hide an arrogant, self-righteous attitude behind the guise of "I'm just stating my views" and then complain that people who state their views are obsessed/jealous/bitter/unChristlike, etc.

But again, that's something we all need to guard against...If you want the freedom to state your views you should be willing to allow that for others too and not act like your opinion is all that counts or take it as a personal affront if people don't agree with you.

Agreed! Daniel has always been upfront and honest, maybe the banning wasn't handled with the most professionalism but Daniel was the only mod around and I think got overwelmed

executioner wrote:

Shell wrote:Good thoughts, SU. That might help in minimizing some of the conflict around here.

I'll go out on a limb and say I haven't always agreed with everything Daniel has posted, but at least he doesn't have a double standard and hide an arrogant, self-righteous attitude behind the guise of "I'm just stating my views" and then complain that people who state their views are obsessed/jealous/bitter/unChristlike, etc.

But again, that's something we all need to guard against...If you want the freedom to state your views you should be willing to allow that for others too and not act like your opinion is all that counts or take it as a personal affront if people don't agree with you.

Agreed! Daniel has always been upfront and honest, maybe the banning wasn't handled with the most professionalism but Daniel was the only mod around and I think got overwelmed

Just to be clear, I have nothing against Daniel. I'm just pointing out some issues I see with what happened. I think having a private forum for mods/admins would help alleviate the feeling of being overwhelmed because all the mods could discuss issues that were occurring and decide a best course of action as a group. Having some basic rules would also give us grounds for any disciplinary action we might take.

separateunion wrote:

executioner wrote:

Shell wrote:Good thoughts, SU. That might help in minimizing some of the conflict around here.

I'll go out on a limb and say I haven't always agreed with everything Daniel has posted, but at least he doesn't have a double standard and hide an arrogant, self-righteous attitude behind the guise of "I'm just stating my views" and then complain that people who state their views are obsessed/jealous/bitter/unChristlike, etc.

But again, that's something we all need to guard against...If you want the freedom to state your views you should be willing to allow that for others too and not act like your opinion is all that counts or take it as a personal affront if people don't agree with you.

Agreed! Daniel has always been upfront and honest, maybe the banning wasn't handled with the most professionalism but Daniel was the only mod around and I think got overwelmed

Just to be clear, I have nothing against Daniel. I'm just pointing out some issues I see with what happened. I think having a private forum for mods/admins would help alleviate the feeling of being overwhelmed because all the mods could discuss issues that were occurring and decide a best course of action as a group. Having some basic rules would also give us grounds for any disciplinary action we might take.

Yeah I think the above actions need to be taken; I do think a basic rules post needs to be posted and marked at the top of each topic section.