See?

[dwmckim]

Just a few various things i'd like to throw out.

As i mentioned earlier (in the other thread) i have tremendous respect for anyone who's a moderator - it's not easy. I was a moderator a LONG time ago when my life was a lot less complicated and had much more free time to devote to the forums. In that entire time, i NEVER deleted or closed a thread. I did bring threads to the attention of other moderators and took place in inter-moderator discussions about certain issues but it is possible to be hands off and view such actions as "last resorts only" and not "hair trigger pre-emptive strikes". No, it's not easy or fun as Fozzie pointed out, but it has been overly and needlessly commonplace as of late and some mods have gone to the extreme of taking the measures as quick easy fixes.

As another openly gay man, i'll also say that in recent years, i've felt like the MC forums have become a less gay-friendly place than it's historically been. I've had similar experiences where when the subject of my affectional preference comes up in a conversation in even a very minor way, threads where the "G" word gets uttered seems to be an early predictor of whether something will happen to the thread.

I've always (online and in real life) been what i describe as quietly open. I don't deny or cover who i am but it's not the first thing anyone has to know about me either. I don't go out of the way to bring it up but i also will honestly and candidly answer when the topic of love interests, crushes, relationships, etc. come up. Even though i'm gay, i've had very little huge experiences in my life in terms of getting involved with anyone, i'm interested in friend-based and not sexual-based relationships and never even really ever been sexually active. It's actually darkly ironic since i've probably done much less than most other gay people i know and have endured the most forms of anti-gay discrimination out of those i know - with the thankful exception of physical violence, i've been through just about every type of bigotry and discrimination - harassment, loss of home/family, loss of ten-year plus job, anti-gay supervisors at other jobs, vandalism to car and home.

I love to discuss areas of my fandom in-depth, including how my experiences as a gay person colors various aspects of my Muppet fandom and vice-versa. I have different perspectives on various things and i like to be able to throw those experiences out on the table as interesting points of view that might not occur to someone with a different background. But it's not as easy to do that here as it once was. There are lots of gay Muppet fans (and i don't think that's at all an accident or a random statistic) and it's nice to also see how shared or diverse those perceptions are among others (in fact there was even once a yahoogroup for gay Muppet fans which was quite active for a while called Friends of Piggy). I also know that a large number of gay fans who were here have given this forum up for TP. And yes, though it's unlikely it would ever happen, i see how through the history of the forum, there have been quite a few people who actually have become real-life couples whose relationships started from their shared Muppet love here on the forum and often think how wonderful if something like that were to ever happen to me. I historically shy away from relationships but a fellow major Muppet/Henson fan is someone that would be at the top of my list of people i would love to get together with.

What so often gets lost is that religion has often become so politicized (due to a lot of major church leaders/television figureheads being more political figures first, religious teachers second) spreading a very false message that "gay" and "christian" (or other religion) are polar opposites. People are led to believe that there are no such things as people who are just as much gay as they are religious. In Phoenix alone, there is a thriving gay Christian community with several churches specifically catering to that community (and others that are openly welcome). In the spirit of full disclosure, i do have to admit that my life experiences have gradually over time led my to my current stage as an agnostic but a decade and a half ago i was very active in our gay church community and it was a major part of my life at that time. I really wish every person who felt that being gay and being religious were mutually exclusive could attend a worship service in a congregation where the majority of attendants were gay - they would see the same love, the same devoted worshipping, the same desires for a spiritual closeness with their deity that exists anywhere else. Having been raised with no formal religious training and given the freedom to grow up and make up own decisions (one of the things my parents really did right), i would actually say that my experiences as a gay person brought me CLOSER to the church at that time in my life.

But i digress, sometimes its subtle, other times more overt but i have noticed a change in the atmosphere in terms of acceptance that never existed before. And part of it comes from the selective closing of threads that often tends to skew suspiciously heavy towards ones where a gay member's openness becomes part of the discussion.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

One post in all those after I asked the happy medium, and the rest is everyone bashing another member on the forums.

True, you have a right to your opinion of someone; but, the public bashing must stop. It isn't what we do here, gang. This is what I'm talking about in my last post--or, am I also on everyone's block list and you didn't pay attention to what I was really trying to say there?

This is what causes threads to be closed or deleted. Is no one paying any attention to me?

Do all of this kind of talk in your private messages. That's what they're there for. Well, not really; but, if you have to do anything negative do it there. You can even blind carbon copy an e-mail to several members at one time.

I'd prefer if you didn't have to trash someone, though, and rather you all find a way to compromise with each other and find that happy medium.

Otherwise, please use your report buttons to report suspicious or non-family friendly threads or posts so we can take care of things. If you figure the number of members and the number of moderators, it's really hard to keep an eye on everything done here.

The Count has been doing a great job overall with his moderating, especially with the frequent absences of us other mods. It isn't that I'm not here or reading, but when I'm online I only get a few minutes here or there.

So, what do you think? Can't you all work together, even with your "foes," to find a peaceful outcome to the problems? PMs will save on a lot of dirty laundry.

 

[frogboy4]

I support fresh starts and mutual forgiveness. There are certain things that push my buttons. It’s happened a lot lately.

I will once again go about my forum posting in hopes that the usual problems won't be an issue anymore. I also hope that premature thread closures and micromanaged post editing will decrease.

We have many (many) gay members here that feel the need to limit personal conversation and that's a fine personal choice. However, it is my goal that it won't be motivated by fear.

I truly believe that we can all get along. It won't always be easy and there will be clumsy times. It is important to go through them without edits in order to reach a destination of higher understanding.

Defragging my perspective on the forum and starting fresh with new hope.

 

[Luke]

True, you have a right to your opinion of someone; but, the public bashing must stop. It isn't what we do here, gang. This is what I'm talking about in my last post--or, am I also on everyone's block list and you didn't pay attention to what I was really trying to say there?

I think honestly its not so much people publicly bashing but just surprised at some of the stuff that goes on. A few dodgy calls made lately have just been a bit more noticeable, just needs a bit of consistency. As you say, compared to other forums, things could be worse.

 

[RedPiggy]

I'm hetero, but asexual. I just really don't care. The reason I champion the rights of those gay, bi, trans, etc (the list keeps growing apparently) ... is because I get it too, the problems, I mean. It has been my experience that if you, a woman, refuse to be with a man (because, y'know, you have "standards"), then you must be gay and then get harassed accordingly. If you are a woman and hug your mother in public ... you must be gay and get harassed accordingly. It happened a lot where I used to live (redneck central), and not so much now, thank goodness.

It would be really neat to find someone I met here. I have a crush on someone, but it's unrequited, so, meh. I get really tired of hurting, relationship-wise. So, I keep my eyes out, but frankly I just quit and bowed out of the relationship game.

 

[Drtooth]

I think honestly its not so much people publicly bashing but just surprised at some of the stuff that goes on.

Exactly on the money. Again, I am not "Bashing" anyone here, but rather trying to mention the poor behavior of one in the past that many, many, many other members have had a problem with.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

I deleted my last message because I wrote it before I read Fozzie's forum guidelines and I think it sort of went against the rules here, but if you're interested in hearing what I have to say, PM me.

 

[D'Snowth]

I have to say, MC is actually the only forum I've ever been to that's actually somewhat religious-friendly.

By that, I mean as been pointed out, there's so many religious-themed discussions and threads around here that it seems most everyone has no problems, even if they do both some, there's no big issue that's made out of them.

It's not so with other forums; in fact, it's quite the opposite, it's like if you are religious, then you just brought on a whole lot of trouble onto yourself - non-religious members will gang up on your, and basically harass you for "believing in fairy tale crap about a god that doesn't exist". And the thing is, there's little control to that, and it's situations like that as a moderator where moderating ISN'T easy or fun like Kev said; we had issues at one forum that I moderate where two of the moderators teased one member when he mentioned he had been talking to God (praying), to avoid offended anybody on both sides of the fence, an unwritten rule was proposed that we avoid any form of religious discussions. Now that worked for a while, and then a little while later, said member was so upset about the way things were going in his life, he mentioned how he contemplated suicide... casually, he was asked if suicide wasn't against his religion, his little sister, who also posted on the forum, and who was also very religious explained the views on killing and suicide... one thing led to another, and the next thing you know, the same two non-religious moderators who previous teased her brother virtually hi-jacked the current discussion and repeatedly harassed her and insulted her for her religion... and after they were the ones who proposed we avoid religious discussions. As a fellow moderator, I reminded them of that, and in a case like this, I felt closing the thread really was necessary, because I felt it was appauling the way two moderators of a forum were treating one of the members, simply because of different views on a subject; since it was two against one, the thread was re-opened, with the reasoning that it was simply a "healthy debate", which it wasn't, it was a fullblown dispute. While the brother didn't post nearly as much as his sister, he wasn't really aware all of that had been going on, but the sister was very upset about being bullied by moderators of all people; what's really sad is that these two moderators had more seniority, and as such, had more power to moderate than I or my friend did (who was also a mod), but if there were problems on the forum, she would actually bring it to my attention, or my friend's attention because unlike the other two, we were actually fair and level-headed. And there have been occasions where the two of us would bring up these issues to the webmistress's attention to further straighten things out with the other two, because as moderators, they certainly weren't doing a very good job at setting an example of forum behavior, and were quite frankly given the forum a rather bad name, which is probably one of the reasons why it's so dead anymore these days.

Ironically, this has gone on much longer here though, as I've mentioned before, and I honestly don't know why, but there have been several occasions in the past where various members would bring an issue with another member or what's going on in a thread to my attention as if I'm a mod around myself, when I'm not... I don't know what originally brought this on, or why it kept happening, but it did.

 

[Luke]

Regarding religion, reminds me of the thread we had one time on Delphi about the Muppets and Christianity ... flame wars, name calling, people thwacking each other with rubber chickens. I think in the end it was closed. Oh, the irony.

I honestly don't see religion as having much of a place around here, aside friends and family threads. The Muppets are pretty non-religious ... best way really considering the Electric Mayhems off screen activities and that if they did have a god it would be Whoopi Goldberg, i even thought it wierd when somebody started a religion themed fan fic ..just so not used to seeing the characters involved in that. And (look out here comes a flame war) its obvious if the Muppets were religious they would be Jewish anyway, cos everyone in Hollywood acts Jewish .. even the christians lol. Gonzo's thing for chickens ... clearly Jewish!

Oi Vey!

 

[D'Snowth]

I will admit, religious-themed fanfics can be somewhat odd... the worst I ever read was a Chipmunks fanfic a year ago or so where Theodore was extremely religious, and everybody hated him for it, even his teachers and the school principal... basically, the story ends with his teacher being so annoyed with his religious talks, that he hits him so hard, his head hit something (can't remember if it was the wall, or a desk or whatever), killing him instantly. There was also another really dark fic that featured Jeanette as being a Christian, but that's not what the story was about, it was just added for creative license I think...

Bu you're right, the Muppets, and really any media franchise like that is most non-religious for the most part; the only thing I can remember anything the Muppets did that was remotely religious-themed was during the special Elmo's World: Happy Holidays, where Prairie Dawn puts on a Christmas pageant starring Baby Natasha as Baby Jesus, Bert as Joseph, Rosita as Mary and Herry, Grover and Cookie as the Wise Men.