The idea of banning people from the forum still bothers me.

The forum is dominated by writers who seem to be very intolerant of opinions different from their own.

"My way or the highway" is not, in my humble opinion, the way to evangalize whether inside the Body of Christ or to those outside.

I ask that the moderator and all posters, be patient, understanding, and tolerate of opinions that may conflict with their own.

A person may have a lot to contribute in a particular area, even if we disagee with them on most issues.

We, as readers can filter the junk pretty well on our own.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), July 14, 2003

Answers

Dear John I fully DISAGREE with you that we should not ban certain trouble makers from this forum. What the moderator has done is well justified and I fully supported him. There is no doubth about that. John, if someone comes into your house everyday and harass your wife and children will you ban him from comming? or are you going to say 'well lets be patient, understanding and tolerate of his action' Remember, some Protestants are here not to learn about the Catholic faith but to 'poison' the mind of many and to destroy this forum. I am sure that there is sufficient tolerance and patient given to those people by the moderator before banding them.

John, sad to say that you have loss the sense of discernment. Now I understand why Jesus went into the temple and drove those people out.

May God Bless you.

-- (vincentkoh@pd.jaring.my), July 14, 2003.

With all due respect Vincent, the Church already everyday allows non-repentant public adulterers, who daily do far, far worse, to practice deeply within the Church while their victims suffer with no relief.

So please easy on the abuse of tolerance until you actually see it in action, as I do each and every agonizing day of my life.

Do not condemn John, for his teachers' sins! Condemn the teachers instead and perhaps the student will learn.

Karl

-- Karl (Parkerkajwen@hotmail.com), July 14, 2003.

Glenn,
This is an open forum since anyone can enter. But NOT a free forum; whoever enters must follow the existing rules. The rules clearly state we do not accept Catholic-bashers or anti-Catholic propaganda.

If you see yourself ''free'' to break the rules, you will be deleted. If you abide by them, you'll be welcome. You are held responsible every post, not to discourage our faith or preach ANY another faith.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), July 14, 2003.

i'd just like to re-iterate the support that has been shown by many in this forum for Paul's carrying out this very, very difficult role in a very mature, indeed Christian, manner. it also seems fair to say that no-one has been banned who has not been given fair warning and been tolerated beyond what seems really very reasonable. eg i think there is a strong case for banning the poster styled as "Christian Soldier"; but i understand and respect the decisions that allows him/her to be given many further opprotunities to conform to house rules.

Paul is doing a great job.

-- Ian (ib@vertifgo.com), July 14, 2003.

Dear Glenn:
I see your post, ''Yet another candidate for the post of a moderator! Eugene you would fit into inquisition right away!
-- Glenn ''

I'm not the Moderator. I'm not an inquisitor. I simply explained the differences in ''free'' and ''open'' forum standards. You wasted no time in making a snide remark. Inquisitor is certainly within the conventions of Catholic bashing language.

Do you intend to follow in this pattern later on and still be allowed to post freely?

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), July 14, 2003.

To John Placette:
I'm not sure you understand, when you say, ''The forum is dominated by writers who seem to be very intolerant of opinions different from their own.''

We can all point to one or two peole here who post very frequently. I am one. But I hope you don't interpret this as ''dominationg'' anyone. My posts are sometimes sharp ''corrections'' if I think a contributor is astray, or if the posts are controversial.

This isn't intolerance, John. It's a reaction, sometimes severe, but not intolerant. Some visitors here make inflammatory statements. Kind of like throwing a molotov cocktail into our midst. Would you expect faithful Catholics to be accomodating, or never to argue? I like cocktails John. But not if they're hurled at the Church with a flaming wick on them.

I think John Gecik is the only one we see consistently demanding for the deletion or banning of a very FEW posters. He has no interest in their discussions. I nevr ask outright for anybody to be banned. My approach is confrontational at times. But I'll give them acid remarks in the hopes they'll just go away. If they do not, I engage them in hardline argument. A good forum stays interesting that way, I think. The other alternative is to allow the forum to get simply irritating. Then good contributors are the ones who go away.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), July 14, 2003.

I would have to agree with John. I know a man that was a huge Catholic basher. Everytime I saw him we would argue about religion. But he eventually started attending a Catholic Church and has started on his journey toward becoming Catholic. At time I was very upset by this person and almost had given up hope that he would ever understand. This is why we should not ban people. Because there is always hope.

-- Scott (papasquat10@hotmail.com), July 14, 2003.

That is one of the happy consequences. I agree. Nevertheless, we aren't necessarily here to ''evangelise'' the invincibly ignorant. It's just as worthwhile if we can just neutralize their noxious presence.

But then if John Placette wants to try to evangelise, that's no problem. We will certainly support him.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), July 14, 2003.

john Placette:

You said: "We, as readers can filter the junk pretty well on our own. "

Actually that is not so easy, because of the layout of the forum. One may have to scroll down hundreds of lines to filter out some spam from say Kevin. Somebody with a slow connection might well give up and go away.

If posts were not selectively deleted, it would be easy to kill threads by posting yards of spam cut-and-pasted from some dubious source.

Cutting-and-pasting junk is not the only way somebody can generate spam. A deliberately blasphemous remark can easily provoke a heated flame-war, which again may rapidly destroy a thread.

I think banning is not so much an issue of free speech or witnessing for the faith as simply one of keeping threads free from junk and on track. This forum is very open, in the sense that anybody can post here (and give any name). In a frontier town on the wild internet, one needs a trigger happy sheriff.

-- Stephen (StephenLynn999@msn.com), July 14, 2003.

I agree with you John. The people who use this site just cannot except any criticism. So much for being able to express your opinion. These people have their opinion and no consideration is taken to those who happen to disagree with them. I've had so many comments removed, and all I'm doing is expressing my views.

-- Steve (spirrottina@hotmail.com), July 14, 2003.

Dear Steve,

Posts are never deleted merely because they express opposing viewpoints, as should be apparent from the many lively and sometimes heated discussions which take place here. Please review the MODERATOR'S NOTE, which has just been moved to the top of the list, for guidelines.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), July 14, 2003.

Jmj

Hello, John P.
I was pretty surprised to read your opening message on this thread. I thought about it and had to conclude that the only ways for a person to have arrived at your conclusions are (1) by having an over-tolerant personality or (2) by not visiting forum daily and/or by reading only certain threads.

On point 1 ... There's not much I can say to help you, if that is your problem (as it usually is for Gene Chavez). Over-tolerance can come from a lot of different things, such as ...
(1) growing up with trouble-makers in one's family or school -- and always being overly sympathetic toward them when they suffered the punishment they needed, or ...
(2) growing up as a breaker of rules or laws -- i.e., being a trouble-maker oneself -- and not wanting to see others punished now, because it was hard going through punishment oneself, or ...
(3) growing up in a family (or schools) where the parents (or teachers) were either too tolerant or not tolerant enough -- so that one is now imitating the first kind or overreacting against the second kind.

I'm not going to try to figure out why some folks here are over-tolerant (using the above explanations or some other ones). All I can do is point out that the over-tolerance I see here is a vice, not a virtue. And I can encourage people to fight against the tendency -- because it is the kind of thing that ne'er-do-wells count on and thrive on. They just love it when their are soft-hearted people around that will let them continue to get away with murder.

One of the reasons that society has been degenerating for several decades is over-tolerance. There has been an overreaction to some previously over-repressive tendencies in history. The law now tolerates the most horrendous crimes and sins (e.g., abortion, sodomy, pornography). All their lives nowadays, people are told by liberals (weak politicians, teachers, pastors, etc.) to be tolerant, to accept every imaginable form of "diversity." How do the years of this kind of indoctrination manifest themselves at this forum? In two main ways:
a) by people moaning about how we are always "judging" them and condemning them to hell, and ...
b) by people wanting everyone who comes here to be able to say whatever they want, for as long as they want.

I say all this to try to promote a reasonable, but to reject an unreasonable, degree of toleration. What is reasonable? As I have stated many times before, we have written rules for people to follow. People who repeatedly or flagrantly disobey the letter or spirit of the rules forfeit their right to be here. This is not a place for anarchy. I have repeatedly said -- though the over-tolerant always forget my words -- that my criterion for calling for people to be banned is this objective, rules-based argument.

On point 2 ... If a person -- even one who is not "over-tolerant" -- misses out on 1/3 or more of all forum posts, he/she can easily get false impressions. That limited reader can think that "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry" are really nice guys who ought to get a chance to keep expressing themselves. But if the limited reader had read 90 to 100% of all forum posts, he/she would have seen that "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry" had shown themselves to be anti-Catholic bigots or proselytizers (professional on-line missionaries), quasi-Catholic termites (people who work from within to undermine the Church), or unhelpful broken records (people who are whining, one-topic wonders that keep saying the same useless, offensive junk to dozens of visitors).

John P, you wrote: "We, as readers can filter the junk pretty well on our own."

I don't believe that you can make a blanket statement of that kind. You can only say that you believe that YOU "can filter the junk." You can only speak for yourself. You can (probably rightly) suspect that the "regular orthodox Catholics" here also "can filter the junk."

But one group of people I almost constantly keep in mind when I am here are the "lurkers" -- who, I believe, are often young Catholics still learning the faith and unchurched people who come here to find out what our Church really teaches. These people, "can[NOT yet] filter the junk."

That is why the lurkers need to be helped and protected by a vocal chorus of "regulars" who are NOT "over-tolerant" and by a moderator who is ready to ban the worst of the crowd. That's why I loved Stephen's comment: "In a frontier town on the wild internet, one needs a trigger happy sheriff." I also thank Vincent K for his very fine analogy to the unpleasant house guest who cannot be tolerated very long. I also thank Ian for informing (or reminding?) John P as follows: "it also seems fair to say that no-one has been banned who has not been given fair warning and been tolerated beyond what seems really very reasonable."

Eugene, I noticed that you got incensed at Glenn for saying, "Eugene you would fit into inquisition right away!"
Please scroll up and see that the message purportedly from Glenn is gone. He didn't write it. The impersonator did (as I suspected the moment I read it, because Glenn would never had said such a thing to you). Please be careful. I'm sure that the impersonator was thrilled to bits that he fooled you.

Eugene, I suggest that you not write about me, because you've been doing it a lot lately, and you never get your facts straight. This time, you said:
"I think John Gecik is the only one we see consistently demanding for the deletion or banning of a very FEW posters. He has no interest in their discussions."

Error #1: I'd have to say that I have recommended deletion or banning more than a "few" times. Error #2: I have never "demand[ed]" deletion or banning, but have only asked for it (sometimes very earnestly). Error #3: It is utterly ridiculous for you to say that I ask for bannings of people because I have "no interest in their discussions." You know better. I would never even dream of calling for a banning because of a lack of "interest" in a topic related to Catholicism. (I have called for the deletion of a few brand-new threads that had nothing at all to do with Catholicism. Moderators have often agreed and deleted the threads.) As I stated above (and several times in the past, as you ought to recall), I call for deletions/bannings based on repeated and grave violations of the rules.

Scott, you are very fortunate (and very rare) to have had that experience with the former Catholic-basher. Keep in mind, though, what I said earlier about "lurkers" who are constantly being swayed against the Church by our local Catholic-bashers (ESPECIALLY those who claim to be Catholics!). When you dealt with your "huge Catholic basher," it was just you (strong in the faith and knowledgable) versus him. So you could let him sound off all he wanted. The same is not true here, where a "problem child" has to be "sent to his room" (booted out of the forum) to protect the rest of the "family," especially the "impressionable younger children" (analogous to our lurkers).

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), July 14, 2003.

We all are humans with our own thoughts , sometimes strange enough , oppossites attracks , if answers always coming from 1 side , I think that's pretty wrong & boring !! __ Well , I think , as long visitors don't coming with bad intentions , let them answering to all the questions they want to !!

We're all equal to eachother , we're all born & die , no matter what !! ___ Even , we're all have to eat to live !!

Greets from a NON BELIEVER:

-- Laurent LUG (.@...), July 15, 2003.

This is getting ridiculous. The only post I made on this thread was one questioning whether John Gecik actually posted (calling for the removal of any moderator). That post was deleted. Now I see Gene replied to to a post where the imposter must have posted as me.

In any case, I will not be posting any more on this thread. It has been shanghaied!

-- Glenn (glenn@nospam.com), July 15, 2003.

I apologize JFG. Anyone who looks closely at my posts will realize that the last post attributed to me was from an imposter. For the record, this will be the last post by me in this thread, so any others will be fake.

Pax et Bonum.

-- Thomas (tcdzomba@excite.com), July 15, 2003.

Dear Glenn,

There are different reasons for deleting messages. Your post on this thread was not deleted because there was anything wrong with the content. Your message called a problem to the moderator's attention. I responded, both in this forum, and in action concerning the stated problem. Once the problem had been addressed, I saw no reason to leave your message, or my response to it, on the forum, so I deleted them both. This prevents the forum from becoming cluttered with short messages that are no longer relevant, and which just make it harder to read the messages which are relevant to the thread.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), July 15, 2003.

John G. Compassion and tolerance are neither faults nor problems for which I need your help.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), July 15, 2003.

Jmj
Hello, John P.

I ask that you re-read my message -- this time more carefully. Lord, how often it happens! People are so sensitive that they take offense when none has been given! Please re-read.

You will see that I did not criticize "tolerance," but OVER-tolerance, an unhealthy, inordinate degree of tolerance.
You will see that I said that I wanted to "promote a reasonable, but to reject an unreasonable, degree" of tolerance.

You will see that I did not criticize "compassion" at all -- neither as a "fault or problem." I never even used the word "compassion."

You will see that I never said that you have an "over-tolerant personality." Instead I suggested a second possible reason for you to have made your opening comments -- namely, an unawareness of just how bad have been the people whom you now seem to be trying to defend.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), July 15, 2003.

John G, I respect you very much. You bring a great deal of knowledge of the Catholic faith to the forum.

I am currently reading "Conclave" by Greg Tobin Copyright 2001 by Greg Tobin, in which one of the characters, Cardinal Vennholme is speaking to the protagonist, Cardinal Mulrennan.

Vennholme state, "Within Mother Church we love our little disputes and Curial intrigues. But they are disputes of brethren-of family. We are not so very far apart, you and I, not when compared to the gulf that exists between both of us and most of the world beyond these walls."

This could be said for a lot of us, brethren.

May God bless you John and all of us. P.S. I'll try to read slower and more carefully,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), July 16, 2003.