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GreaseSpot Cafe

Coming out of the Closet


Oakspear
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I'm glad I'm only finding out about the mods in hindsight.

I'd rather trust them in the abstract. I suspect I might have second-guessed myself wondering

about their actions if I knew who they were. Instead, I could just follow the actions and see

they were doing a credible and fair job, even when I disagreed with them.

I've moderated on other boards before, so I try not to give staff "static" if I don't have to.

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I think moderating a huge site like Greasespot cafe with all the hot button issues people coming from a cult might have is difficult. I moderated an active yahoo loop of middle aged romance writers and thought that would make me go crazy. I thought the mods here did a good job and were even handed.

The truly awful posters--the ones on my list haven't been around for years, but i do believe they had mental health issues/personality disorders that made them act out. Scary folk.

Remember our 'admirer', geisha?

Edited by Bramble
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geisha, you were always one of my favorite posters. :)

Same here Doc! In fact, you said something in your blog I found so provocative I just have to sit down and formulate a coherent question and ask you about it. It has had me musing since I read it. See you on FB. :)

-------------

Remember our 'admirer', geisha?

That was a true bonding moment! :) I was thinking about that when I read this thread.

Seriously, you just can't make that kind of crazy up...... but in his defense.......he has really great taste in posters .......... us!

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Interesting that pfalMike brought out so much of the deeper wrong teachings of wierwille.

And what his teachings meant to some people were quite devastating and dangerous.

It wasn't until he started stalking another poster that I had to say something, being moderated,

gave me the chance to say why.

Which was a conversation in private with Paw, and I expect it will remain private.

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I'm glad I'm only finding out about the mods in hindsight.

I'd rather trust them in the abstract. I suspect I might have second-guessed myself wondering

about their actions if I knew who they were. Instead, I could just follow the actions and see

they were doing a credible and fair job, even when I disagreed with them.

I've moderated on other boards before, so I try not to give staff "static" if I don't have to.

One of the reasons we usually stayed anonymous
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The good thing about allowing posters to bring up the old teaching stuff and try to defend it was or is that for people like me who just stumbled in here in the last two years or so... we got to pull out our own thoughts about the teachings and examine them... One of Mikes discussions did that for me. so much of PFAL I just believed.. it seemed so logical when i was 19-23 and then I would just parrot it with out really stopping to consider if it was true or not.. reading posts by supporters of PFAL gave me a chance as an adult to really consider the teachings from all angles... rather than just dismissing things out of hand.

Also it allowed me to see the flawed logic of what I followed while in TWI. I know lots of you old timers did this on transchat and early days GSC but for newbies it really is important to be able to sort things out on your own... and because the moderators are not heavy handed you get the opportunity to do just that.

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John, I'm pretty sure I never moderated you. In fact, I got involed as a moderator, in part, to defend voices like yours and Oldiesman. I may not agree with you on very many topics, but I always believed you had a right to voice your opinion (as long as you did so respectfully). I also believed you had a right to be treated with respect when people responded to you.

Believe it or not, as much as your opinions angered me at times . . . I angered a number of my friends defending your right to express them.

I should qualify that by explaining that I did not so much have to defend you to other moderators in my moderator hat. It was more an issue of defending you to other posters in my Abigail hat.

Abigail: I meant that you guys went easy on me. I never found out why I got suspended the 2nd time. I thought they were just going to run me out of here whatever it took. I know that isn't true now, but I said to myself, hey man, you been posting as a minority opinion for 7 years and these folks seem to need a break from you, so why don't you take a break from them as well. Few days later I logged on at someone else's place to show him the Athletes/Rocky horror video. After that I didn't even LURK here until this past Nov 8th. I thought about getting on here during the last month before the '08 election because I wondered what ClayJay and Templelady might have to say about Sarah Palin, but didn't. I came back because I wondered if Howard Allen was still alive and if GSC doesn't know, NOBODY knows. I see his wife has passed plus a few others I didn't know about, but seeing the graphics and the forums I just found myself reading threads again. What can I say?

One thing I did before posting again was to reread the entire thread of 'A few big things I learned taking pfal'. Doing that reminded me what GSC was like at the time I left. It also allowed me to read my own posts from a detatched pov, not caught up in the emotions of the moment. There were times when, without provocation, I introduced a harsh tone into a benign section of posts. Not cool. I really did need a time out. Glad I got here before the end.

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Abigail: I meant that you guys went easy on me. I never found out why I got suspended the 2nd time. I thought they were just going to run me out of here whatever it took. I know that isn't true now, but I said to myself, hey man, you been posting as a minority opinion for 7 years and these folks seem to need a break from you, so why don't you take a break from them as well. Few days later I logged on at someone else's place to show him the Athletes/Rocky horror video. After that I didn't even LURK here until this past Nov 8th. I thought about getting on here during the last month before the '08 election because I wondered what ClayJay and Templelady might have to say about Sarah Palin, but didn't. I came back because I wondered if Howard Allen was still alive and if GSC doesn't know, NOBODY knows. I see his wife has passed plus a few others I didn't know about, but seeing the graphics and the forums I just found myself reading threads again. What can I say?

One thing I did before posting again was to reread the entire thread of 'A few big things I learned taking pfal'. Doing that reminded me what GSC was like at the time I left. It also allowed me to read my own posts from a detatched pov, not caught up in the emotions of the moment. There were times when, without provocation, I introduced a harsh tone into a benign section of posts. Not cool. I really did need a time out. Glad I got here before the end.

I'm glad you made it back before it closed to John. We all got a little testy from time to time. I know I did.

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Geisha - I have always loved your posts! I can't believe anyone would call you a name! :)

I'd love to hear what you've been learning/seeing/musing on...

Wouldn't be the first time someone called me a name. :) Please...let's you and I keep in touch. . . . a sister in the Lord is a very wonderful thing!

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I second that...btw...you live in St. Louis, correct? I was there for a few days the first week of November...thought of you.

Wow. In may of '09 I drove thru Nebraska on the way back from Yellowstone. Family vacation. Going there we went thru SD to see Mt. Rushmore, but after swinging by Salt Lake City to visit a friend it was I80 all the way to Iowa. Around Lincoln we took some state hwy due east to Iowa; saved ourselves maybe 50 miles by not going thru Omaha. But I thought of you, as well. You live in that general area don't you?

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I guess my posts have been so bland that they've been unworthy of "moderating"! :P

Of course, most of them in the past few years have been in the "game room." How vile can you be in "Pictionary"? (I do try to avoid pics of bestiality...)

It's neat to see who's been working behind the scenes all these years to keep this site on an even keel. I suppose it should be no surprise that they're the long-time posters. Did you guys (used generically -- includes gals) take shifts? "Okay, Modcat5, you're on from 4 to midnight, Modbaker midnight to 8 AM, Modgellan 8 to 4." SOMEBODY had do be working "graveyards." God bless you all. Great work!

George

Edited by pawtucket
Too bland
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no there were no shift assignments. we mostly just each scanned the forums whenever we randomly had time to check in on the cafe. Now and then I would scan with my mod name and then say "ooohh, I want to respond to that post". Forgetting I was logged in as a mod I would make a comment, post it and then go "CRAP, I thought I was signed in with my regular name."..after fumbling for the delete button I never knew if people saw it or not. And of course, with the possible chance someone had, I could not repost the same thing in my regular name, thus my most astute responses were often left unspoken. LOL

In my mod jacket, I always tried to read things without an opinion on the subject itself and to see things through the glasses of the posted rules whether I agreed with the post or not. I know some disagree, but I still think I was mostly successful with that, and I edited or deleted, and even suspended people from both sides of the aisle.

Mainly, I would let each side make one or two volleys. If they stopped, all was left alone. If it kept going or seemed like it was going to be an all out multi-page back and forth slugfest I would shut it down. I mean geez, how many posts does it take to call the other guy nutzoid?

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I'm sad that we weren't grown up enough to be self-moderating all the time. It's a hard job to stay unbiased, particularly when it comes to something that was such a big part of many people's lives, but I think you all did a fine job.

OFF TOPIC

I haven't been here in a while. 3 of my grandkids moved into our house in July, and I'm doing full-time parenting again for children who are significantly delayed. By the end of August, it was clear that I didn't have time to host websites and police my own LISTSERV that had been going for 15 years. I shut it down and moved my web sites to other servers. I wondered if I would miss it, but I'm too busy most days to miss anything about my old life.

Good luck you all on your new endeavors.

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