Loading...Thanks to the hard work of my computer assistant, Steven Ray –if you have any website or related needs, he’s the guy to hire! – we are nearly ready to make a major change in the Bart Ehrman Blog, a.k.a. the CIA. Because of regular and repeated requests, we are going to add a Discussion Forum, open to all paid members.
At present, as you know, the only way to “discuss” anything on the blog is by asking me a question, or by making a comment, on one of my posts. Occasionally one person will respond to another person’s question or comment, but that’s about the extent of conversation among participants. Everything, more or less, begins with my post and all comments pretty much pass through me. With a discussion forum, on the other hand, anyone can start a thread of their own and people can interact on the question/topic, talking with one another directly instead of through me.
When I’ve mentioned the possibility of setting up such a thing for the blog, I have received both enthusiastic response and wise words of caution. So let me say something about the wise words of caution. The short of it is this: how does one keep such a thing under control? There are several things that I do NOT, I cannot emphasize this enough, so underlined, bold-faced, italicized, and capitalized, NOT want.
- I do NOT want several people to go hog wild (as we used to say in Kansas) and dominate the discussion forum by relentlessly posting their views (usually these are views that hardly anyone agrees with), over and over again, in different guises (or even in the same guise). I want a discussion forum to be a genuine intellectual exchange of thoughts and opinions based on carefully reasoned evaluations of evidence, or carefully considered opinions, or genuinely open ended questions, and I want people to be self-reflective about how many comments and responses they post every day.
- I do NOT want anyone to be rude, abusive, mean-spirited, insulting, or generally unpleasant to others. I want there to be mutual respect, even for views that one might consider completely off base.
- I do NOT want the forum to be a platform for people to try to convert others to their religious perspectives, or anti-religious perspectives. Rather than being about anyone’s personal beliefs or unbelief, I would want the discussions on the forum always to be related in some way to the understanding of early Christianity.
- On the more personal level, I do NOT want to have to put in more time than I can afford in moderating the discussions. I think the forum absolutely has to be monitored; otherwise we’re simply begging for chaos. I have decided that at the outset I will not ask someone else to moderate. I may ask someone to take it over later, when I see what exactly moderation involves. But for now, I’m going to do it. But I don’t have tons of time to put into it, above and beyond what I already commit to the blog. If everyone behaves, it shouldn’t take much time. But if not, it will!
With all that in mind, I wonder if those who are interested in such a discussion forum could help me devise some rules and regulations for it. Once the suggestions for such guidelines have all come in, I could ask everyone in general what they think about them. If I get widespread agreement, I could then implement them as our policies, state these policies clearly and forcefully, and utilize them as I monitor the discussion.
And so what kinds of rules and regulations do you think we should have in place? Should we limit the kinds of questions or topics that can be raised for discussion? Should we limit the number of comments/interactions a person can have per day? Should we have the right to ban people from participating (say, for a week, a month?) if they are abusive (after, say, a warning)? Are there other kinds of rules/regulations that we should consider?
This is your chance to let me know your views. So let me know!
Of the things you say you don’t want, the first will be hardest to enforce, as it is subjective. The second should be easy to enforce and write up in a rule. The third has gray areas. How would you handle, as a test case, someone who believed that the resurrection could be historically proven, and argued for that? What about someone who was most interested in the implications of historical discussions for religious life?
Perhaps the way to handle the third is to draw the line that comments must have a relationship with the subject matter you desire. That would ban people who want to post on “Why religion is terrible and must be abolished” or “Why we must all be born again within the next 20 minutes.”
Consider a rule against backseat moderating, and make warnings and bans public. That usually cuts down on noise.
Make explicit a ban on bigotry with the usual set of characteristics. You might also ban threats of legal action against other posters, though I can’t imagine what they would be on this site.
I suspect at the end of the day you will just have some of what you say you don’t want, though not nearly as much as there would be if it were not for the pay wall. Maybe there is a way to tie forum participation rates to higher pay levels? But then money talks enough in society as it is; Bart Ehrman Blog can be an exception.
If posters wish to insult each other, they must use Martin Luther insults: http://ergofabulous.org/luther/
Considering the reality of a single moderator who is empowered to use his judgment to make these determinations, it may not be a big problem. Rule #1 might be something like, “Posting here implies that you accept the sole judgment of the moderator to decide whether your posts conform to the rules of the forum, and should the moderator judge your content to be in violation of any of the rules, the posts may be removed at his/her discretion and a first and only warning may be issued after which a temporary posting restriction will be imposed for repeated violation. No appeal will be available.
So then, while it is indeed a subjective matter, the moderator pretty much looks for violations and goes on the assumption that he “knows it when he sees it” and can act on it without outrage as the poster has already agreed to this potentially happening.
All else aside, thanks for the last link. My favorite thus far:
“You are the sin-master and soul-murdered.”
I’m sure THAT comment was not leading to some ad hominem attack.
Certainly keep it to the paying folk. Hopefully we’ll keep each other to the point and in check. When I feel like hating the human race, I check the comments on any Yahoo post. However they are anonymous and not paying. Neither are they in a focused forum such as this. I wouldn’t worry about rudeness. Now, how do we have constructive discussions? I’d like to see if we can, if you only point us in a good direction, e.g. your most recent post. I would be all for limited sizes of posts, which might keep them more lively and productive.
Back when the Internet was young, I was a moderator on social.history.moderated a USENET newsgroup carefully set up to be fair, allow all views, but to take care of the problems you mentioned in your article in the newsgroup soc.history. When it became impossible to have a history discussion on that group, people truly interested in History, simply started writing articles for soc.history.moderated. We had a panel of up to six moderators, additions were invited by the sitting moderators when vacancies occurred, the initial panel was elected. Articles posted to the group went, instead, to one of the moderators selected in order, who simply passed or failed the article, informed the author of their action, and objections of any failed article. If the author wished, if an article failed, he could appeal to the entire panel, which then passed or failed the article on majority vote. It turned discussions into civilized exchanges, rather than the free for all common on USENET. I have no idea how one would set something like this up on a private blog.
How would you feel about someone who decided to, say, start posting rewrites of Paul’s epistles as if they were written by Joel Osteen? I can see historical/educational value, but also an agenda, Another gray area.
Yup, gray area….
Since I have been in participating in forum for a long time, I got some ideas for normal regulation that should be implemented in any forum (specially religious ones):
1. The first that comes to my mind: no CAPS! Writing in CAPS is disrespectful and annoying. If someone wants to emphasize this point or that is okay, but please no to the constant/hostile CAP writing.
2. The second “must be” regulation is no SPAM (for both sides). That really drives me crazy.
3. Maybe a maximum of 500-1000 words per post would work. I don’t think that there should be a limit to the number of comments/interactions that a person can have per day, unless is SPAM.
4. Banning should be implemented just for extreme cases.
Those are the regulations that came to my mind. Good luck with the forum Bart!
“Should we limit the kinds of questions or topics that can be raised for discussion?”
To a certain degree, of course you need to limit discussions to Biblical related topics, but it needs to be broader than that unless you want to be constantly herding cats trying to keep everything within your personal vision. On the other hand, this isn’t going to be a forum of professionals within your group of professional peers. People’s conversations are going to wander. You’ll want an off-topic forum to catch that unless you want to be constantly vigilant against it.
“Should we limit the number of comments/interactions a person can have per day?”
Again, you’re going to be herding cats if you try to stifle discussion in this way. I’ve never heard of a forum that puts a limit on how many times a day a person can participate. It sounds like you want to limit discussion just so that you don’t have to monitor it very much. A forum should be a place for people to freely exchange ideas or talk without worrying about going over their daily limit. Maybe you should just allow things to grow organically and see how it goes.
“Should we have the right to ban people from participating (say, for a week, a month?) if they are abusive (after, say, a warning)?”
Of course. Any sort of Biblical discussion amongst non-professionals going to invite heated debate at some point with people crossing a line. Given the views expressed by some of the readers of this blog in the past I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already unless you’ve been censoring people already.
Everything will probably work out fine, you just need to let it grow and see which direction things take. If you don’t like how things are working out you can always put the brakes on and start implementing rules.
“Should we limit the number of comments/interactions a person can have per day?”
Yes. If it is feasible to set up, set an automatic system to stop people posting say more than 3 posts per day. This forces people to think carefully about what they write and respond to everything they want to respond to in one go.
“Should we have the right to ban people from participating (say, for a week, a month?) if they are abusive (after, say, a warning)?”
Yes.
Here’s a guiding principles I think discussants would do heed: the character and smarts of the person making the comment are not of interest. It’s not relevant to the merits, the substance, of what they have to say, and it’s not polite to presume to comment adversely, or perhaps even favorably, upon them. One can say “it’s a lousy argument,” and then maybe people will draw the inference the person who advanced it is a lousy arguer. But dwelling on the arguer gets away from what we’re interested in, the argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Okay, from the above information, I suggest….
Post the concise rules:
1. Keep topics to the understanding early Christianity.
2. No debates: limit to only three entries per string.
3. No off color remarks or threads.
4. No apologists.
5. Inappropriate content button (like Amazon reviews does with “Report Abuse” button). After member has been notified of violation of a thread by three members with a push of the button (without remarks), the moderator will delete the thread and advise the offending member that they have been blocked for three months.
Call it the three strike rule.
Two substantive matters I hope will be taken up”
1. The existence of Q. It’s presumptuous for me to pick a bone with either Bart Ehrman or Dale Martin–after all, I don’t even know Greek. But I have read E.P. Sanders and Mark Goodacre, and It think they’re way right about Q, and the consensus to the contrary is unearned.
2. The exciting new take on Jesus Martin has recently advanced. It looks as if Jesus got arrested because his men were armed and that was against the law. Jesus was not just awaiting the coming of the kingdom on God’s schedule, he was fielding a small army of his own on he assumption it would be joined by an army of angels that would maybe destroy the temple (which magnificent as it was drew many opponents) and hasten or precipitate the coming of the kingdom. That’s not at all what Paul or Mark or Matthew believed, but then one of the arresting features of first-century religion is the gulf between the religion of Jesus and of his early followers.
Oh, my third and final entry on this subject before I get chastised…. Add a delete/edit button, so that members may self-police and modify their statements before it is reviewed by the moderator…….
I understand all this just saying
Just blogging is all
John bar Zachariah
Son of Zachariah
Some say around 5 BC and grew up in hill country next to jerusalem and his mother was cousin of mother of jesus
And could be like Elijah and wearing “. Hairy. ” as in 2 kings 1
And simon peter brother Andrew traveled to hear him speak , but question did jesus ever baptize John the Baptist just wondering like John asked just wondering ?
And jealous ruler and his foolish birthday celebrations
And jesus in fact ensured that he was the son of god and jesus 1st coming is mercy and 2nd coming is judgment 🙂
Two other things that come to mind based on other forums, blog comment boards, etc:
1) I have noticed that when one’s viewpoint is not the same as that of the majority of the active commenters, the resulting discussion can sometimes start to feel less like a discussion and more like a cage match in which one must defend oneself from all comers.. I’m not sure how to avoid that, as obviously explaining why one has reached a particular viewpoint and the arguments one found convincing is an important part of having a discussion, but I do think that it can make people hesitant to bring up dissenting views if they know it’s probably going to result in being buried in a dogpile of people telling them why they’re wrong. (This seems more problematic to me when you’re dealing with a topic where there isn’t a clear preponderance of evidence one way or the other, but the group for whatever reason happens to be mostly composed of people who lean one way.)
2) The tendency to find oneself having the same conversation over and over and over and over and….
As far as rules go, I think that certainly there should be a mechanism for warning and banning people. I would probably lean against putting a limit on the number of comments a person can make in one day unless it’s becoming a problem (it would be too bad if an interesting discussion got started but couldn’t really take off because everyone hit their comment limit). Maybe a limit to how many threads one can start in a given time period? (I’m thinking the time period should be longer than a day — someone posting two threads in a day doesn’t seem excessive if they then don’t post anything else for weeks, whereas a person posting a thread a day weeks on end would be too much.) A limit to how long one should go before opening another thread on an already-discussed topic?
As far as topics go: I guess the question is how wide-ranging “related to early Christianity” should be. For example, the question has been raised here several times how people reconcile the various findings about the historical Jesus and the New Testament texts with continuing to a Christian, which is certainly about personal belief or unbelief (and thus not the intended focus of the forums) but is related to early Christianity and seems like it could potentially be a very interesting conversation.
What about discussions related to the Hebrew Bible? Fair game or not?
Yup, the’d be fair game. This could be interesting….
If people are abusive you could warn them first and then ban them for a month if they don’t behave. As long as the questions posted are related in some way to the understanding of early Christianity they should be allowed.
Prof Ehrman
Why not use your own work as a template to discipline and focus the conversation? A thread about the Historical Jesus. A thread about God and suffering. A thread about reading the New Testament.
Moderating a forum is a dirty thankless job. Good luck.
S
“On the more personal level, I do NOT want to have to put in more time than I can afford in moderating the discussions. I think the forum absolutely has to be monitored; otherwise we’re simply begging for chaos. I have decided that at the outset I will not ask someone else to moderate. I may ask someone to take it over later, when I see what exactly moderation involves. But for now, I’m going to do it. But I don’t have tons of time to put into it, above and beyond what I already commit to the blog. If everyone behaves, it shouldn’t take much time. But if not, it will!”
You may want to talk to your mate Justin Brierley about that. After attempting to moderate his Unbelievable? FB group for about 3 years single handedly, he is now appointing 4 moderators. Admittedly the group has over 3000 members but they are not all active and it is free. He has realised though, that the work is too much for him and the group was being neglected because of his other commitments.
Yikes!
Well, make it a separate membership. If it gets to big and you need to pay a bunch of moderators, membership fees can go towards that.
Better yet. Make it a free site with selected advertisements: publishers advertising religious books, National Geographic, History Channel, scholarly periodicals, HarperOne, the association you belong to that has a conference once a year, religious movies (television and film), churches, seminaries, colleges, etc. Any money left over from paying moderators and webmastering goes to the charities.
I don’t like the idea of you adding more work on your plate.
Sounds fantastic! I don’t have any real recommendations policy-wise (I’m sure that others will have far better ideas than I), but could you give us a projected release date? This is the community I have been waiting for!
Hi Bart
if anyone is abusive they should have to pay a fine which will go to the donation pot or risk being barred without warning for good.
Sam
Wow, what an undertaking! The four guidelines you listed seem to set the goals very well. My problems with responses on other similar websites are as follows:
1. It is hard to quickly separate the useful from the not so useful responses. Hence, I tend to not read responses.
2. Most of the responses are so short that they just are not that useful. I would prefer more scholarly responses about the length of your blogs.
3. The “I have the truth” tone of some of the responders can be irritating and a big turn off.
I probably would not kick people off for misbehavior. Readers can just not read stuff that does not interest them.
On the other hand, I would probably not even do a “discussion” format. You are opening up Pandora’s Box. The Internet has useful stuff, but it also has too many dogmatic types, especially when it comes to religion, politics, and global warming.
One of my favorite forum features is one that allows polling or voting on specific questions, it gives very interesting feedback and allows people who do not want to write a comment to express their voice, do you know if the forum will have this feature?
We’re not planning on it. Explain a bit more: what are people voting on? How does it work?
Usually it’s just a drop in module that any posting user can use to instantiate a set of tracked, multiple choice responses to a question/statement (eg:Were the Beatles bigger than Jesus? A)Yes B)no C)John and Paul were taller but only Ringo’s nose was bigger.)
It would be similar to the Jesus Seminar voting on various questions. In a forum it would probably be about posts that have stirred up the most interest. It would be posted as a thread with the question and 5 or 6 answers that can be picked spanning a continuum of beliefs.
–
Who was the historical Jesus?
1) The living Son of God who died for mankind and will return at the end of the age.
2) The Jewish Messiah who failed to overthrow the Romans.
3) An itinerant apocalyptic preacher in 1st century Galilee.
4) A Stoic-like teacher of 1st century Galilee.
5) Jesus never existed.
–
The questions are endless and are based on what critical scholarship has been arguing about for the last three centuries. The voting doesn’t prove anything but gives a sense of what the forum participants as a whole believe on the questions they are discussing. It works like a thread too in the sense that many people vote and then give a reply on why they voted as they did. I don’t know the technical side that allows the reader to vote by clicking on their choice but I bet Steven Ray does.
Greg described it better than I could, and speaking as a computer software engineer, it is relatively simple to implement.
As Greg said, it has no bearing on the truth or fact, but is interesting to see everyone’s views in a nice organized poll.
Here is an example from wrongplanet.net (it is a forum about autism)
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt130948.html
You have to be logged on to vote, but it looks exactly the same but there are just buttons near the options and you can select (one vote per account).
And also
John 2:6
Most people think it was just a cup into wine
No jesus sent these guys with 6 Waterpots of water to john of 20 or 30 gallons and on the way there to the master of feast those guys were thinking ” there’s no way ” and sure enough it was wine. Now that’s amazing.
And yes So I know of
john bar Zachariah
Bart, a useful approach may be to find a forum that is already operating successfully and adopt what is done there. My guess is you will want to find a moderator or moderators sooner rather than later. Moderating is a lot of work (I am told).
I’m just wondering, will this be a *replacement* for the format we have now, or something *additional*? I’m very happy with the present format.
In any case, I certainly think the moderator should have the right to ban someone who’s abusive, or annoyingly proselytizing for his or her own beliefs. Maybe people should have the right to post a *link* to a summary of whatever belief system they’re advocating, even if it’s purely their own.
No, it won’t be replacing any thing. It would be completely new and completely voluntary.
This is going to be a train wreck.
You may be right!!
Good luck!
I’ll need it!
Sounds like your task will be of biblical proportions!
Since you will have to be a subscribed member of the blog, (I assume) to post, Maybe pull one from the Nordstrom employee handbook and start with one rule. ” Use good judgement in all situations”.
I think it is a good idea and will be useful for those lf us who have questions. Limiting to paid members should cut down on some of the problems with anonymous forums.
you might like to take a look at Coursera’s discussion forum code of conduct. i’ll try pasting the link here … not sure if you have to register for a course to see it though …. http://help.coursera.org/customer/portal/articles/1220499-forum-code-of-conduct?ref=fromforumlist … if you do register for a course you can see a sample of their forums and how the voting up or down works.
in my experience taking their classes, out of line conduct is handled quickly by the other students by voting or my the monitors of the forum. haven’t been too many issues that i have been aware of and i’ve participated in many of their classes.
thanks for adding a discussion forum … I think they’re a great addition!
just incase the link didn’t work here are the Coursera guidelines: (no need to post this if you feel not appropriate to do so … mainly just for you information)
Forum Code of Conduct
Conduct Standards
As a student on Coursera, you are part of one of the largest and most diverse learning communities in the world! Like most communities, the Coursera community has some basic ground rules. Please help us create a healthy learning environment by respecting the following standards:
Be polite. Please respect your fellow students. Insulting, condescending or abusive words will not be tolerated. Use the same tone and behavioral judgement you would use when speaking face-to-face. Polite debate is welcome as long as you are discussing the ideas, not attacking the person.
Be sensitive. This is a global forum with participants from many different cultures and backgrounds. Be very careful when discussing race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or controversial topics since others may be more sensitive about them than you are.
Post appropriate content. Content that violates the Honor Code or Terms of Service is not permitted. You may not post inappropriate (eg. pornographic) or copyrighted content, advertise or promote outside products or organizations, or spam the forums with repeat content.
In summary, be proud of your posts. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want associated with your name, and remember that anonymous posts aren’t anonymous to staff. We do not expect to see many of these issues because we trust students like you to keep our forum communities strong and healthy. However, posts that violate this Code may be deleted or made invisible to other students by any forum moderator. Students who repeatedly break these rules may be removed from the course, if necessary (we hope this never happens!).
Forum Posting Guidelines
In addition, please consider the following guidelines when posting in the course forums. These guidelines were created by students to make the forums welcoming and easy to use. If you have other suggestions to add, please let us know!
Vote wisely. Upvote helpful posts and only downvote posts if they violate the Code, not just because you disagree with their content.
Use informative titles. Keep your post titles short and on-topic so the forums are easier to navigate. If you’re asking a question, it should go in the title.
Read before posting. It is likely that a thread on your topic or an answer to your question already exists. Use the search function to avoid creating duplicate threads and find the most appropriate subforum to post in.
Make it easy to read. Don’t capitalize or bold entire sentences since this makes the forums harder to read. Check your posts for spelling or grammatical errors.
Stay on topic. Don’t change the topic of a thread or split a thread into multiple discussions. If you are discussing something that is not directly related to the course materials, pick one thread instead of discussing over multiple threads.
Very useful.
One of the most useful features I see on another forum is an “IGNORE” button that appears beside the screen name of the person who makes a post or comment. If I don’t want to read anything else that a specific person posts, I just click the “IGNORE” button. It’s a toggle, so I can later “UNIGNORE” that person if I later change my mind.
I recommend this, because it lets each of us ignore those we don’t want to see anything from…rather than ask the moderator to discipline that person.
Perhaps you will need to think about your goals very clearly. I think a worthy goal is maximizing the number of subscribers and their contributions to your charity. It may well be that allowing discussion that is more freewheeling than you prefer will better reach that goal. For three years I have done a daily blog called “Views of a Freethinker”. Here is today’s:
http://redriverfreethinkers.areavoices.com/2014/09/29/ok-flame-throwing-anti-gay-people-what-if-your-child-is-gay/
Running the discussion page takes as much time as writing the blogs. The discussion page is, I believe, the reason for my growing readership. I believe people enjoy writing their views. The more enjoyment, the more subscribers. People get off topic all the time. But, the topics they get off on are sometimes more interesting than what I blogged about.
Some people enjoy telling me how much they hate me, calling me all manner of nasty names. Other people, even those who like me, seem to enjoy reading those insults. So I leave them all in. And readers insult each other.
I realize this way of managing discussion may work only for my blog but I urge you to consider letting discussions kind of go where they will because more readers enjoy that. At least that’s what I have found.
With politics, religion and sex discussion boards, there are basically two options that work, neither is good. One is free for all, the other is dictatorship. Anything in the middle gravitates towards one extreme or the other. It would be nice if the respect Ehrman fans had for history and the author changed human nature online to a point that it isn’t the case here. The challenge will be to try not to be like Bugs Bunny antagonizing the Hatfields and McCoys into tweaking eachother’s “little red tomato nose(s).”
Bart. This is a good idea but I think that it is naive to think that you can control this in the ways you have described. Metaphorically,, I analogize your recent discussion on the necessity of tenure, citing the need for not censoring the flow of thoughts and ideas based upon an accepted ideology. There should be a way to have free flow of thoughts from the “Barnes and Nobles” crowd in the fora which they instigate.The latter fora need not be moderated, and they would be indicated as such. On the other hand, there will be other fora which may be moderated ( should you accept and so indicate that you are moderator ) and these would have to adhere to your rules and desires as stipulated by you, and/or whatever other moderator you may choose to substitute for you. Why worry about the non moderated fora? Just as non refereed scientific journals are taken with a grain of salt, so will these non moderated fora be so taken. You want to increase participation right? Then let the newcomers free for all. The majority of us will still congregate where you are present. That , after all, is why this came about and why we are here!
Hey, who are you calling naive??? 🙂
I’m not interested in a free for all on the blog; I’m not opposed to free for alls, but the blog has a more specific purpose than that. I’ll come up with some plan and see how it works. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work…. But I’m hopeful in my naivete!
Bart, I realize you’ve decided to have a discussion forum. I like the idea of a forum.
I suggest that you consider treating the forum as an experiment and be willing to terminate it if it doesn’t work out. Main reasons are these:
1. Unless the forum helps increase revenue significantly, it doesn’t seem to fit with your overriding reason for having the blog: raising money to help people through the selected charities.
2. This will take even more of your time unless and until other moderator(s) can handle most of that work. Taking more of your time doesn’t seem to fit with your mission…even though many of us like the idea of having a forum.
Thanks for wanting to provide so much value for our very modest annual investment. You’re already providing a ton of material and are answering questions.
I agree!
My church had such a forum for several years and it got to be such a burden moderating people who would not observe the rules, that they finally just had to shut it down.
Good luck with yours!
Dr. Ehrman, should you launch an Internet forum that does not collapse into venomous ugliness, I recommend that you call it “The Eschaton.” Because that is what if would likely require: intervention by a deity likely marking the end of the world as we know it.
I no longer have much faith in the quality of discourse in Internet forums. However, you do have one advantage in that the participants would be paid members of CIA. Launching the forum behind the donation pay wall may, perhaps, lead to a self-selected group of participants more inclined to be civil and respectful of others. I must admit that the comments on your CIA posts are often quite interesting and thoughtful.
Good luck. Your heart is in the right place.
Ha! Good title!
I second the motion for that title.
The more I think about it, the more I think that you’re going to want to appoint moderators. I’ve never been a forum moderator myself, but my understanding is that it can be quite a time suck. (Depending on how high the forum traffic is, of course, if few people use it, it won’t take as long.)
Were you thinking of the kind of moderation where the moderator has to read everything? Another possibility would to let users report posts/users that they think are causing problems, which is subject to abuse but which means the mod(s) would only have to look at the posts/threads the users had called out.
Bethany’s suggestion is a good one. One forum I belong to lets users “flag” specific posts and comments they find objectionable. As Bethanny sais, this can save a lot of time for moderators.
As an agnostic of a mature age, I’ll just lurk and read the discussion. … Good luck Bart.
I have a question…..not about how to set things up….. I want to know more about the old testament. Just trying to get the big picture about how God and Jesus got connected……because Jews And Christians seem to be from different camps. How is that possible? Another book please.
YOu might start with my textbook, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction.
Moderating a forum like this, though there are controversies, shouldn’t be particularly difficult, and it shouldn’t take an inordinate amount of time. From experience, at first there are problems which may be time consuming, but things calm down as time passes, and not as much time as you might first think. The original comments Bart made regarding what he wanted the forum to be can serve as the guidelines without too much trouble and, so long as the moderators themselves are civil, things go smoothly. And, if you want my two cents, the moderators ought to be volunteers, and ought to serve at Bart’s pleasure, and they ought to be allow to contribute. If there are not enough volunteers, I would take that as an indication there is not enough interest in the group.
Bart,
What is your feeling concerning Islam in relation to its connection
to the Bible? There are critics of Islam who say the Quran is merely
a rip off of the the OT with it’s own Ideology tossed in the mix.
I’m afraid I don’t talk much about things I don’t have an expertise in — including the Quran.
So, you have never read the Quran?
Or, if so, didn’t see any possible connections to the OT (and NT)?
Or, you would just rather avoid the subject?
I’ve read parts of the Quran. But I generally do not discuss in public topics that I am not an expert in.
Hi Bart,
A couple of years ago I participated in a forum, and I thought their guidelines were quite good (see below; I’ve modified these slightly for your application).
Just a thought, if you are going to moderate this forum yourself, then you might want to consider ways to make your job easier. For example, if you have a rule that says, “If you violate the rules 3 times, then you’ll be banned.”, then you’ll have to determine some way to track the numbers of times the members violated the rules?
It would be much easier just to say, “If you violate the any of the rules, you’ll be permanently banned from this site.” That may seem a little harsh but I wouldn’t think that it would be a problem for most members.
Here’s the Forum Guidelines I told you about:
Overview:
The messages discussed within this forum are …. (brief explanation of the forum)
Unfortunately, there may be occasional members who do not agree with aspects of a particular information, who will then take it upon themselves to disrupt the harmonious atmosphere that this forum is working to maintain.
We (the moderators and administrative staff) are encouraging you to play a part in giving these forums your loving attention. Please consider pressing the “Report” button at the bottom-right of any message if you feel it does not contribute to the community in a helpful or loving way.
Your support will help us maintain a forum that attracts and sustains a community who is genuinely looking for a safe environment in which to explore this topic.
The following guidelines are posted to help you understand what kind of conduct is welcomed, as well as what is not accepted.
Guidelines:
1. Forum Conduct: Show respect when posting. Racism, sexism, criticism, condemnation, condescension, harassment, threats, and judgment of others will not be tolerated. Discussions including profanity, hate speech, politically subversive acts or planning, or national intolerance will be deleted and a warning issued.
2. Copyright: Members should refrain from publishing any material that may violate applicable Copyright laws, unless the proper permissions or licensing is obtained and accompanies the published material.
3. Spam: Please do not post unrelated links or messages promoting commercial services and/or personal pages unless they are related to the thread you are posting to. In addition, posting multiple copies of the same message on different sections of the forums may also be considered spam if it goes beyond a reasonable level.
4. Conflict Resolution: Depending on the circumstance, individual posts may be subject to approval by the moderation team, especially when reported. Posts may be rejected without explanation, though moderators will do their best to provide an adequate reason for the post’s rejection and to seek resolution of any outstanding matters. If three (3) warnings are issued for one member, that individual will become banned from the forum.
5. Chat Room Conduct: Everything mentioned about the above forum guidelines applies to conduct in the Chat Room. Chat logs will be reviewed daily. Any members found violating the guidelines will be issued a warning. If the pattern persists, the offending member will be banned from the Chat Room until further notice. Be respectful towards each other, and avoid the use of profane language while chatting.
Not following these guidelines may result in a warning, suspension, or termination of the offending member’s account. Please, treat others as you wish to be treated.
Thank you for being a part of the community!
JohnB
Dr. Ehrman, do you hope to post in the discussion forums a minimum of once a week? Knowing you are posting once a week could make the forums more popular than if you weren’t posting. – Steefen
I was planning on having the discussions run on their own, and interjecting myself only when it seemed useful to do so. So I’m not sure how often that would be.
Here are some thoughts concerning guidelines:
[[As a bit of background, I recently had a discussion with a local library concerning forming a study group for exploring scholarly approaches to biblical –and particularly NT– studies (what we might, for want of a better name call “The Bart Ehrman Book Club” 😉 )
As the group would be open to the public, it was clear that we needed to make clear, up front, what the “rules of engagement” should be. Here are some thoughts I sketched out.]]
1] Simply stated, the governing guideline is one of “respect”. By this we mean three things.
2] First, respect for other members and their opinions and beliefs.
While it is clear that such a scholarly approach to these topics will challenge the traditional beliefs held by many folks, it should be understood that, in no sense, should this be viewed as a exercise in “Bible-bashing” (nor, for that matter, in “non-fundamentalist bashing”)
Simply put, violations of this rule will not be tolerated.
3] Members should respect, understand and, to the best of their abilities, employ the basic techniques of modern historical Biblical scholarship during these discussions
To be clear, disagreement with any opinion or viewpoint is not only welcome, but actively encouraged. But it should be understood that the guidelines for such discussions or disagreements should follow the rules and techniques of historical biblical research. It is perfect acceptable to disagree with a point of view raised during the discussion; but the reasons for justifying such a disagreement must be in the context of a scholarly approach.
(Or as one friend phrased this, simply stating that “St Paul –or for that matter Bart Ehrman– said so!” is not a counter-argument…)
4] Finally, respect for the material.
If these discussions have any specific goal it is to take absolutely seriously the nature and content of the Bibilical texts. And to accomplish this goal by trying, to the best of our abilities, to understand what these texts actually say. Not what we have been taught –or have chosen to believe– what they say.
[[I hope these have been of some help.]]
Please delete if inappropriate.
In the “Member Forum” would it be beneficial or not, to post links to other historical teachings of the New Testament beginnings? Such as “Jews for Judaism” on YouTube. An example “A Rabbi Cross-Exams Christianity”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UZeR3yV_Z8&list=UU5qG9wUJNISCbVF8AVp7-xw
I hope to open up the forum soon, and I’ll post the guidelines we’ll be following. But others may find such things interesting.