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Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.
Men, how do you feel about the forum?
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I can see how the amount of heat and light focused on theological topics could by offputting to some. On the other hand, active engaging threads hook people to participate. The first time I found this place I walked on by because it looked dead, little activity. (That and you had a bunch of retreat pictures of families from the meetups on the webpage which I wasn't keen on having happen to me if I attended.) But when I came around again the forum was looking more active and I had questions I needed answers to.
So restricting public access to non core areas could make this place look ill used. I know I don't bother posting questions to forums if I know it's going to languish unanswered for a long time.
That said, the amount of content about courtship/dating and Biblical poly stuff should be increased. Sadly I cannot contribute to such areas from expertise, not having multiple wives myself. It is personal stories from poly households I consistently find most enlightening, and most rare.
So, how can we bribe poly households to contribute their wisdom more? They are the most busy of all of us!
I need to make it clear that, from my perspective, I am trying to preserve the function of this forum, not change it.
I have been here for many years, though not as many as Steve. And I feel it was more welcoming and accessible to newcomers in the past. I want to preserve that.
It has become far more active of late, which is a good thing. However, raw activity statistics are misleading. Yes, we have as many as 1900 unique visits in a month. However, if someone visits every day, that's 30 visits from one person. Just 30 people visiting daily would account for half of that activity.
What I am seeing is a lot more activity, which is great - but much of it is coming from the same people. The people who are here are all fairly comfortable with it. But they're here because they're comfortable with it. It's circular reasoning.
@rockfox has named 5 individual men to me, who have been pushed away in one form or another over the past 2 months.
@Kevin has shared his experience attempting to point men to the forum, which includes many more men who have been pushed away before even signing up.
I believe that we are in danger of mistaking busyness for ministry.
@PeteR identified the biggest weakness: "Piling on"
If we end up with a lot of men who like to post a lot and think similar things, then people who post something that disagrees with this don't just get one response correcting them, they get 5. Then the 5 people who made those posts start disagreeing with each other over the technicalities. Then a debate ensues. The original person gets drawn into it. And then they either stay and join the pack, or give up and leave.
Next person gets 6 responses...
This explains why many women, and some men, are turned away. It's fundamentally the same reason. It's not about the forum being male-dominated, or the men being led by their wives (both opposite accusations that get thrown back and forth). It's not about gender. It's simpler than that.
The result is an enormous amount of apparent activity. But how many real marital situations have been helped recently?
This forum is the online arm of a marriage ministry. We must always bear that in mind.
I have been here for many years, though not as many as Steve. And I feel it was more welcoming and accessible to newcomers in the past. I want to preserve that.
It has become far more active of late, which is a good thing. However, raw activity statistics are misleading. Yes, we have as many as 1900 unique visits in a month. However, if someone visits every day, that's 30 visits from one person. Just 30 people visiting daily would account for half of that activity.
What I am seeing is a lot more activity, which is great - but much of it is coming from the same people. The people who are here are all fairly comfortable with it. But they're here because they're comfortable with it. It's circular reasoning.
@rockfox has named 5 individual men to me, who have been pushed away in one form or another over the past 2 months.
@Kevin has shared his experience attempting to point men to the forum, which includes many more men who have been pushed away before even signing up.
I believe that we are in danger of mistaking busyness for ministry.
@PeteR identified the biggest weakness: "Piling on"
If we end up with a lot of men who like to post a lot and think similar things, then people who post something that disagrees with this don't just get one response correcting them, they get 5. Then the 5 people who made those posts start disagreeing with each other over the technicalities. Then a debate ensues. The original person gets drawn into it. And then they either stay and join the pack, or give up and leave.
Next person gets 6 responses...
This explains why many women, and some men, are turned away. It's fundamentally the same reason. It's not about the forum being male-dominated, or the men being led by their wives (both opposite accusations that get thrown back and forth). It's not about gender. It's simpler than that.
The result is an enormous amount of apparent activity. But how many real marital situations have been helped recently?
This forum is the online arm of a marriage ministry. We must always bear that in mind.
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I completely agree. Which is why I see most of the rest of your suggestions @Keith Martin as taking this forum too far from what it has always been.
There are many, many people who browse this forum for months before signing up, learning from the discussions. Some will never sign up. But the discussions that happen here are a ministry in themselves to those who are reading them, or will read them over the years to come.
We are not just writing for each other, but writing for an audience.
Restricting a large chunk of what is currently public and putting it in a trusted-members-only access area would be a major blow to the function of this ministry, and is simply not up for consideration. Unless Nathan directed that himself.
Mine has.
But she didn't come here for that until after I'd been here quite a while; and I wouldn't have stuck around if I thought this was the kind of place which was unwilling to give the hard but necessary Biblical advice people didn't want to hear. Or which would be giving bad or unbiblical advice to to women; plenty enough of that from the churches.
I can see the problem, but what can be done for that? I know well the feeling of "ooooh... this is a big important screwup that nobody has mentioned yet, and I feel like the anointed one to bring it to light/correct it. " so it will be difficult for someone caught in that mindset to realize when he's totally dog-piling. I mean ideally we'd self regulate, assuming we all agree that piling on is a problem and if we can all recognize that not everything we have to say is as important as not overwhelming someone.
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Mine too.
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I don't have to worry about dog piling because I'm the only one that believes what I believe and it's usually different from everyone else.
I have learned that dog piling is really just love, big group hugs.
An example of this "piling on" issue just happened today, so it's a good case study. A woman is currently seeking advice with her marriage, and received conflicting advice on whether and when she can withhold sex from her husband. That is to be expected, because we all disagree on many things.
This initially became a debate on her thread, with men from different perspectives disagreeing with the initial advice, and wanting to ensure that the woman was not misled. Everyone's motives were completely genuine. However, it would rapidly have resulted in this support thread becoming a theological debate, and the real-world situation would have been lost.
So, the problem was solved as follows:
@Verifyveritas76 moved much of this theological discussion to a new thread.
I tidied up some details, and posted a clarifying statement for the woman involved, making it clear that there are two different perspectives here, which perspective is the dominant one on this forum (to the best of my understanding), and pointing her elsewhere to see a detailed discussion of it.
This is one example of "piling on". As @Slumberfreeze points out, it's completely natural and people have good intentions. However, there are ways of managing it in a way that does not overwhelm the original poster of a thread.
I think in the case of such disagreement, a single clarifying statement and a link elsewhere can ensure that the original poster receives simple and clear advice if they are only ready for a milk-level instruction, but still has access to detailed advice. At the same time, the other forum members retain the opportunity to nut the issue out in great detail without the need to consider the feelings of the original poster getting in the way of sound debate.
The situation is moved from "piling on" to clearly delivering two separate ministry goals simultaneously.
This initially became a debate on her thread, with men from different perspectives disagreeing with the initial advice, and wanting to ensure that the woman was not misled. Everyone's motives were completely genuine. However, it would rapidly have resulted in this support thread becoming a theological debate, and the real-world situation would have been lost.
So, the problem was solved as follows:
@Verifyveritas76 moved much of this theological discussion to a new thread.
I tidied up some details, and posted a clarifying statement for the woman involved, making it clear that there are two different perspectives here, which perspective is the dominant one on this forum (to the best of my understanding), and pointing her elsewhere to see a detailed discussion of it.
This is one example of "piling on". As @Slumberfreeze points out, it's completely natural and people have good intentions. However, there are ways of managing it in a way that does not overwhelm the original poster of a thread.
I think in the case of such disagreement, a single clarifying statement and a link elsewhere can ensure that the original poster receives simple and clear advice if they are only ready for a milk-level instruction, but still has access to detailed advice. At the same time, the other forum members retain the opportunity to nut the issue out in great detail without the need to consider the feelings of the original poster getting in the way of sound debate.
The situation is moved from "piling on" to clearly delivering two separate ministry goals simultaneously.
Spot on!!!!!!
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Samuel, you'd make a good wife, you clean up everybody's messes.
That's not quite what I pictured as a piling on situation (more 2v2 anyway); but pulling that out to a thread like that was a good move.
Is it mostly women who are getting their feelings hurt? Or are there men coming on here, getting their feelings hurt and then leaving?
We always recommend that women go to the women's forum if they want "soft" support. Maybe we should make it mandatory?
Maybe we should just have separate forums? One for men and one for women? And the only combined forums for very benign topics like for retreats and things like that?
We always recommend that women go to the women's forum if they want "soft" support. Maybe we should make it mandatory?
Maybe we should just have separate forums? One for men and one for women? And the only combined forums for very benign topics like for retreats and things like that?
Based on Kevin's comments I'd say it's both men and women. And for the men I wouldn't say 'getting their feelings hurt' is a accurate summation of the problem.
I've found women's contributions critically valuable at times. I'm not in favor of segregation.
GOLD!
After prayerful consideration, here’s my take.
Everything that needs to be said has been said somewhere in the discussions/debates. There is nothing new to add.
But I will say that human wisdom only goes so far and ultimately the question comes down to what Yah wants.
The thing to keep in mind is that every word written in the forums is taken by the noobs as representative of what is being taught here.
Taking myself as an example, when I saw something posted as being scriptural truth, but felt that it didn’t line up with actual Scripture, I felt no choice but to post a counterbalance post. And another felt no choice but to qualify my post.
Not because we feel the need to argue or to convince each other, but to make sure that the reader had access to what we perceived the truth to be.
What ensued was perfect, it got moderated.
It’s useless to expect a group of passionate guys to become counselors. We want truth and we will fight to uphold truth. Leaving what we perceive to be untruths laying around for the noobs to get confused about is just not an option for us.
We can walk away from a church and leave them in their delusions, but this site is our last stronghold. We cannot abandon it to the theological flavor of the day.
The pressure to “be who you are, but be a modified version of you” has caused two, that we know of, to go on walkabout. What is the answer? It needs to come from Yah.
Everything that needs to be said has been said somewhere in the discussions/debates. There is nothing new to add.
But I will say that human wisdom only goes so far and ultimately the question comes down to what Yah wants.
The thing to keep in mind is that every word written in the forums is taken by the noobs as representative of what is being taught here.
Taking myself as an example, when I saw something posted as being scriptural truth, but felt that it didn’t line up with actual Scripture, I felt no choice but to post a counterbalance post. And another felt no choice but to qualify my post.
Not because we feel the need to argue or to convince each other, but to make sure that the reader had access to what we perceived the truth to be.
What ensued was perfect, it got moderated.
It’s useless to expect a group of passionate guys to become counselors. We want truth and we will fight to uphold truth. Leaving what we perceive to be untruths laying around for the noobs to get confused about is just not an option for us.
We can walk away from a church and leave them in their delusions, but this site is our last stronghold. We cannot abandon it to the theological flavor of the day.
The pressure to “be who you are, but be a modified version of you” has caused two, that we know of, to go on walkabout. What is the answer? It needs to come from Yah.
We are all different. People come here seeking counsel. And we have people here who are great at giving counsel. That is awesome. Don't think it is useless to try and be counselors. We are far more than just a group of theologians, each of us has multiple talents, and the site has multiple members.
I am not sure why anyone feels pressure to be "a modified version" of themselves. All we're talking about is organisation - what things we put where. And organisation allows an even greater number of people to naturally be who they truly are, without needing to modify that at all. This site should never be abandoned to the theological flavour of the day.
I present what was done in that thread today as an example. It may not be right, but it's an example of what can be done. In my view, nothing there was "moderated", nothing that was said was wrong. It was simply organised. And in my opinion that organisation allows even greater freedom of expression. I could of course be wrong.
Agreed. And if anything that is being done is clearly not in accordance with His will, do not hesitate to point it out.
Mine has as well, even though my wife has never posted anything and hasn't read more than a couple posts well over a year ago.
But I have learned VOLUMES from what I have read and from responses to things I've written, from all of which my wife and family have benefitted as I've shared insights and implemented others.
I believe you are being too pessimistic, Samuel. I do not believe any kind of significant harm is occurring to people because of contentious discussions. I do, though, believe that some people simply aren't ready for that (and that many of them are frank enough to identify themselves by saying that they're turned off and self-remove). So it's not really an issue when people who don't want to be around conflict stay away from the conflict. What is more concerning to me are the people who either purposefully interfere with our ability to conduct significant conversations or indirectly interfere with that ability by complaining about things being too rough and tumble and get folks in our midst to become committed to elevating their concerns above those of the people who actually contribute here.
Why not just do ourselves a big favor and institute some preventive medicine, keeping people out until they demonstrate that they're willing and able to join us as peers? Isn't it the case that anyone who really is going to benefit from the Meat will be eagerly willing to demonstrate that they're ready for it? I know I would.
I, for one, am far more concerned about the real people who are already part of this community than about who's going to read this in a time capsule or whether we can make the determined-to-be-uncomfortable comfortable with us or free from feeling excluded.
The more this goes on, the more I regret ever having raised concerns about very limited categories of misbehavior, because if doing that had anything to do with this new trend being the end result, I'm going to conclude that I really should have been ashamed of myself for what we will end up reaping. This sort of reminds me of the gun control debate. Instead of limiting ourselves to prosecuting actual murderers, our country regularly goes through phases of discussing taking guns away from law-abiding citizens. People who have never considered using firearms for nefarious purposes are guilt-tripped for being associated with guns. And here we are getting lectured to for not being nice enough to people who show up here doing their best to assert or imply that we're nasty people for supporting polygamy. My original concern was not wanting to turn off single women who arrive here sincerely seeking established biblical families to join, but I do not know why on Earth we are seeking approval from people who come here to attack us or why we're being asked to disarm.
I really don't want to keep hearing about how we all need to start being more welcoming, sensitive, helpful, etc. Being ministered to doesn't necessarily mean being covered up with a blanket and given a backrub. Marriage involves hard work and requires difficult-to-hear input. We don't need to keep being reminded that we're not warm-fuzzy enough. People here are, in a real baseline sense, more functionally loving than almost any other group of people I've met. I really do find myself thinking that people who want to demand that we be nicer need to go to any church in America, a new one every week, and surround themselves with hypocrites , pick up their mug with the church's logo on it, filled with pencils and hot chocolate powder, handed to them by people who will look them deep in the eyes with superficial acceptance, right up to the time the prospective member begins tithing. There you can get nice, but what you can't get is real or even real love.
During the retreats, I call a group of people who have welcomed me into their evening gatherings The Safe Zone. The Safe Zone is the only place in my life where I feel like I can actually share who I am as a person and be fully accepted even if the people there don't live life exactly like I do . . . or agree with me about everything . . . or support every goal I have, about polygamy or headship or whatever. But what I can do is be real. Honest. Transparent. And experience being valued, without being condemned. Something like that happens here in the forum threads.
So I really think we need to do one or more of the following three things:
1. Lock the overly-sensitive out of the sensitive areas, for their 'protection' and ours, given that not having to be subject to them will be more valuable to us than keeping all of our words recorded for posterity could ever hope to be;
2. Stop coddling the overly-sensitive. I stand by what I wrote earlier in this thread; and
3. Put a short timer on this group self-immolation, releasing us collectively from what can really end up being internally destructive.
As far as marriage ministries go, I believe the evidence we see at retreats is that this organization has been highly successful at ministering to marriages. The question we might need to seriously ask ourselves is this: why aren't the marriages of those of us who have been willing to challenge each other at least as valuable as the marriages of those who may or may not ever bother to tell us what's going on in their marriages without having to have it pried out of them? Why are smart, savvy, seasoned men and women like us falling into the same trap that the mainstream culture voluntarily jumps into? Why are we getting suckered into believing that hope for the hapless is more righteous than support for our comrades?
And I really am wondering if I haven't invited the Adversary in on this one. I generally tend to think he can't get a foothold without an invitation, but I can certainly see that I played a part in inviting this mess to stick its nose under the tent.
But the problem wasn't solved; it was swept under the carpet, right along with everything else from the forum thread that the woman herself is shoveling under the carpet as quickly as she can dispatch it.
A woman who refuses to accept her husband's headship is here pretending she wants help, when all she's demonstrated she wants is sympathy and justification for either vilifying her husband or leaving him. In that context, recognizing her resistance to any piece of helpful advice she was given, I pretty much tongue-in-cheek suggested that she consider William Luck's interpretation based on Old Testament Scripture that, within the context of polygamy, women have the choice to refrain from providing due benevolence to their husbands after producing a child -- something which she was already threatening to do. My purpose was to get her to stop threatening or begging for sympathy and start actually contemplating what it's going to be like if she withdraws herself from her husband's affections -- helping her see that she will be the one who loses out the most if she withdraws from him.
What occurred? Well, first someone with a different corner on biblical truth contradicted me. Big whup; that's what men do, but, without even being consulted or informed, my post was moved over to look like it was a new thread started by me -- as if I wanted to start a firestorm by supposedly suggesting that women deny their husbands sex. Piling on, though, isn't close to being as much of a problem as running for the exits is. In case anyone's unaware of the thread, the woman (who can now read this until it gets removed, because we wouldn't dare limit her right to choose whether or not she can find something else here to complain about) has been blathering on about how she's the poor victim of her horrible husband who is forcing her into polygamy -- after first beating around the bush while lacing her original post with condemnations of patriarchy and polygyny. So, now, I learn right here, in this thread -- after belatedly learning about having been thrown under the bus for the sake of a woman who wouldn't even be straightforward about what was going on with her until some of us pried it out of her -- that she's also been pointed to read the new thread. We must make her feel welcome, at all costs.
Can we see how desperate we are to get approval from people who not only aren't behaving as if they'll ever provide any of the rest of us any support but may even in the future make efforts to hurt our organization?
I've spent way too much time here in the last few days, so I'm going to make myself turn off my computer and sleep on all this. At the moment, I'm mourning the loss, temporary or otherwise, of @ZecAustin from these byways -- wondering what his overall reasons were for heading out, but right now my head is spinning around the near certitude that any role I have played in unleashing this juggernaut is the real justification for me to be condemned and that I should be embarrassed for making the Milk and Meat suggestion as well, because even the Meat has been watered down to Skim Milk if we're going to purposefully steer someone who's allergic to anything more difficult to digest than Ensure to go to the Meat section that was supposedly set up to protect her from being driven away.
Am I the only one who sees how irrational this is?
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