Observer Article: "Defunct WonderCafe site is reborn"

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Pr. Jae said:
And yet it wasn't open. Conservative evangelicals for example - which is what I was at the time - we're not treated fairly by the admins despite some other regs routinely insulting and mocking us as "fundies."
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Aah, yes. How many times were you banned? How many posts did you write?
 
The cool thing about this place is we can say bone headed things and be forgiven (usually). I've seen growth in many posters. I appreciate the different views expressed here, even when they come from people who hold more basic/literal views. For instance Jae just said something about his being evangelical and conservative in the past tense.

I'm glad we follow a faith that allows for forgiveness.....
 
Pr. Jae said:
I was never banned. I wrote many posts.
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You were never banned, you wrote many posts. You identified as a conservative fundamenlist.
Atheists, agnostics posted without banning.
Gosh, that sounds pretty darn open.

Who was banned?
I think there were 2, maybe 3 users in all the life of WonderCafe that were banned/blocked for things done/said (excluding spammers). That is a pretty open community.
 
Pinga said:
Chansen, your arguments are regularly personal attacks and emotional. You throw around words like incompetence and denigrate individuals. You blame the messenger and presume the messenger is the decision makers and that you have all the facts.

I do not see you as rational or showing your capabilities for critical thinking in this area. You are emotional.
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No, the UCCan moderators are emotional. And worse, they use moderator tools when they are emotional. Then they can't justify their actions, and they insist they should not have to justify their actions.

I see you as completely blind to this side of the UCCan. You haven't seen this side of them. I have.
 
Pinga said:
You were never banned, you wrote many posts. You identified as a conservative fundamenlist.
Atheists, agnostics posted without banning.
Gosh, that sounds pretty darn open.

Who was banned?
I think there were 2, maybe 3 users in all the life of WonderCafe that were banned/blocked for things done/said (excluding spammers). That is a pretty open community.
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I wasn't talking about being banned or not. I was talking about how "open" they truly were to facilitating discussion. What I experienced on Wondercafe was that when certain posters would flag posts - the admins were swift to clamp down on the person being complained about. However - some of us - and it was easiest for me to notice this when we "fundies" we're involved - did not receive fair and equal treatment in this regard. I - as an example - was just largely ignored.
 
Pr. Jae said:
I wasn't talking about being banned or not. I was talking about how "open" they truly were to facilitating discussion. What I experienced on Wondercafe was that when certain posters would flag posts - the admins were swift to clamp down on the person being complained about. However - some of us - and it was easiest for me to notice this when we "fundies" we're involved - did not receive fair and equal treatment in this regard. I - as an example - was just largely ignored.
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And I think, overall, most of your complaints should have been ignored. But so should many others, especially when they were giving it out on the forum, then retreating behind the claim of being offended and asking to have other people's words removed.

But I've never seen any indication that context was considered. Only action, based on snap decisions, most commonly to remove entire posts. That is not managing a community - that is playing favourites and making it crystal clear that some people's words are not important.
 
Interesting, Chansen, who is the furthest from the fundamentalist christian you could find, is saying he was regularly removed due to the items he posted.

yet, you say that fundamentalist christians were not listened to in terms of complaints.
 
We agree, in the years that followed, with the amount of time that was able to be allocated to the site, as a paid resource, there were quick decisions to reduce noise and remove threads.

Conrary to your opinion, my posts also were removed in those decisions. Sometimes I agreed. Sometimes I didn't.

You name that as incompetence without knowing the factors behind those actions.
i sall it a rational decision based on staff resources and availability, especially during non-business hours. after funding and resources had been cut.
 
Great, so later they were doing a terrible job as a matter of policy and upper level decisions. I've acknowledged before their lack of resources. But this did not begin a shift in how they approached things - it was simply more of the same, now with a built-in excuse.
 
I am not sure where you get your information or your analysis or your stats.

For some reason, you have determined it was a "terrible job" in social media.

This "terrible job" in social media resulted in multi-million dollar ad campaigns being executed at no cost to the church, it resolved in viral videos, media events including graphic artists, WonderCafe, controversial media attracting ads, and this site...which in its prime was pulling people from multiple areas, globally and denominationally.

So, this terrible job that you are quick to highlight........what particular aspects do you wish to focus on.
Others, such as norhwind, have focussed on Emerging Spirit, which btw, is much broader than any part of the social media, and is more about as RevJohn has indicated the engagement of the greater church. Those silly folks at GC thought if they built it, folks would come. Major miss...failure on multiple levels. None of which are the actual social media staff.
 
PS. we are so good at social media that a member of the admin group answers a request for an interview by a reporter without confirmation or discussion on talking points.

Yeah, we're good at social media.
 
Pinga said:
Interesting, Chansen, who is the furthest from the fundamentalist christian you could find, is saying he was regularly removed due to the items he posted.

yet, you say that fundamentalist christians were not listened to in terms of complaints.
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Are you suggesting that chansen was regularly removed to the complaints of fundamentalist Christians? If so - what actual evidence can you provide?
 
I am saying that it is interesting how both extremes feel they weren't listened to and/or were mishandled
 
No cost to the church?!?!?

It was a lump sum bequest, as I understand it. People talked about the United Church more than normal for 5 minutes. They started a forum and attracted a lot of fundies initially. There is, that I'm aware, no measurable increase in membership or attendance as a result. But to say it was at no cost to the church makes it sound like a directed bequest was like "funny money" and not really important.

And for all the ads about how different the United Church is, it's really not. You tend not to hate gays, and you have some ministers who walk the line of atheism, and one who happily crosses it. Other than that, you're not so different.

Maybe if you advertise how each church is different, that might be something. The UCCan is not McDonald's. If people go into two United Churches expecting the same thing, they apparently are not going to get it. So advertise that fact. Be honest and up-front. But they ran an advertising campaign on donated dollars that did not match reality. The UCCan started a poorly-coded website, and ran it in a very strange, open-yet-not-so-open way. They tossed it aside without even talking to the community they started.
 
Pinga said:
I am saying that it is interesting how both extremes feel they weren't listened to and/or were mishandled
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And perhaps both extremes were. Perhaps the admins - employed by the UCCanada - tended to put UCCanada members first. Perhaps. And how "open" would that have been.
 
chansen said:
No cost to the church?!?!?

It was a lump sum bequest, as I understand it. People talked about the United Church more than normal for 5 minutes. They started a forum and attracted a lot of fundies initially. There is, that I'm aware, no measurable increase in membership or attendance as a result. But to say it was at no cost to the church makes it sound like a directed bequest was like "funny money" and not really important.

And for all the ads about how different the United Church is, it's really not. You tend not to hate gays, and you have some ministers who walk the line of atheism, and one who happily crosses it. Other than that, you're not so different.

Maybe if you advertise how each church is different, that might be something. The UCCan is not McDonald's. If people go into two United Churches expecting the same thing, they apparently are not going to get it. So advertise that fact. Be honest and up-front. But they ran an advertising campaign on donated dollars that did not match reality. The UCCan started a poorly-coded website, and ran it in a very strange, open-yet-not-so-open way. They tossed it aside without even talking to the community they started.
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So, most of the above items are not the social media group that you seem to wish to target with your despising and accusations of incompetence.

are you now extending your incompetence charges to the full church, including but not limited to, the General Council that approved the spend, the staff that set the agenda, the general councils that didn't extend the spend (and/or only portions of it), the churches who did not communicate openly on their desires, or act or attend the emergning spirits programs.

You see, I get that the program had flaws in execution; however, having been a GC delegate, a conference representative, a presbytery member, and an emerging spirit program attendee and advocate in our own church....well....there is lots of s**t to spread around....and the social media staff and the emerging spirit leadership is the least flawed. I am surprised that they retained their hope and expectations of follow-through by the wider church as long as they did.
 
With attitudes such as that you can understand why there is a hesitancy about engaging with wondercafe2.

If your attitude is one of despising and lack of co-operation, then don't be surprised when that is exactly what you get.
When you fail to see the importance of process...and proceed anyway, then you can expect certain consequences...again broken relationship.

Most individuals on this thread are not aware of the apology that you refer to. That was in council business which is likely where this one should be as well. Yet, you have brought it up twice in this thread. Nice.

So, I trust that it is intentional to bring the dark side of council business into the general forum, to describe the process that took great exercise on behalf of the moderators as coercion, and to just rip the ucc again?

I don't understand why you are choosing this approach? It seems easier to focus on working towards a solid solution and process of how we can do it well, rather than rip potential allies and bring them down.
 
I do not see the United Church of Canada social media people as potential allies. They have always been cold, non-communicative, and unrepentant for any mistake they've made. I've seen no evidence that they are part of any solution. We've been responsible for our own solutions.
 
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