So, the long awaited post is coming, welcome to the wall of text.
Disclaimer: I don’t speak for the community at large and also discord deleted stuff so some things may be missing and there is a ton going on and it’s hard to get all of it in “one” post. (Editor’s Note: This was all posted on Discord.)
I’m just a guy who like birbs that somehow hasn’t been banned yet. My small input here: There’s a lot of stuff here and this has been building for months, so let’s recap.
At the end of the day CC is a censored, oligarchical community, run by the council who are assisted by staff (including moderators)
Let;s go back to the start here: The mod staff has had a lot of cases where their judgment was questioned and discussed on how we dealt with certain posts and content. There is a group that felt like there should be more lenience, and they felt underrepresented because once something was gone, the decision was permanent.
Even behind the scenes, we weren’t all in agreement on how to handle “questionable content”, that being things in a grey area that might bother some people. We had mods who felt like there was content that was harmful and they pulled it and some that thought we should leave stuff up until we had more support to remove it. I was part of the group that advocated for leniency, for some reference here.
However, as mentioned before, CC is oligarchical. The server has existed for a long time as a place that was clean and safe. Another descriptor is family friendly. Some people are bothered by things more than others, and at the end of the day… there are other places to enjoy content they don’t like. There aren’t really many places like CC that keep things as clean and free from content that people find problematic in their walk with God.
There was a decision made in the interest of keeping CC a safe place where people can avoid things that negatively impact their walk with God. The decision being that if anyone is bothered by content it will be removed. I get that this can be seen as dismissing people, but it’s meant to protect people and keep the server true to its purpose. It is meant to be a place of fellowship, outreach, and somewhere that you can keep your walk with God.
Stuff might not affect your walk with God, but you should empathize with the person it does bother and realize that your opinion isn't automatically the right one.
Stuff might not affect your walk with God, but you should empathize with the person it does bother and realize that your opinion isn’t automatically the right one. It took me a bit of reflection to come around. Despite how it can look from the outside looking in, we spend a lot of time discussing things at the moderator level. From my long experience with CC, I can also vouch that the council deliberates heavily, too. We care about the community and want to do our best by it.
At the end of the day, though, the staff has been chosen for a reason, everyone on call has been determined to be reasonable and not prone to flights of fancy. If you have concerns about them, let council know. I’ve been around a long time and I’ve known most of our current council for years and almost half of them I met when they first joined CC. These aren’t people on a power trip, they are good people that really do want the best outcome. If you bring up concerns to them they will hear you out.
TLDR: The decision to be strict has been made to protect the community at large, we will hear your opinion on it, and while we might change our stance down the line… At the moment that decision will stand. A lot of the problems at the moment also come from fatigue.
Also, another note from me: From my perspective: most of this is caused by communication difficulties and a lack of empathy. So if you takeaway anything, take an extra second to empathize with someone before you assume they’re making choices for a lark.
Continuing my TL;DR: cause I missed a lot of things
It can seem like people aren’t getting a fair shake but there is a lot of discussion going on in the background, believe me when I say there is plenty of debate going on.
