[HammerStone]

Please feel free to use this thread, a private message (PM), or email webmaster at christianityboard.com (format it like a regular email) with your thoughts. I'm looking for constructive stuff, so please be respectful to everyone and keep that in mind. I want to hear personally from the community as we attempt to make this place a little more user friendly!

[wayofthespirit]

You have a real job on your hands Mr Hammerstone.
I only looked in again in response to your 'round robin' Email to members who have stopped posting.
Your problem is that the majority of well adjusted and rounded Christians wouldn't give a second thought to contributing to a forum.
It is the nature of the beast that forum is predominantly the resort of fanatics with agendas.
But there are a few well adjusted Christians who do contribute to forums....the secret is to ensure your environment is not so dominated by bigoted fanatics that well adjusted Christian either leave, or read and give you a miss.
I reckon your environment has been allowed to develop to a degree that you cannot now redress.

Mike.

[HammerStone]

I'm never really concerned about the jobs ahead of me, as the angel said in Luke 1:37, nothing is impossible with God. From the feedback we've received in the past to the great folks we currently have on board, I know Father has worked and continues to work through this community. My concern is that I make this place open to Him and His will.

In actuality, the email was sent to everyone and it wouldn't be the first time I've used such an email. I know some folks are smarter than me and I know others perhaps a good bit more inspired. I'm open to new ways to run this forum as well as issues that might make this place difficult to post at. I periodically request feedback to stay on top of my game; I run my business life no differently. The folks that know me know that. I definitely don't expect you to, so I thought I'd simply put that detail out there.

I know the nature of the beast when it comes to forums (I've run many myself and I moderate and administrate at others with a number of posts), so I'm aware of what I'm up against. I could have easily opted to be just another whitewashed forum or perhaps even a ministry website where I shared my views in a one-sided fashion. I don't work that way; I've found that there are some great Christian folks out there who have a thing or two to teach me but maybe don't have the platform. My goal here is to give Christianity Board to them yes, but most importantly to God. If this site helps one soul find his or her way, then it's a resounding success in my book!

With that said, I appreciate your feedback. I'm sorry you've not found it conducive to your method and mode of study, but I haven't had any reports nor seen any examples of rule violations. If you do have an issue, as I've mentioned to you before, feel free to report it for our staff to take a look at. Right now, I don't see much beyond some "controversial" statements made and perhaps argued a bit. Otherwise, as much as I'd like to make CB a panacea for everyone, I do recognize that not every environment will fit every bill. That's another nature of the forum beast.

Thanks for all the feedback we received. It seems I need to open up email communication a bit because most of you preferred that method. If I've not already spoken with you, I will be doing it soon. I wanted to let the feedback trickle in before I started responding.

[WhiteKnuckle]

Bring back Tetris! How can I beat Jordans high score if there's no Tetris?

Other than that,, I like the changes.

[HammerStone]

Still stuck on Tetris, eh?

I'm still up in the air about the arcade, but I'll take the Tetris thingy into account just for you.

[fivesense]

There is much that the Adversary would like to achieve and acclaim to himself, since his creation is always to be God's foil. I feel you are well on track to depose him through this site, that your moderation is being revealed, and your sincerity unfeigned. I would not have chosen this battle you are in. By faith-obedience, you disarm him and already exercise a cooperative life in Christ, while still here on the terra firma. Your "face" will be familiar -and glorified in Christ- as you supplant him and his minions at the translation of our bodies.

May the mercies and the grace you've received continue to manifest to the ones who come and go, and may you continue to grow in knowledge and grace in Christ Jesus, our Lord
fivesense

[write2witness]

HammerStone, on 15 March 2010 - 11:39 AM, said:

My concern is that I make this place open to Him and His will.

Then just stand on His Word and align every action, thought, comment, and purpose with it and you will be.

[wayofthespirit]

OK, I'm back with a resolve to contribute without being shaken off couse by what others say that might not be in the spirit of love and tolerance.

Mike.

[JarBreaker]

Ok, this is admittedly a personal irritation but surely it would serve to streamline things on every single thread.


People PLEASE, when quoting others ... exercise your backspace key, holding down control as you backspace removes entire words instead of single letters at a time.

We have many posts on this board that may run into several paragraphs or approach 1,000 words .... then the 1st 3 people to respond will immediately quote the entire thing, and we suddenly have a thread that is getting out of hand. If you spend more time scrolling down than reading new content in a thread then it's just a bloated mess.

Streamlining what you quote makes it easier for others to quickly see where you are agreeing / taking issue with a previous post ... as well as cutting down on the time it may take someone in the future who decides to come into a thread and read the majority of it.



On a similar note to a smaller scale, often times a short reply is all you need to post .... most cases this just results in a small reply. But for some people who choose to elaborate more than others in their personal statement of faith, a short reply (even 1 word) results in an disproportionately long post.

This only applies to a few people but it also seems that those who have the longest SoF generally have a tendency to only make small posts.

Maybe making the PSoF only visible on a person's page would eliminate this and not be too hard to change in coding.

[HammerStone]

Appreciate the input JarBreaker.

I didn't realize that the SoF for each member was showing on the topic. (For some reason it was not for me.) That should now be resolved, I think.

In regards to the rest of your post, I definitely agree about the quote part. Please try and limit usage of the quote feature. For example, if you're addressing the OP (original poster), there is really no need to quote the entire post because that's the point of a thread. I really don't like the idea of resorting to team members here editing that, but we may have to go that route if the trend continues. Please try and use quotes strategically and not just quote the entire post where simply addressing the person by their moniker would do the same job.

Thanks!

[JarBreaker]

Thanks Hammerstone, the post preceding my initial post on this (wayofthespirit) took up at least 3 times as much space as it does now when the SoF was still visible ... so thats much improved.