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So it comes to a vote 
7th-Jan-2005 05:24 pm
Beer
This is your friendly community moderator checking in. Any of you who have been following this community the last few days will have noticed the drama taking place with purelily.

For the most part, I have always tried to let this community take its own direction. I try to let it be as self moderating as possible and only stick my nose in when we get spammed or someone posts a non-work safe image without a cut, etc. In general, I love the contributions our members make. However, there comes a point where we have to decide if one person dominating the community with post after post on the same basic subject is healthy or wanted. Without a doubt, after a certain time that sort of behavior begins to detract from the quality of the community.

I personally think purelily is a troll. I have told her that straight out and I warned her a few days ago that if she kept on trolling I would exercise my right to ban her. I don't want to quash "free speech", but there are plenty of other places purelily can take her rhetoric. Boy though, for a troll, you guys sure seem to like talking to her. Perhaps you enjoy your interactions. So since this community belongs to all of us, I thought I'd bring it to a vote. The final count will be made Sunday evening (USA) at which time I will go with whatever the majority decides. If there is trouble between then and now, I reserve the right to take any action I feel is necessary.

Should purelily be banned from the anthropologist community?

Yes
233(82.9%)
No
48(17.1%)


Feel free to discuss this in the comments, but please don't make additional posts about it.

Once again, I appreciate everyone's efforts to make this an interesting and valuable community and hope that we will continue our positive growth in the future.
Comments 
8th-Jan-2005 12:21 am (UTC)
aaaah, social darwinism ;)

thanks for letting the results lie with the community.

//for a troll, you guys sure seem to like talking to her//

just honing our debate skills :)
8th-Jan-2005 12:28 am (UTC)
Or, you know, poking the proverbial wasps' nest >.>
8th-Jan-2005 12:41 am (UTC) - just for my two cents....since i have kept quiet the whole time....
purely on the basis that she is racist (espcially in a commmunity that studies the fallacy of race - it is a culturally created term after all)and truly adds to all that is evil and vile on this planet she should be banned - banned and then banned from anywhere else you can find her and those like her. I am sorry for being so upset and harsh but as a practicing anthropologist i refuse to have such crap in our community. I have some good friends who are scientific creationists, so before she jumps down my throat at being against her because of her religion i would like to say that not a one of those friends have EVER pushed their religion on me and we have had many engaging, scientific discussions about our respective truths. Power to the poll.
8th-Jan-2005 02:32 am (UTC)
Because hating someone because of their race is much worse than hating someone because of how they think. Hypocrite.
(Deleted comment)
8th-Jan-2005 12:42 am (UTC)
yet again, I say why can't people just skip her messages. I think you should have added a I don't really care one way or the other button for those that know how to skip over threads.

Personally, I haven't noticed much by the user. So I can't really say, but I think that the ones that got sucked in by the troll bait need to re-evaluate their reading skills, and learn not to get sucked into those. Have you tried telling the user to back down in the posts? Having people gang up on you, then having a mod joining the gang, usually is a good way to get ignored by the user.
8th-Jan-2005 12:46 am (UTC)
I personally find that ignoring a troll usually makes it go away, but it's obvious that this community has chosen not to ignore the troll.

Purelily has posed a problem on and off for quite sometime. She doesn't seem to honor polite requests. Now it's up to the community to decide what to do.
8th-Jan-2005 12:43 am (UTC)
Part of me says no: freedom of expression and all that, plus the fact that there are some really intelligent things said in reply to her idiocy...but reason overruled and I say ban her. Her posts have no relevance to this community and take away from the quality of anthropological discussion.
8th-Jan-2005 12:48 am (UTC)
plus the fact that there are some really intelligent things said in reply to her idiocy

Thank you, I'm glad someone said it. I told someone else that rebuttal to theories often results in creative and potentially fruitful research. I really enjoyed some of the sites that people had posted in response. The one about reading critically was very useful.
8th-Jan-2005 12:58 am (UTC)
waiting for a defense post from purelily.
should be predictable..

i could care less either way, i can ignore...


8th-Jan-2005 01:11 am (UTC) - participant observation :-)
While I find what purelilly has to say... well... kinda crazy... I do find it instructive. I think it is pretty important to understand how the people I disagree with are thinking. While following these posts I have marveled at how willing everyone seems to be to feed the troll. But for me watching purelilly explain these wild theories gives me glimpse into how a particular group of people operates, and that is sorta what we do, right????
(Deleted comment)
8th-Jan-2005 01:25 am (UTC)
Do you happen to have any reliable, objective research on Identity Christianity? I'm sort of interested in it because we're studying social-cultural evolution and the growth of culture theory and I think some academic sources on this might be helpful.
(Deleted comment)
8th-Jan-2005 01:32 am (UTC)
Personally, as I said in the one post of hers I replied to, I think the best response is none at all. Don't feed the trolls.

However, since the community seems to be unable to resist her trollish appeal, I say get rid of her. She has a right to free speech, but we have a right not to host that speech as well.
8th-Jan-2005 01:39 am (UTC)
I've been going back and forth about my vote for a few minutes, but ultimately, I think that she should be banned. While I support freedom of speech, and I do enjoy far-fetched or provocative material, I agree that her subject matter is not appropriate to this list and needs to be taken elsewhere.


All of this does raise an interesting personal question: how do you reconcile your religion and your anthropological education/career? At the end of the day, does your work support your religious and/or spiritual beliefs, or do you regard them as separate from one another?
8th-Jan-2005 02:40 am (UTC)
It's strange. For some reason, I feel no real reconciliation is needed, and that they are somehow separate. As an example, a friend of mine is someone who knows that wind is created by low/high pressure systems and so forth but he is also someone who believes in his own Cree spirituality. In some traditions, the Cree believe that the wind is created by a giant bird flapping his wings. He is able to keep both systems of thought "away" from each other as it were. I guess it's a personal choice.

I don't know if this makes any sense.
8th-Jan-2005 01:55 am (UTC)
IMHO, it doesn't appear her posts are about the topic of the community and she doesn't care that they aren't as she repeatedly posts off topic items. So I'd have to say she ought to take her posts somewhere else.
8th-Jan-2005 01:58 am (UTC)
    I don't want to quash "free speech", but there are plenty of other places purelily can take her rhetoric.

Exactly. Freedom of speech is important, but we aren't talking about keeping her from getting her message out. Rather we are deciding whether or not we will be in her audience. Freedom of speech doesn't mean the right to demand that people gather around and listen or the right to interfere with the freedom of association of others by screaming inane drivel whenever others get together to talk.

Ban her, and let her find her audience, elsewhere.

Adrian
8th-Jan-2005 02:34 am (UTC)
If you don't want to be her audience, then don't read her posts.
(Deleted comment)
8th-Jan-2005 05:46 pm (UTC)
I don't think they said "no" because they are racist like you dear.
8th-Jan-2005 02:36 am (UTC)
Mandie (malkin767) - thank you - for taking action.
8th-Jan-2005 02:41 am (UTC)
well that was rather peaceful
(Deleted comment)
8th-Jan-2005 03:31 am (UTC) - Re: My Last Post in this Community
Ce sont mes derniers mots pour toi, ma fille.
Et je m'en fous si te me comprends ou non.

"Et voila qu'un Ange du Seigneur se presenta devant eux, et une lumière divine les environna, et ils furent saisis d'une grande crainte. Mais l'Ange leur dit: << Ne craignez point, car voici que je vous apporte la bonne nouvelle joie pour tout le peuple: c'est qu'il vous est né aujourd'hui dans la ville de David, un Sauveur, qui est le Christ Seigneur.>> ...au meme instant se joignit a l'Ange une multitude de la milice céleste, louant Dieu au plus haut des cieux, et sur terre paix aux hommes de bonne volonté."

Recueil de prières et de pieux exercices tirés des oeuvres de grands écrivains ecclésiasiques. Établi par Henri Provost & Cie. 1961.
8th-Jan-2005 03:22 am (UTC)
Perhaps purelily should start a group to profess (as opposed to report and discuss) anthropological creationism, since that's effectively where the line is being drawn and crossed here. The discussion for religiously defined explanations, theories, edicts and postulations deserves a place where it can evolve however it may, in the company of those who can appreciate those nuances.

That place isn't anthropology, as it does not in my opinion relate to any branch of the study's umbrella, and as such, I voted yes to removal here -- assuming that as moderator, malkin767 warned the offender before resorting to this vote.

Message to purelily: take it to a theological or creationist forum. The audiences in such venues will better engage your questions and findings than in here -- where the subtle hue of your decidedly and unapologetically Judeo-Christian religious subtext sullies my daily friends' list page. I want substance based on scientific process, not proselytizing rhetoric. If I want to learn more about theistic-based theories of human evolution, then I'll go to those apropos places to bone up on it.

Just not here.
9th-Jan-2005 12:11 am (UTC)
Well put
8th-Jan-2005 03:54 am (UTC)
I was going to refrain from posting a comment, and have not on any of the other wanks posts involved, but I feel like I should back up my vote by agreeing with the other comments made here, that the posts were indeed off-topic. Whether or not they were made to incite fights, they were about specific religious beliefs (NOT religion in a cultural context), conspiracy theory, and unexplained phenomena. I hate to ban her from commenting, because her views may bring interesting and unforeseen sides to an argument, but the incessant posts on unrelated stories are becoming a nuisance.
8th-Jan-2005 04:47 am (UTC)
I think ignoring her would be meaner
8th-Jan-2005 05:17 am (UTC)
As she has decided to leave, this is now a non-issue. However, there seem to have been far more responses to her posts than to other, more sober-minded posts.

Perhaps she represented a 'other', in resisting whom the responders reaffirmed their sense of belonging to a common belief-system?

8th-Jan-2005 05:23 am (UTC)
Yeah, maybe this is a case study in Identity and Difference, and that by uniting against a common enemy, we perceive ourselves as more "toight"?
8th-Jan-2005 06:16 am (UTC)
I haven't gotten myself involved in any of the debates since they seem pretty pointless. I've gotten the impression that purelily is just some stupid teenager who is utterly confused about what anthropology is all about and really hasn't got a clue. She's embarrassing.
8th-Jan-2005 08:14 am (UTC)
As much as I despise pseudoarchaeology and fundamentalist new-agers.. I don't believe in silencing anyone and I think she should stay.
8th-Jan-2005 02:15 pm (UTC)
I have stayed out of this whole mess, I read the posts and the comments, In a way they are off topic, but think about this...

Isn't anthropology the study of human beings, their origins, their social relations and culture? Think about what type of society/culture this girl was raised in to make her think the way she does. What type of society was she bought up in that would make her so closed minded? Is it Nature, was she just born that way? Or Nurture, did she get it from her parents or social circle?

Reading her posts and responses makes me think in an anthropological way about her particular society and the norms in which she was brought up.

And reading some of the responses to her has been interesting as well, many good thought out retorts, but I wonder why some of you folks seem to be taking it personally that she disagrees with you and science in general. It's all opinion folks, interpretation, hers vs. yours, and isn't that pretty much the norm in anthropology?

Then again she may just be all hot air and not really think that way and just be doing it to tweak people.

I personally have no problem just scrolling past her posts on my friends page, I have done it many times to others when I just don't feel like reading a long post, sometimes I come back to them later, sometimes I don't, life goes on if I miss a bit of news occasionally.

But because some of you all are really taking this seriously and personally, (and find it difficult to just ignore her posts and scroll past them on your friends pages,) it might be best to either ask her to leave (which I think she has already done anyway) or ban her completely.

8th-Jan-2005 02:36 pm (UTC)
Talking to her = something to do while bored at work.

I'd much rather not have her around.
8th-Jan-2005 09:21 pm (UTC) - On an another note...
I wasnt here for this vote thing. I do however agree with the results. She was warned. That said, Im glad im seeing many new faces in this post. I am a first time "poster" but have checking out this community for a long time.
(Deleted comment)
9th-Jan-2005 08:28 am (UTC)
i'm not a member but i voted anyway. negatively.
Ha!  Me too.  Huzzah!

Did you see the post where she compared her suffering to that of the persecution of the prophets?  Funny stuff.  ;)
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