Street Prophets is a faith sub blog of Daily Kos, a big political blog in the US.
It’s a progressive community, with none of the comment rancour so common to political discourse. All faith is respected, all people are respected. To comment there, you have to register, there is a rating system that is self policing, I’m not clear on the ‘how’ but it helps keep discourse civil. It also makes it a lively, thoughtful place to stop by, there is a warmth, vibrancy and sharpness of thought all group blogs strive for.
I’ve never seen a contributor banned, until recently when a diarist pushed to far and got himself deleted. Rather than pretend Colinb hadn’t participated, and deletion isn’t a big deal, Street Prophet posters and commenters have hammered out trolling, banning and mission clearly.
The blog participants and administrators are not upset Colinb is a conservative, conservatives are as welcome as the next person, participants stopped and looked at conflict, disagreement and expectations openly.
Chief administrator PastorDan sounds like my kind of people. He isn’t big on detailed mission statements. Street Prophets is summed up in a sentence “…a place to talk about faith and politics from a progressive perspective.”
I’ve left the limits of our mission deliberately vague because I think the telling of our story is dialogical. Without conversation, it’s not really worth telling. Or to put it another way, the dialog around that story is the mission, not a particular approach or perspective on it.
I’m going to leave things there – I am not a big believer in mission statements, as I’ve said – but perhaps Psalm 101 will help to fill things in. It’s about as useful a mission statement as I’ve found for us:
I will sing of loyalty and of justice; to you, O Lord, I will sing.
I will study the way that is blameless. When shall I attain it? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house;
I will not set before my eyes anything that is base. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.
Perverseness of heart shall be far from me; I will know nothing of evil.
One who secretly slanders a neighbor I will destroy. A haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not tolerate.
I will look with favor on the faithful in the land, so that they may live with me; whoever walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me.
No one who practices deceit shall remain in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue in my presence.
Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord.
Yeah.
“CollinB” here. Hello.
In the interest of completeness …
Initially dialogue on CP was good. PD & I chatted a little about homiletics and there were some other good discussions. There was some disagreement as to whether someone should be free to exit a show that they didn’t like, but that wasn’t PastorDan. (PD has been generally civil.) What got me really upset was when, in the middle of a disagreement, “Wolfie” decided to research me and make a public, front-page example of me. In this world, that’s not a polite thing to do. Things went downhill from there. DanielMN lied about me on multiple occasions. Being very upset about the situations, and not being a member of Their Community, the exit method was forthcoming.
Yes, there are other conservatives and evangelicals there. But there’s enough agreement that allows them to get along. And that seems to be the clincher — as PD said, I didn’t fit. Other members have been mor civil than Wolfie or DanielMN. Some of the vile rhetoric they used, and the public call-out, was apparently acceptable in that community.
I understand now that not all public communities are open. The unspoken rule is “keep out” unless you’re alike enough to be found acceptable.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com
Maybe Pastor Dan and the administrators can work something out if you have been misunderstood.
I didn’t see your posts, or the discussion, I lurk, don’t understand how Scoop works, I’m not from the US and have nothing of substance to contribute.
If you believe you were wronged, I see no reason why Street Prophets wouldn’t want to make things right with you.
I don’t understand the comment rating or diary system, so I can’t address that.
I’ve never seen anyone kicked off for difference of opinion.
Being the first is quite a distinction.
Blog on!