One of my moderators raised the question about banning users who reveal themselves not to be LDS. It is the official policy of this board that anyone who is not LDS will be summarily banned. There are plenty of places for LDS and Non-LDS to discuss political issues. I feel that the value of this forum is in providing a place for the members of the LDS church to discuss political issues as they relate to the gospel. If a user is banned summarily for being non-LDS, the moderator responsible will post here explaining their action.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
As board membership is conducted on the honor system, the only ways to determine someone's LDS membership status would be if they admit they are not members, or if by their posts, it appears that they are not members.
In the latter case (assuming the poster is not antagonistic or anti), shall we as moderators email them to confirm the suspicions? And if a person is banned, how will they appeal if they are indeed LDS?
I don't think we should ban folks who pretend to be LDS, but later it's discovered they are not. Instead they should be required to be baptized and join the church, and they should probably get a calling in the Nursery to boot... :)
--Ray
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
In the latter case (assuming the poster is not antagonistic or anti), shall we as moderators email them to confirm the suspicions? And if a person is banned, how will they appeal if they are indeed LDS?
It's a sticky issue, no doubt. And obviously we should use our best judgment. For instance, Spotted Horse participated on Nauvoo for a long while before actually becoming baptized. But I couldn't tell. She seemed to have an LDS worldview, and participated in the discussion as one of us. And now she is one of us. I think that the only situation where we need to worry about it is if it is causing a problem on the board. For instance, if someone comes on here and tries to convince us that all mormons are going to hell, then they'll get banned. Similarly, if an ex-mormon homosexual starts posting to the thread about gay marriage, he'll be banned. If it's a question of a post that doesn't support a certain doctrine of the church, that's a case for deleting the post, not banning the user. A string of such offenses might be grounds for banishment, but the moderators would probably have to discuss that. As far as appealing from being banned, perhaps we could make available an email address for complaints from banned users to be sent to. I guess we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
