"(ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB) lives on..."

[Peter Kirby]

I do not regard denial of access to the forum, by blocking the ISP, to represent a legitimate forum moderator function.

It's right there on the admin control panel next to "ban by e-mail" and "ban by username." Seems legit.

However, I didn't know that an IP ban does more than block someone from that IP from registering.

For now, at least, I've lifted all the IP bans. Let them eat cake.

[perseusomega9]

All hail PK, the most benevolent of all internet forum tyrants.

[Adam]

I dunno.
As for myself, I thought Duvduv and Leucius were productive in this ECW forum trashing the origins of Islam. I would like to see them back, but tentatively (most likely permanently given their nature) limited to thrashing out who Mohammed was and whether he had any connection to the Koran. I can hardly wait!

[bcedaifu]

It's right there on the admin control panel next to "ban by e-mail" and "ban by username." Seems legit.

However, I didn't know that an IP ban does more than block someone from that IP from registering.

For now, at least, I've lifted all the IP bans. Let them eat cake.

Then, it appears that I have wrongly accused you, for I imagined, based upon email messages from two of those you had banned, that your actions, blocking the ISP of EVEN PUBLIC LIBRARIES, including at least one university library, had been deliberate. It seems a simple problem of carelessness, which I amplified, unjustly accusing you. I apologize.

Your words, above, "For now, at least...." are not too reassuring.

To encourage a standard, acceptable model of submissions to the forum, it would be very helpful, if you would provide a link to one or more of those submissions, by all of those dismissed, so that we may read, what it had been about their texts, that had so aroused your wrath, that you would (carelessly, it would appear) deny access to this forum to an entire university community. We need, in other words, to establish, by these several examples, what it is, about their submissions, that warranted this beheading.

In particular, in view of Roger Pearse's comments, supporting your actions, it would seem to me, obvious, that there must have been something very seriously disruptive to the functions of the forum, in one or more of the posts submitted by each of these banned forum members. Did they author a text filled with invective directed not to an issue, but to a fellow forum participant? Did they write with a preponderance of grammatical errors? Were their posts filled with sexual innuendo, where none should have been offered? Were the posts simply repetitive, as Roger had pointed out?

When we read about Arius, from the perspective of Athanasius, we obtain a very different picture from the view presented by Eusebius of Nicomedia. I am very keen to discover what it had been, in the submissions of these several beheaded forum members, that led our very own Athanasius, to order the executioner's blade to fall. I confess, I always preferred the portrayal of Arius, from the perspective of Eusebius of Nicomedia.

[Andrew]

Here is a link to the page that may help you see the reasons for each ban: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=268.

[Peter Kirby]

I'm not trying to be reassuring. Anybody can investigate all they want about everything that's been done on the forum and decide for themselves whether it is something in which they want to participate. I am trying to retain my sanity and my free time by avoiding commitments to principles and explanations. I don't have to explain myself. I apologize to those who don't like it and those who will not like it, but at least I won't have mislead you.

[bcedaifu]

Here is a link to the page that may help you see the reasons for each ban: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=268.

I'm not trying to be reassuring. Anybody can investigate all they want about everything that's been done on the forum and decide for themselves whether it is something in which they want to participate.

Then remove the sign post, claiming continuation of "Ye Olde BC&H forum" .

I am trying to retain my sanity and my free time by avoiding commitments to principles and explanations. I don't have to explain myself. I apologize to those who don't like it and those who will not like it, but at least I won't have mislead you.

So you don't wish to explain yourself.
Ok, fine, then REMOVE the sign claiming continuation of the former BC&H forum. Here's what I have found by following Andrew's link, above.

aa5874 had been called “dewitness” here:

This is a warning. Make sense and be logical. Two more warnings, and you are banned.

What?? Something has gone radically wrong with you. You are not making sense to me.
You seem to think that when you assert that there is no evidence for backdating the birth of Jesus to 70 years before the fall of the Temple that you must not be challenged.
Please, I will expose your errors.

Oh, look at the noble martyr!
You know, you could use some real grist for that mill, if that is how you want to carry on.
You've tested my patience. Last warning. You are now banned.

Thanks Peter. One down, two to go.

Really, Don? Et tu Brutus?

Pete aka mountainman, aka mm, was known on this forum, as Leucius Charinus. He had submitted a post to which Kirby took exception:

4 rhetorical questions, 4 banal sentences, 2 quotations, and not a single damn point made.
Somebody's scared to come out punching. Bring it on, Leuc. I'd prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.

"Bring it on" That's rich. Kirby: what did you do to my contribution about Notley's banality? Did you "bring it on"? Or did you put it in the trash can?

In this forum aa was banned for less than what Avi and mm are doing. It was right to ban aa: he deserved it
Avi and mm murdered the ‘other’ forum and they are doing it again here.
Avi and mm are forum vermin,

"forum vermin" ? Really?
Maybe you could offer a quote from these two wretched members of the human race. You must have access to the archives at BC&H. Give us a quote, to back up your despicable personal attack, or BACK OFF.

I don't have the time to fact check every one of your distorted citation but there has to be a rule with a complete liar and intellectual cheat like you that you have to cite two sentences before and after every quote you bring forward. Your original point was to support your idiotic contention that there were no witnesses to Christianity before Nicaea. None of these sources do that - so shut the fuck up. You're a lying piece of shit and should be thrown out of this forum for consistent abuse of the existing sources .

"lying piece of shit" ????
Can you show me, ONE sentence of mountain man that represents a dishonest representation of an ancient source, by him? He has expressed, FOR MORE than a decade, an OPINION, that Lord Constantine created Christianity. How does that expression, of his opinion, make him "a lying piece of shit"? Which source of his, had he "abused"?

Without dumbass quote mining, he'd have nothing to say. And avi should be ashamed for promoting it. I'd like to see the forum move on from proving the obvious as against a couple dishonest twits, so they're banned. Hopefully they also can move on with their lives and find better things to do.

"dumbass"??
"dishonest twit"
You expelled two forum members for submitting responses with which you disagreed, and then you claimed that they were both "dishonest twits"?
Give us the quote, that represents these two "dishonest twits", statements of dishonesty, for I have reviewed the whole of their respective contributions, today, and find NOTHING dishonest from either author.
Failing that "I don't have to explain myself", seems quite shallow, and undignified. If anyone here is "dishonest", it is the one who refuses to explain himself, after making egregious misstatements about a fellow forum member.

That's OK. Not a single Jewish source referencing events in the first century mentions the name of Pontius Pilate as Head Honcho in Judea identified in the NT or in the texts of "Josephus" and "Philo."

You are the weakest link. Goodbye!

WOW!
You decapitated Duvduv because he disputed a well known "fact"?

Why bother to have a forum, if people are honest enough to express an opinion, and then get excommunicated for having expressed that opinion? For sure, that conduct NEVER happened at BC&H. Duvduv did not write with profanity. He offered no scatalogical text, no personal attacks against anyone, and you threw him out, because "he is the weakest link"? good heavens. That's terrible.

If you wish to go with the fraudulent material from the Nizkook website run by Ken McVay, a man who once called my parents to threaten their lives, you are on your own. If you choose to side with that piece of shit I will happily have my parting shots on this forum posting to you the same as used to post to that animal. Your call.

You know what? Fuck it.
I don't want to hear your parting shots or your invective against a holocaust denial debunking site and the person who runs it.
Begone.

In my opinion, there is a pattern here. Several of these folks, who had been dismissed, had written something which was either off-topic, or inane, or hostile without justification, or filled with scatalogical comments. Oops, no, that's not them, is it?...

Looks to me, with the exception perhaps of A_Nony_Mouse, that the other four, aa5874, mountainman, avi, and Duvduv, had introduced ideas, provided references, and offered opinions at variance with the status quo. I, for one, fail to understand the decision to evict any of those four.

I note that Peter Kirby has consigned my submission, (refuting Neil Godfrey's contention about Notley's article), to the trash bin, removed from its former, proper location in the thread about Geographic errors of Mark. My submission quoted the original Greek Gospel of Mark, and I wonder on what grounds you moved my post out of its proper location in that thread devoted to errors in Mark's geography? This is a forum devoted to study of ancient biblical texts, is it not? Godfrey introduced the comment about Notley's article being germane to the issue, and failed to defend his position, instead, criticizing me (“hysteria”). This would be a good opportunity for Peter Kirby to clarify, what kind of presentation is sought for this forum, so that folks don't spend a lot of time, quoting from original Greek scripture, only to have their submissions consigned to the waste bin, because what was written contradicts Kirby's opinions.

I urge you, Peter Kirby, to change the title of this forum. It is most certainly NOT a continuation of “Ye Olde BC&H forum”. You and your confreres have issued submissions to the forum filled with invective, dishonesty, personal attacks, gratuitous references to sexuality, and overt profanity. Yet, you have concurrently expelled several members, whose only “crime”, that I have read, is related to their honest expression of opinions different from your own. Today, I observe that you have consigned my biblical analysis to the trash bin, without explanation, and without, in my opinion, justification. If any forum member disputes this contention, "bring it on".

Maybe my attempt to refute Godfrey's suggestion (that Notley's article had merit, in claiming that Mark's geographic errors had been derived from reading Isaiah 9:1) fell short of the mark, but, then, if so, where's the refutation of my position? Instead of throwing away my criticism, Kirby, why don't you, or one of your co-thinkers, attempt to refute me. Oh, if you can't defeat her, then throw her submission to the forum into the trash bin, instead? Is that the idea here? How does such a trait, such contemptible, behaviour, correspond to the former BC&H forum activities? Please remove the sign from your blog, claiming contrarily, that your site represents the continuation of that forum.

[outhouse]

I urge you, Peter Kirby, to change the title of this forum. It is most certainly NOT a continuation of “Ye Olde BC&H forum”.

Dont like it? go somewhere else and whine.


He was gracious enough to set up a shop where the people from BC&H could debate, with little moderation.

[Peter Kirby]

Many things many people don't like, not just you. They conflict. This is exactly why I don't have to explain myself. It's never ending.

Nothing is going to make everybody happy. So I do the sensible thing here. I make myself happy. If that doesn't make you happy too, find somewhere else to be happier. That's really the long and short of it.

How many ways must I admit to being a tyrant until you believe me?

[Roger Pearse]

Now I wasn't aware that MountainMan had been banned. But I can easily imagine why he was banned. It was because he would not refrain from attempting to hijack **every single interesting thread** with his "Constantine invented Christianity" nonsense. It drove you nuts, after a while.

... Mountainman's ideas are not ideas with which I am in agreement, but I admire his attempt to introduce some novelty to the dusty field of biblical archaeology. His ideas certainly never “drove me nuts”. A forum, to be productive, can not simply reiterate the same mantras over and over again, day in and day out.

Indeed not. But that is precisely what he did. And, believe me, it DID drive everyone nuts.

On your other point, I wasn't aware that people were being denied the ability to read the forum. That sounds like probably a configuration glitch to me.

All the best,

Roger Pearse