thehorseofpower

@ChiCricket Please DM me, too. You really are doing the Lord's work here!

I apologize for misspeaking. The post I was talking about, though, says "moderator note" right at the top of it. Not "community organizer" note, which is why I used that term. I will fully admit I have no idea what the difference is between the two groups. The note at the top of this site as a whole talks about the changing role of moderators, not community organizers...so if there is a significant difference between the two, the official language does not make that obvious.

There is now a post at the top of this thread that's "recommended" by a moderator and has what I guess is supposed to be a thought-provoking question from the mod attached to it. I'm more confused than ever. The original quoted post is from a user who seems to think this forum is okay but that sometimes posters are too fixated on harping on certain things, to the point where it makes posters seem "unbalanced." The mod's thought-provoking question at the top of this page states "How can this community talk about hard tropes with kindness? And what is a community really saying when we talk about unbalanced mental health?" Um....does the mod realize the post they quoted is, if anything, being unkind to other posters in stating why they think the forum is in trouble? No one would be saying anyone was "unbalanced" if the mods hadn't red lighted this forum and confused the heck out of everyone in trying to figure out why. This is crazy-making.

I saw your post last night. So clearly there is a mod in this thread, choosing not to engage with us on the questions on the new rules and saving our forum, but deleting posts that explain the change in leadership and their apparent decision to get rid of this forum for reasons that I still don't really understand (we're not "diverse" enough? They don't like sarcasm?). How helpful and mature of them. I guess the time we've been given to "elevate the quality of our conversations" or some such nonsense is just a farce to make it look like we have any power to change anything.

I haven't seen a cult-like mentality among the frequent posters here. I don't post much but read here almost every day. I see long-time members disagree and debate, particularly over Jill and Derick and their motivations, and typically this ends with an "agree to disagree" sort of sentiment. When I posted in Small Talk on occasion during the pandemic, I was welcomed immediately and received support and understanding even though I was not an every day poster. People did not always resoundingly agree with everything I posted on the Duggars, either, and this did not offend me but gave me food for thought. We have posters here who are Christians and posters who are atheists and everyone provides a unique perspective. I have learned a lot over the years just from the "Gimme That Old Time Religion" topic. It's a shame these new forum managers are seemingly only interested in looking at surface level topic titles and silly nicknames, both of which can be easily changed, rather than looking deeper at the real discourse had here on some very difficult topics. One thing most of us do have in common, though, is that we think the Duggars and their ilk are extremely harmful, both to their own family system and potentially our larger society. A lot of us came here because we were horrified by what we were seeing on TV and found community in our mutual horror. And we come at these topics with a healthy dose of snark, because sometimes (at least for me) the snark softens that horror and gives us a way to talk about what we're seeing without becoming wholly depressed about it. If snark is not your thing, and you find yourself put off by the tone of this forum, or you don't think the Duggars' brand of religion is all that bad, I don't understand why you would continue to visit and post here. Every community has its own culture and personality, so if this one doesn't work for you, there are plenty of others to try out. This forum has always been moderated and any poster has always had the ability to report someone they feel is breaking a rule or attacking them. This has never been a free for all. And now, apparently whatever complaints have been made by people who don't seem to enjoy the basic premise of this community have enough power to take it all down for everyone, because these new mods don't appear interested in having a conversation about our forum culture or our rules.

If the way this forum is being treated is an indication of how the new management intends to treat everyone and manage the entirety of the forums, I can't imagine it will be long. Closing threads with no clear reasoning except for titles out of the members' control, alluding to member complaints with zero specificity resulting in members speculating and turning on each other, threatening to shut down an entire forum with no warning and no actual discussion or communication of changed posting rules, when said forum has existed for many years over which a decided tone and culture has developed, treating members like children and offering "badges" no one wants as some sort of reward instead of just being clear about what is now acceptable and what is not, failing to answer messages or respond to member questions.....and all the while claiming you are moving away from being "punitive." Nope, definitely no problem brewing at all and nothing but fully functional leadership happening here.

If this is the case, then why aren't the specific concerns raised in the survey (such as one poster's statement that they raised an objection to Cade's nickname) being called out in the mod's note? Why are the posted rules for this forum not being reviewed and updated with new guidelines so we understand what is changing? The mods have given us nothing beyond objecting to thread titles (that were created by mods!) and stating blanketly that most of the content in the closed threads are somehow not good. Not good in what way? Are we no longer allowed to say Josh deserves to be in prison, given that his thread is one of the closed ones? If the mods want to effect change, they should be clearly communicating what people object to and what actually goes against their new guidelines, instead of threatening a full forum closure out of the blue. For a mod team that claims to be against punitive measures, they certainly aren't practicing what they preach.

The managers' new guidelines/expectations state the below - where is the "targeted feedback" promised in the second paragraph to "coach" us? I see no targeted feedback from moderators/managers. They also say they are "evolving" from a "punitive" role. What is more punitive than threatening permanent deletion of a forum with the only clear feedback being that our thread titles, which were created with past mod permission, are now inappropriate (which members have no access to change)? "Our moderation team is evolving from a traditional more punitive role to become champions of community health. As you peruse the forums, you may see us: Using emojis and targeted feedback to coach community members towards more inclusive and diverse perspectives.Connecting members by highlighting threads and posts that foster constructive dialogue.Challenging the community to think deeper and engage respectfully with differing viewpoints.Creating spaces for underrepresented voices, ensuring that a broad spectrum of experiences and opinions are heard. Our moderators are here not just to enforce rules but to celebrate achievements, guide discussions, and help everyone find a place in our community."

This is where I'm at with the thread titles - I cannot understand why you would threaten to shut down a whole forum over thread titles that were created with the approval of the former mods. There is nothing we as the regular posters can do to change these. If they no longer fit the site rules, the new mods need to tell us that and change them, not lock the entire thread and threaten deletion of the entire forum. This forum has always leaned to the snark side and our past posts reflect that. This has never been a Duggar fan site; it has always come with a healthy dose of calling out their harmful behaviors and cult-like tendencies. That being said, when we have veered over the line in the past, the mods have called it out and let us know specifically what is inappropriate, which is still clearly visible in past mod notes reminding us of the politics policy and David R's inappropriate nickname. If Cade's nickname has also crossed the line of what is now expected, we should be told this directly so it can stop. That is a pretty easy behavior change and a clear example of what may no longer be appropriate. Threatening closure of the forum with no actual examples of why or what complaints have been lodged by users is not.

I messaged the mod who locked the threads, asking them to please just update thread titles to fit new guidelines, because regular posters certainly can't change those, and to please come to this thread and engage with us on what the new expectations are for threads on someone like Josh in particular. If their new goal is to not police us but lead us...it seems this would be the right thing to do. It probably won't change anything, but at least I feel like I tried. :(

I don't post here often, but I read almost every day and found this forum to be a bit of a lifeline during the worst times of the pandemic. I see posters respectfully disagree and debate in a healthy way all the time. This forum is the opposite of rude, cruel, or harmful - it points out the cruelty and harm of the cult this family and its adjacent follow, for certain...but this is not a cult fan site. The new banner on the site states "the role of moderators - beyond policing to celebrating and leading." How is threatening to shut down this entire forum with zero explanation of what is wrong, beyond "thread titles are a cheap laugh" in any way not policing? These thread titles were put up by the previous moderators! If standards have changed, why are these new mods not simply changing them? Who in this forum would even have the access to change them other than these new mods who are threatening closure in the first place? I'm very confused and upset. I really value this forum and the thought of it going away is upsetting.

These are exactly my thoughts. If she is struggling to adjust to three kids, or is having post-partum issues in general, having two active boys at home that need daily schooling and structure sounds like the worst possible situation for her to put herself in. Having two of them gone at school most of the day so she can focus on just the baby and home chores seems like it would be a relief. Yes, getting the kids up and ready and out the door can be stressful but it's nothing compared to an entire day of homeschooling (virtual schooling for my two kids during the early pandemic was hard enough and there was an actual teacher involved in keeping things on track for that)! If she is indeed homeschooling, doing it because it's "easier" for her during an emotionally volatile time doesn't make any sense to me.

I got my booster two days ago on Thursday. Mine was Pfizer, though. I've had mild arm pain and yesterday had all over body aches and exhaustion, and some chills. That "just got hit by a truck" feeling was pretty bad and I should have taken the day off yesterday (and I was working from home on the computer, so I have to be pretty sick feeling to not be able to work at all). I didn't feel this bad with the original booster I got last fall. I just got up and am drinking my coffee, so hard to tell yet if I'm swinging back to feeling normal again. My husband got the Moderna one a few days before mine and had bad arm pain - said he felt like he got hit by a fastball. He didn't get the body aches and exhaustion like I did, but said the arm pain was similar to the other Moderna shots. Hope it goes well for you with minimal side effects. I had to go into the office a few times this week, and on one day I ended up stuck in a meeting room with someone who was coughing and unmasked and saying "I don't THINK I have Covid." I was livid and made my appointment for the booster the next day. So glad to have updated protection when there are so many thoughtless people I'm unfortunately forced to be around again.

Man...that basement "apartment" is awful. It looks so dark and dirty. Nothing wrong with that for a typical basement storage area...but to live in as newlyweds? Yikes. If Jonathan actually has a job lined up, why would they not plan to rent a real apartment come November?

That's good to hear, @Absolom. I made the mistake of googling "why does dense breast tissue increase cancer risk" this morning and reading a bunch of articles on the topic got me all worked up even more so than I already was. Nothing good ever comes for me of googling health-related topics!

The mammogram discussion is timely for me as I just had my first one yesterday. I am not quite forty yet, but my doctor found a lump at my annual exam and so I ended up with a mammogram and an ultrasound as well. It was terrifying but came out okay...I was diagnosed with a fibroadenoma (benign tumor). My doctor thought it was a cyst at my exam and I went in thinking that's what it was likely to be, and even though it is a benign growth, the word "tumor" was not one I was ready to hear under any circumstance. They also told me I have extremely dense breasts and that this is a bigger risk for breast cancer, which was really upsetting to me. There is no history of breast cancer, or even really any kind of cancer, on either side of my family so none of this was really at the forefront of my medical worries. I like to feel as if I am in total control of myself at all times, which I know is not possible but sometimes I can pretend it is for my own sanity, especially in the last few years of Covid and just general cultural unrest when it feels more than ever like I have no control over anything except my own self....then things like this just remind you that you cannot have that control, ever, not even over your own body that you inhabit every minute of every day. I can make all the best decisions for my health that I can but my breasts are sitting right here under my nose, being dense and growing benign tumors and I had no idea. I know the outcome could have been much worse but I just feel very depressed. On the plus side, I was very scared of the mammogram but it didn't hurt at all for me and the tech I had was wonderful. I wish you could have had her, @Mindthinkr , instead of that horrible experience that turned you off so badly. I find getting any medical procedure or test done to be a difficult experience both emotionally and physically because it makes you so vulnerable and requires trusting your body to total strangers...and even if you know it's for the good of your health those feelings can be hard to get past. When someone violates that trust and vulnerability it really does a number on you. So sorry that happened. Best of luck and healing to those having surgeries!

I completely agree! I am three years younger than Jill and was in high school in 1997, in what some might classify as a "hick town" that most definitely was not on the cutting edge of style, and no one I knew would have been caught dead with that hair. 1987 is right....she's not even reliving the glory days of her own era but the one that came just before her. In 1997 my friends and I would occasionally have what we called an "80's party" where we hit up Goodwill or our older sisters' old clothes to put together the most hideous, stereotypically 80's outfits we could and then take ridiculous photos together and spend the night watching movies like Heathers or Dirty Dancing. Jill's hair looks like something I did for one of these theme parties!

Most of my husband's family are super strict Seventh Day Adventists who bought into the church's recommendation to homeschool their kids pretty hard core. One family member ended up with a daughter diagnosed with Asperger's and admitted when she was still in elementary school that they couldn't meet her educational or behavioral needs and put her in a public school where she could receive real help. This quickly led to the other two kids in the family going to a church-affiliated school, so all of them ended up out of homeschooling before middle school. It probably helped that their mother has a degree in education from a real college and was able to have some perspective on the situation despite going into parenthood bound and determined to homeschool all the way through. All that to say I believe it is certainly possible for a family with a very fundamentalist mindset toward keeping their children in a controlled environment where they only learn what the parent wishes them to learn to change course if a child has learning issues they cannot meet and the parent becomes overwhelmed...but I don't believe the Duggars value education enough to ever do this. They seem to have such a low opinion of formal education that I imagine they simply sweep any learning issues under the rug and pretend they don't exist. I don't think the kids now are even taking their GED exam anymore - if I remember correctly they used to announce the children who got GEDs st their graduation from "Duggar Acedemy" but haven't done that since somewhere around Jinger?

I had no idea this show existed until two days ago and I promptly binged the entire series, finishing up last night. Soooo much to digest with this! The more that comes out about elite/high level sport of any kind, the more harmful I tend to think it all is to the athletes taking part. Recreational sports have great potential to teach participants all kinds of things, from the rewards of hard work, to being a team player, to time management skills. But there seems to come a point of diminishing returns where, when participation has taken over all of an athlete's free time and drives all of their future plans, these good things are overshadowed by horrible injuries, practices with dangerous conditions, coaches with way too much power over the athletes, parents or entire families staking their futures/self-worth on the success of the athlete, decisions that would be in the long-term interest of the athlete's mental, physical, or educational well-being being put off or dismissed so the athlete can continue full participation in the sport. The creation of a very insular culture for the athlete as far as all of their time being spent in the same small circle of team/gym/coach/competitors, with limited connection to people outside the sport, seems to make young people with difficult backgrounds or simply limited real world exposure ripe for the picking of any predators who may be within that circle, and serves as an effective silencer on them ever speaking out as they then lose absolutely everything they have built their life around if they aren't believed. I saw basically all of these issues playing out across the two seasons of this show, and as much as the first season gave me warm fuzzies to see what appeared to be a tough but good-hearted coach bringing a feeling of family and success to so many young people with difficult childhoods, by the end of the second season I was left feeling super uncomfortable with the "coach has too much power over her athletes" issue standing out to me quite a bit. Monica's closeness to many of the athletes seemed great at first, what with all of these kids desperately seeking a mother figure seemingly finding that in her and all talking about how they would "take a bullet" for her. But...her having that type of power over these athletes is also super dangerous if she is anything less than scrupulous in protecting their well-being. We saw her working them so hard on dangerous stunts that three flyers ended up with concussions after one practice, and her rehearsing them in 90 degree heat over and over again. If they would take a bullet for her, what else might they do if she asked them to, beyond what we were shown of them not pushing back on what looked like dangerous practice sessions that could easily have ended in greater disaster than what we saw? I read the Twitter post shared above detailing La'Darius's accusations, some against Monica, and while I hope they are untrue, I believe they could happen based on the amount of power she was shown to hold over her athletes, combined with her obviously intense desire to win (did anyone really believe her when she said she didn't want or need to win for herself, but just wanted it so badly for the athletes? I sure didn't). With great power comes great responsibility and all that...and too often it seems when you allow such power over others to reside with someone as driven to win as Monica, that has the potential to result in some really bad decisions and bad outcomes for the athletes.

Yes! I can't understand that, either. I mean, I can understand not being good at cooking or cleaning because I suck at both, and cooking in particular is something I really dislike and have zero interest in doing. However...I am a woman who doesn't believe in Biblical gender roles and work full time as the main breadwinner for my family, so I don't feel at all bad about my lack of domestic skills; I contribute to my household in other ways. But if I grew up believing my sole purpose was to be at home doing domestic activities....I would have to figure out a way to be competent. I mean...it comes down to having some pride in yourself and striving to do a good job at whatever you believe you are called to do. To be as obviously bad at these things as JillR or Jessa have shown themselves to be is just embarrassing and also completely undermines their insistence that women belong in the home and should never, ever work outside it. I mean...if they are this bad at homemaking and can't figure out a way to improve, perhaps there is a flaw in this rigid female life plan to begin with?

If Spurgeon's daily life is as filled with constant Bible talk as I assume it is, he will have PLENTY of exposure to violence and disturbing stories that in my opinion are inappropriate for children. My husband's family is strict Seventh-Day Adventist, and I will never forget a holiday visit with his sister one year. She insisted that her three daughters would be traumatized by commercials for upcoming action movies and such that were playing during the breaks of a show we were watching, and ordered the kids to cover their eyes whenever a commercial came on. Then later on, she played a Bible story cartoon video for the girls that covered David and Goliath. And oh my God, was it disturbing! Full on cartoon battle violence with blood and gore and everything. I was gasping out loud from shock as I'd never seen a kid's cartoon that violent before. The kids just sat there not blinking an eye, and looked at me very strangely as I was gasping in horror. Also, a kid's Easter book given to me by a religious family member a few years ago was so graphic I threw it away after one read. These things would NEVER be considered okay for kids by most reasonable people, in my view, but because they come from the Bible they therefore have no need for censoring, apparently.

I don't buy that Jana is just "covering" for Anna or a younger child left in charge and is selflessly taking the blame for this situation. Why would she accept legal consequences and all of this public embarrassment if she had nothing to do with what happened? The Duggars sure as heck aren't known for their selflessness and empathy, so her falling on the proverbial sword for Anna seems completely out of character for a Duggar. Also, if an 11-year-old was in charge while Jana slept and the younger child escaped under that arrangement, I would still fault Jana. The 11-year-old is a minor child herself and is ultimately not the responsible party for multiple other tiny children when there is also a 30+ year old adult in the house.

I suspect Jana has been chosen as the potential "heroine" of the Duggars because she has kept so generally silent in interviews and on social media, so people are able to project their "escape" or dissatisfaction fantasies onto her. The fact that she is still single at 31 also adds some fuel to the idea that maybe she doesn't buy into the family lifestyle in the same way as her sisters. Because each time a sister has married, started having children and posting on social media, the fantasy that any of those sisters would agree with or fit into our own outside perspectives on what life should be like quickly dissipates. Even Jill, who has been the closest to a real "breaking away from the Duggar mindset" heroine, is a source of controversy because she hasn't broken away from an overall conservative religious viewpoint to the extent that some wish to see. Jana's quietness still leaves room for doubt. Personally, I think if Jana were to speak openly about her views everyone would come to dislike her as much as any of the other sisters. There have been statements from the family about Jana being super strict in her dealings with the kids, and apparently there was a clip from the show where she tried to stop a very small child from daring to dance to music (don't know details on this but am sure someone else does). I suspect she has bought into the Gothard style of parenting just as her parents taught her. Her seemingly close association with the bizarre Laura, a grown woman who apparently has worked for a living but chooses to live with the Duggars, is also interesting. If Jana were I terested in separating herself from the family, it seems she and Laura could have worked together on a business or living arrangement but she has chosen not to do this. Essentially....I guess I don't feel all that sorry for Jana or think she is being forced to do what she does any more than the other stunted adult children. If she was cited for child endangerment, I tend to think there's a reason for it. The behavior seems all part of the same poisoned family tree and she is no more innocent than any of the other Duggars we've seen doing questionable things.

Exactly! This is what always frosts my cookies about many of the Christian pro-life attitudes I see - being pro-life should mean you continue to be supportive of the mother and baby after the birth, not reverse course the second the child is born to condemn the mother and try your darndest to remove all societal supports to make their lives better. There's no winning with an attitude like JB's - if you have an abortion, you're evil and damned; if you have the child and try to care for it, you're a whore who deserves to be shamed and you should have kept your legs closed...and you certainly don't deserve any welfare or help in trying to provide for the baby. Just disgusting.

What the hell?? Jana being arrested/charged with something is about the last thing I expected to come out in the midst of all this Josh drama. I think my brain can no longer process any of this! Though I'm wondering if she took a plea deal because Jim Bob refused to pony up the legal funds with everything going to Golden boy Josh...