Official Petition to Bring Back Christianforums

This is just terrible

This thread is from 2007. I don't think I understand this, either. Could someone explain this? At first I thought it meant that Christianforums was going to shut down, and that would be awful.

It was a dark, dark time in the site's history. Somewhere between growing pains and when teenagers go through their scene phase.

Not that I can really remember all the details, but either this was when the rules began getting relaxed and people threw a hissy fit, or because they tried to tighten the rules after they'd been loosened some, and the result was messy. But I do clearly remember the name change; that was stupid.

In short: don't worry about it, it's all in the past.

ah, the 7-7-7 debacle.

Wait, what happened?

A long time ago, half the population of CF felt that CF was too exclusive, and not welcoming or friendly to non-Christians. So Erwin decided to try and please them by changing the domain name to for.ums.com or something like that. Well, this decision made many happy, but displeased the OTHER half of CF who thought it was fine before, or even too loose when it came to allowing non-Christians to post (hence the creation of this thread). So then the decision was made to make for.ums christianforums again.

Erwin was a good guy, but in trying to please everybody, he ended up pleasing nobody. And I think that's been the core source of a good majority of the issues CF has had. You can't be a forum for liberal Christians and conservative Christians at once, it doesn't work. You make a decision to make the rules more conservative, your liberals flip. You make a conservative rule more lenient, the conservatives flip.

K9_Trainer said:

.... please them by changing the domain name to for.ums.com or something like that...

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it was foru.ms
so... generic.

Like I said before, I can't exactly remember the details, but:

Prior to a certain point, many areas of CF - typically those directly having to do with faith groups, age ranges, and probably most of the theology areas - were off-limits to non-Christians (I cannot remember if it was auto-filtered based on faith icon). The current area (Life Stages and its subfora) being one of the aforementioned areas that didn't allow non-Christians to post. The hobbies, current events, and possibly the recovery areas were always open to everyone...at least as long as I've been here, anyway.

Then, at some later point, these rules were relaxed to a point similar to what we have now. People were upset about the 'encroachment' of non-Christians into their areas/bubble.

Now, this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. Either this relaxing occurred at the same time as an extremely short-lived (like, maybe two months, tops) change in the site's name and url from ChristianForums.com to foru.ms, or it was tangled up in something like original (tight) - > relaxed -> tight -> relaxed (and foru.ms) -> relaxed (current rules draft). The foru.ms url address persisted longer than the banners did, but eventually it reverted back to christianforums.com as well. At the same time there was a lot of strife concerning some moderation choices/actions, but I really can't remember the details there.

K9_Trainer said:

You make a decision to make the rules more conservative, your liberals flip. You make a conservative rule more lenient, the conservatives flip.

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You make no rules in either direction, and you're 4chan. Everyone flips, but you're not the sort of person who gives a crap.

K9_Trainer said:

but in trying to please everybody, he ended up pleasing nobody.

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This is ALWAYS the case.

You either please the people that matter to you and forsake the rest. Or you anger them all.

Do what you do, apologize for nothing you do (unless you make an actual mistake, there is a difference between apologizing for being who you are and apologizing for a mistake.) and let the chips fall as they may.

Its been an interesting ride watching CF go from trying to be all inclusive to Rapture Ready-style banning policies and back again.

Ahhh I remember all of this. CF hasn't been the same since or recovered. I wish we were back to the days when Erwin ran things.

Saucy said:

Ahhh I remember all of this. CF hasn't been the same since or recovered. I wish we were back to the days when Erwin ran things.

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You mean before he started that avalanche? He owned the forum, he is responsible for the decisions he made concerning it.

Astrid90 said:

it was foru.ms
so... generic.

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I distinctly remember someone saying that it stood for something like "FOR U My Savior".

Anyone remember the days before CF switched to the vBulletin style? You know, back when CF looked really unique and not like every other forum out there? I recall the site being down for days as they converted the site over, and then finding the new style so bland. All of your friends disappeared so you had to re-add them and stuff like like that.

Sketcher said:

You mean before he started that avalanche? He owned the forum, he is responsible for the decisions he made concerning it.

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Oh I understand. He made mistakes. There was a lot of pressure on his shoulders for sure. I think he had a vision of an all-inclusive place. CF used to be about the whole body gathering. But as usual, sides were taken, mobs were formed and people wanted their own way. I admit to have been a part of this whole scene and had many discussions with Erwin and followed him to his new forum, which is why I was gone from CF for two years, but I came back here because it became a place that wasn't good for me.

Saucy said:

Oh I understand. He made mistakes. There was a lot of pressure on his shoulders for sure. I think he had a vision of an all-inclusive place. CF used to be about the whole body gathering. But as usual, sides were taken, mobs were formed and people wanted their own way. I admit to have been a part of this whole scene and had many discussions with Erwin and followed him to his new forum, which is why I was gone from CF for two years, but I came back here because it became a place that wasn't good for me.

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where did he go? that CF.net?

Saucy said:

Oh I understand. He made mistakes. There was a lot of pressure on his shoulders for sure. I think he had a vision of an all-inclusive place. CF used to be about the whole body gathering. But as usual, sides were taken, mobs were formed and people wanted their own way. I admit to have been a part of this whole scene and had many discussions with Erwin and followed him to his new forum, which is why I was gone from CF for two years, but I came back here because it became a place that wasn't good for me.

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Pressure, probably. But he had dictatorial control over it, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. He calmly but firmly rejected many ideas because it was his forum. He didn't have to deal with any pressure he didn't allow. And this whole controversy happened because he made the decisions that led to the various splits. If you own a forum and you drop a bomb, saying "this is what is going to happen," you will have people who agree with it and people who don't. The more controversial the issue, the bigger and uglier the split and resulting fallout will be. All of that bull was needless.

I just wish more of the good people I enjoyed posting with would have stayed. Because their voices were that much more needed.

Sketcher said:

Pressure, probably. But he had dictatorial control over it, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. He calmly but firmly rejected many ideas because it was his forum. He didn't have to deal with any pressure he didn't allow. And this whole controversy happened because he made the decisions that led to the various splits. If you own a forum and you drop a bomb, saying "this is what is going to happen," you will have people who agree with it and people who don't. The more controversial the issue, the bigger and uglier the split and resulting fallout will be. All of that bull was needless.

I just wish more of the good people I enjoyed posting with would have stayed. Because their voices were that much more needed.

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True. He could've just created a different forum instead of changing this one which was already established. How could he not expect it to cause an uproar???

Nilloc said:

I distinctly remember someone saying that it stood for something like "FOR U My Savior".

Anyone remember the days before CF switched to the vBulletin style? You know, back when CF looked really unique and not like every other forum out there? I recall the site being down for days as they converted the site over, and then finding the new style so bland. All of your friends disappeared so you had to re-add them and stuff like like that.

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You mean the blue-and-orange era? I probably have some old screenshots of it stashed away on some archive disc, although it may only have been portions of the page that contained some of the amusing - but extremely off-color - autogenerated Google ads.