[Advaita-l] Gayatri mantra - moderation request

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011, श्रीमल्ललितालालितः wrote:

> I was amazed at silence of administrators at many moments. I thought they
> are too much generous to allow people to present their views.
> Many people don't know Sanskrit, but they try to interpret it with their
> limited and faulty knowledge. Some people ignore them and some post to
> correct them. But, when a person is steady in his belief, either right or
> wrong, you can't do any thing instead of ignoring if he is allowed by
> administrators.
> We have seen many heated discussions in past, mostly repeating same thing.
> That too appears ugly. Although administrators and posters wrote guidelines
> to avoid such things, they are not getting implementation.
> Personally, I've learnt to keep silence by joining many discussion-groups.
> But, it will not be good for our group, if administrator practice same.
> Filtering of messages with improper language is needed to stop such cases.
> And it will be good if administrators write personally or publicly to the
> poster, according to severeness of case, reminding general and special rules
> of discussions.


Partly this is a problem of time.  I am busy starting a new business plus 
as this is Shravana masa, I am spending 2-3 hours a day on Rudrabhisheka 
etc.  This has not left me with much time for more than a cursory glance 
at the messages.  The other moderators are similiarly busy I expect.

But even if I had all the time in the world I wouldn't want to intervene 
in every argument.  In too many Hindu forums there is no kind of 
quality control and people just spout whatever nonsense they like.  At 
the other extreme there are ones which have very rigid and intrusive 
moderation, even outright censorship.  Neither of these are very good for 
intellectual and spiritual development.  I would like everyone to believe 
in the truth of Advaita Vedanta but my grappling with the concepts and 
coming to an understanding on their own rather than just being told.  Yes, 
along the way there will be errors but mostly they get corrected during 
the process of discussion.  Everyone becomes wiser as a result.  We trust 
the list members to be able to give and receive criticism responsibly and 
for the most part you rise to the occasion admirably.

But once in a while someone insists on sticking to their guns and having 
the last word even though they are wrong as in this particular case.  I 
shall be writing to Shrikantaji seperately but I always regret having to 
do such things.  So please, discipline yourself and lets keep the quality 
of the discussion as high as possible.


-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>