Bill Reel on Mormon Stories

[Robert F. Smith]

On 12/3/2015, 11:06:49, hope_for_things said:

I thought it was a very interesting discussion as well.  I actively participated in the FAIR support board when I first started on this faith journey and wanted to go to a "safe" source for answers to hard questions and exploration of issues.  I found many of the things that Bill experienced to be true from my interactions on that site.  The way many of the FAIR members were hostile to acknowledging complexity, I also experienced first hand.  At the same time, I wanted to continue to try and engage with people in the church who were knowledgeable about controversial history, but who still were actively participating.  I would still be a part of the FAIR support board if they hadn't taken it down with absolutely no warning.  I think it was a place that contributed some good for those struggling learning new information.

There aren't enough good resources for people when they first start to learn about complex history or have a faith crisis of some kind.  Local leaders are rarely equipped to provide sound guidance, and people end up suffering in isolation at times, and it makes me sad.  We need more resources where people can discuss problems without judgement and without someone telling them they are wrong and there is only one faithful way to view situations. 

I was gratified to find you in favor of "acknowledging complexity" or "complex history," but am not sure what you mean when you fault "many FAIR members" for being hostile to such complexity.  On the contrary, I have found that they handle complexity very well.  Indeed, I have also found that it is that very complexity which  garners quite a bit of anger from anti-Mormons -- claiming as they do that explanations should be simple and direct, even when the subject matter deserves complex treatment.  I think impatience the most common reason for apostasy.

The very notion that there is only one way to view religious matters is of course silly, but there are some matters of fact and logic which must be decided upon in the course of religious discussion.  If that is impossible, then of course mere conversation can get nowhere.  You have no doubt seen that happen on this board.  I certainly have.

[ALarson]

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

I already mentioned in an earlier comment that Bill himself asked that his material be removed or edited at the time that he parted ways with FairMormon.

Calm, I know that you did not state the above, but are quoting someone else (just clarifying and I hope that is correct).

But, is this accurate?   If so, do you have a reference for this or it is just this person's opinion or experience?

 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

*Bold is mine-

 

Is Hales either a member or a stake holder (contributor) to FAIR? Does he communicate and hold sway with members or leaders at FAIR?  I don't know the answer so I'd really like to know. It would be unfair to conflate Hales with FAIR if they aren't connected in any way. If they are, then it would be justifiable to speak about both.

Brian Hales recently joined FM and even more recently became a bit more active, but he is primarily involved at this point in his own projects for FM of which there are a few, very targeted.  Any projects for FairMormon will be identified as connected to FairMormon so if something he has done doesn't say that, it was his own stuff.  Brian does quite a bit of other stuft that has no connection with FairMormon.

I don't believe Brian was connected to FM when he was having a discussion with Bill Reel.  I would have to see the dates of the exchange to be sure.  He was not in any way doing so as a representative of FairMormon to the best of my knowledge, which is pretty deep (some people work independently on projects that I am not aware of the behind the scenes, but the existence of the projects are reported...there was and is no project that would require communication of this type).

"Hold sway"...what do you mean by this?  Does he determine what content is on our site perhaps?  Only in the sense that he contributes to the work imo, just the same as I do and the vast majority of other FM members.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Calm

[hope_for_things]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

And the reason why the FairMormon Support Board was shut down is that there were a few individuals (including Bill Reel) that were repeatedly shepherding people in the wrong direction, and there was not sufficient manpower to effectively moderate it. It was determined that it was not doing what it was intended for, and so a new site is being worked on with a different format that should work better.

Sounds almost exactly like what I said earlier, just with a different spin.  FAIR couldn't control the outcomes of the conversations, they didn't agree with the approaches of validating issues and coming to various different conclusions.  I bristle at the arrogance of statements like "shepherding people in the wrong direction", as if FAIR knows the only correct direction people should be shepherded.  Sounds like the new site will contain a whole new level of policing.   Yippee!  

[hope_for_things]

29 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I was gratified to find you in favor of "acknowledging complexity" or "complex history," but am not sure what you mean when you fault "many FAIR members" for being hostile to such complexity.  On the contrary, I have found that they handle complexity very well.  Indeed, I have also found that it is that very complexity which  garners quite a bit of anger from anti-Mormons -- claiming as they do that explanations should be simple and direct, even when the subject matter deserves complex treatment.  I think impatience the most common reason for apostasy.

The very notion that there is only one way to view religious matters is of course silly, but there are some matters of fact and logic which must be decided upon in the course of religious discussion.  If that is impossible, then of course mere conversation can get nowhere.  You have no doubt seen that happen on this board.  I certainly have.

I gave one example earlier with the push back I received for my view that there isn't strong evidence for the historicity of the BoM.  Apparently they closed the site because they couldn't control the message, that is what Calm's post just confirmed and what I had suspected and Bill also talked about in his interview.  

[Greg Smith]

7 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Calm, I know that you did not state the above, but are quoting someone else (just clarifying and I hope that is correct).

But, is this accurate?   If so, do you have a reference for this or it is just this person's opinion or experience?

 

It's accurate. There are e-mails from Bill to some of FairMormon's board.

If he wishes, we can probably post them.

I think he's just forgotten that such a discussion was had, and now over-reacted into making it something nefarious and secret when he was told point blank--and agreed--that it might happen.

GLS

[HappyJackWagon]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Brian Hales recently joined FM and even more recently became a bit more active, but he is primarily involved at this point in his own projects of which there are a few, very targeted.  Any projects for FairMormon will be identified as connected to FairMormon so if something he has done doesn't say that, it was his own stuff.

I don't believe Brian was connected to FM when he was having a discussion with Bill Reel.  I would have to see the dates of the exchange to be sure.  He was not in any way doing so as a representative of FairMormon to the best of my knowledge, which is pretty deep (some people work independently on projects that I am not aware of the behind the scenes, but the existence of the projects are reported...there was and is no project that would require communication of this type).

"Hold sway"...what do you mean by this?  Does he determine what content is on our site perhaps?  Only in the sense that he contributes to the work imo, just the same as I do and the vast majority of other FM members.

Calm, thanks for answering those questions.

What I mean is, does Hales have power, either officially or non-officially, to call, email, text, whatever the leadership at FAIR and say, "This Bill Reel guy is a problem. We need to disassociate with him in any way we can."

The implication has been that Hales may have influenced FAIR's erasure of Bill from their history.

 

Also, regarding your previous quotes from the JD page, I don't know who you are quoting but I find it difficult to believe Bill asked to be completely scrubbed from FAIR's history. I believe he mentioned in the podcast that he was fine with them removing the podcast episodes he provided as content but that is very different than erasing him from the picture of panelists and his comments and questions as moderator. Removing content is a fairly regular occurrence on any website but keeping content up but erasing 1 person's contribution to that content is extreme.

[Tacenda]

1 minute ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Calm, thanks for answering those questions.

What I mean is, does Hales have power, either officially or non-officially, to call, email, text, whatever the leadership at FAIR and say, "This Bill Reel guy is a problem. We need to disassociate with him in any way we can."

The implication has been that Hales may have influenced FAIR's erasure of Bill from their history.

 

Also, regarding your previous quotes from the JD page, I don't know who you are quoting but I find it difficult to believe Bill asked to be completely scrubbed from FAIR's history. I believe he mentioned in the podcast that he was fine with them removing the podcast episodes he provided as content but that is very different than erasing him from the picture of panelists and his comments and questions as moderator. Removing content is a fairly regular occurrence on any website but keeping content up but erasing 1 person's contribution to that content is extreme.

Yes, and isn't it strange that he thought it strange that Fair deleted him from the text of the FM conference.  Why would he think it strange, if he himself told them to scrub his content from FAIR's history?  That takes some big play acting on his part if so.   

[Calm]

 

Quote

 

Quote

 

Sounds almost exactly like what I said earlier, just with a different spin.  FAIR couldn't control the outcomes of the conversations, they didn't agree with the approaches of validating issues and coming to various different conclusions.  I bristle at the arrogance of statements like "shepherding people in the wrong direction", as if FAIR knows the only correct direction people should be shepherded.  Sounds like the new site will contain a whole new level of policing.   Yippee!  

 

 

****Added quote above.  My apologies if people were confused, when first posted, the new version doesn't show posts that have occurred during the writing or editing of a post so it appeared to me that this response was right above my own post.  Now formatting is screwed up and there doesn't appear to be the option to turn off the automatic coding to correct it, sorry.****

 

• No, it won't...at least not the currently envisioned approach.  It is using a different technology/method so it won't have that need.  We don't need another message board.  We need something that we were hoping the message board would manage; it did not even come close unfortunately.  It was a failed experiment.

I think the best way of describing why the message board was shut down was that it wasn't fulfilling the mission purpose.  The intention was not to just create another message board to allow people to talk about stuff they were interested in, but to provide a better platform for having conversations such as we have through the FMQ service.

This was not happening.  Conversations did not occur in a more thorough or supportive fashion than they were able to be done through email.  There was no reason to run a service that did not do what it was supposed to do, which was make answering the questions (including those who were seeking extended conversations) we got through emails more effective.  Very few of those who introduced themselves as having issues stuck around to follow through.  The vast majority of conversations ended up involving a very limited number of core posters and there was no real resolution (even just resolving to accept not being able to resolve an issue), imo, but lots of recycling (which is where the shepherding in the wrong direction comes in, imo; when people come to the board looking for help, it isn't arrogant to recognize if we ended up not providing it and that the venue was also in many cases making things more confusing, more difficult for those who reached out to us; if we are going to try and help people, we better be sure have a way to measure the success of that help and by our measures taken from what people were communicating to us and not just our own assumptions, the message board was not a success).

If you are expecting something similar to what was happening on the message board, it is not going to happen.  The message board was never intended to be used in that fashion, we were hoping when we started to see it go off mission that we could accommodate that as well as encourage what we wanted to use it for, but the unintended result pushed out the intended result imo.

No one had the time and resources to devote to a message board that wasn't filling any purpose for the FM mission.  It was taking volunteers away from important projects and making it harder to get answers for those writing in, not easier.  With this board and other message boards out there, I don't see why we should be expected to provide such a service.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Calm

[Tacenda]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

No, it won't...at least not the currently envisioned approach.  It is using a different technology/method so it won't have that need.  We don't need another message board.  We need something that we were hoping the message board would manage; it did not even come close unfortunately.

I think the best way of describing why the message board was shut down was that it wasn't fulfilling the mission purpose.  The intention was not to just create another message board to allow people to talk about stuff they were interested in, but to provide a better platform for having conversations such as we have through the FMQ service.

This was not happening.  Conversations did not occur in a more thorough or supportive fashion than they were able to be done through email.  There was no reason to run a service that did not do what it was supposed to do, which was make answering the questions (including those who were seeking extended conversations) we got through emails more effective.  Very few of those who introduced themselves as having issues stuck around to follow through.  The vast majority of conversations ended up involving a very limited number of core posters and there was no real resolution (even just resolving to accept not being able to resolve an issue), imo, but lots of recycling.

While Fair Mormon Support was around they didn't have email for asking questions, or did I read that right?  I agree, that it was the same core posters and possibly Bill is right, there was just too much for new doubters to stomach after reading some comments, mine included.  And I'm sure the moderators would have to struggle not to totally shut down any anti or negative responses about the church.  I'm sure they wanted to be open minded and helpful to those with questions.       

[hope_for_things]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think the best way of describing why the message board was shut down was that it wasn't fulfilling the mission purpose.  The intention was not to just create another message board to allow people to talk about stuff they were interested in, but to provide a better platform for having conversations such as we have through the FMQ service.

So the mission of the support board wasn’t to provide support for people having a faith crisis, even though that’s what the board description talked about?  If anyone experiencing a faith crisis comes to conclusions that aren’t in alignment with the direction that FAIR believes is correct (even if they want to continue to be an involved member of the church), then that person is corrected and/or discarded. Conditional support is what FAIR wanted to provide, not mourn with those that mourn and comfort those in need of comfort.  Try to comfort them with a church approved comforting technique, and if they don't feel comforted, well too bad, next person please.  

[Calm]

8 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

While Fair Mormon Support was around they didn't have email for asking questions, or did I read that right?  I agree, that it was the same core posters and possibly Bill is right, there was just too much for new doubters to stomach after reading some comments, mine included.  And I'm sure the moderators would have to struggle not to totally shut down any anti or negative responses about the church.  I'm sure they wanted to be open minded and helpful to those with questions.       

No, they had both.  The message board was meant to be an extension of the question service; as well as providing a different option besides emailing, it meant to take it to another level, not to go off into a completely different direction.

[Scott Lloyd]

29 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Sounds almost exactly like what I said earlier, just with a different spin.  FAIR couldn't control the outcomes of the conversations, they didn't agree with the approaches of validating issues and coming to various different conclusions.  I bristle at the arrogance of statements like "shepherding people in the wrong direction", as if FAIR knows the only correct direction people should be shepherded.  Sounds like the new site will contain a whole new level of policing.   Yippee!  

Don't at least some people come to FairMormon with the intent of being shepherded? Hasn't that been the complaint in the past (most recently expressed in Dehlin's interview with Reel) that they have been treated harshly and not with sufficient empathy? If the concept of being shepherded is inherently offensive, why would they complain about such things?

 

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

So the mission of the support board wasn’t to provide support for people having a faith crisis, 

Where are you getting this from?  We get tons of questions coming from people having a faith crisis.  We wanted a venue that would make the discussions we were already having easier and would allow others who were inclined to contribute.

 

It didn't function in that manner though.

 

Quote

Conditional support is what FAIR wanted to provide, not mourn with those that mourn and comfort those in need of comfort.  Try to comfort them with a church approved comforting technique, and if they don't feel comforted, well too bad, next person please.  

Wow, sometimes I am so amazed at what people come up with.

BTW, the question service is not a debate forum.  If a questioner disagrees with us, so be it.  We don't see (as an organization) that there is much benefit getting into debates or arguments.  It is obvious from how people tell us where and how we've been helpful, debating with them or others is not effective in helping them resolve issues or even just feel better about their situation so we try to avoid it for the most part (there are a few critics who write into the FMQ service not with questions, but to challenge and that might have a few of our members responding but this is not the purpose of the FMQ service and if they do that, it is not part of their FM responsibility but on their own time imo.)

Edited December 4, 2015 by Calm

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Trying to do just the content, posting for a FM friend from his personal blog (so not an official FM response but based on his own experience and opinions...I say this because some people seem to have a habit of not distinguishing between what our members do in their own time and efforts and what they do for FM), the link has a spam sensitive word in it so you will have do do a search on the content, my apologies:

 

 

 

This (the quoted material that does not show up here) is highly enlightening after having listened to the podcast episode, which I did last night before entering this thread.

[Greg Smith]

8 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Sounds almost exactly like what I said earlier, just with a different spin.  FAIR couldn't control the outcomes of the conversations, they didn't agree with the approaches of validating issues and coming to various different conclusions.  I bristle at the arrogance of statements like "shepherding people in the wrong direction", as if FAIR knows the only correct direction people should be shepherded.  Sounds like the new site will contain a whole new level of policing.   Yippee!  

In my experience, FairMormon is and was (on the support board) very good at validating in the sense of saying, "Yeah, I can see why that is a potentially tough issue for you." Good grief, we have hundreds or thousands of articles dealing with just such things. If we didn't think that well-intentioned, sincere people could be troubled by them, we wouldn't have written them. Many of us have had that same experience.

If, however you mean "validating" in the sense of encouraging people to conclude that there are no good answers to such questions, or that the best conclusion is things at variance with the Church's truth claims (e.g., claims that the Book of Mormon is not a legitimate ancient document), then FairMormon doesn't (in my experience) do or support that, and have never pretended that we will or have.

Some people want their conclusions or interpretation of the data "validated." That's quite another matter than acknowledging a difficulty or problem.

If hope_for_things or others want to do that, there are plenty of places or they can form their own groups.

If there is data that is ignored in our written materials (esp the wiki) I invite readers to point it out and we'll fix that. We aim to be comprehensive, and I think we do a good job at that, overall. I've yet to have anyone take me up on the offer to add material that we've missed, despite often making it. We can't fix what we don't know about.

 

1 minute ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Calm, thanks for answering those questions.

What I mean is, does Hales have power, either officially or non-officially, to call, email, text, whatever the leadership at FAIR and say, "This Bill Reel guy is a problem. We need to disassociate with him in any way we can."

The implication has been that Hales may have influenced FAIR's erasure of Bill from their history.

Hales doesn't have that power, and in my experience didn't have anything to do with this or other decisions to remove material that was not in keeping with FairMormon's mission.

"Yes, and isn't it strange that he thought it strange that Fair deleted him from the text of the FM conference.  Why would he think it strange, if he himself told them to scrub his content from FAIR's history?  That takes some big play acting on his part if so."

I think he's just forgotten. He is sincere, but sincerely mistaken.

Again, Bill was informed ahead of time that this could happen, as far as I know.

He didn't tell us to remove everything, he was informed that removal might happen and he was OK with that. And, he was told--if I recall correctly--that the board's decision about such things would depend upon the impression it gave about support for the Church and its doctrines/leaders. (I'm not part of the board, so am only speaking at one remove from such things, but I was around when the decisions were made.) He was also well aware that a big concern was that some of his statements were inconsistent with our mission, and we did not wish to appear to be endorsing him. There was also discussion of our editing things as we saw fit, and he didn't object to that either.

People forget or are unaware that our material is in constant flux. I've lost track of what I've written, what is still on there, and what isn't anymore, or what's been edited or modeled. We aren't really about individuals; it's about a group effort, more than anything. If even one member of the work group is concerned about how I've written or said something, it gets changed. You have to check your ego at the door, and not take "ownership" of material, even though you may have written all or most of it.

I really think this is a tempest in a teapot, derived mostly from Bill simply forgetting that these conversations had been had, and people like John Dehlin being willing to automatically assume the worst.

GLS

[Scott Lloyd]

17 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

So the mission of the support board wasn’t to provide support for people having a faith crisis, even though that’s what the board description talked about?  If anyone experiencing a faith crisis comes to conclusions that aren’t in alignment with the direction that FAIR believes is correct (even if they want to continue to be an involved member of the church), then that person is corrected and/or discarded. Conditional support is what FAIR wanted to provide, not mourn with those that mourn and comfort those in need of comfort.  Try to comfort them with a church approved comforting technique, and if they don't feel comforted, well too bad, next person please.  

So it would appear then, that you're not opposed to "shepherding" in principle, even though you rail against that word.

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[ALarson]

29 minutes ago, Greg Smith said:

It's accurate. There are e-mails from Bill to some of FairMormon's board.

If he wishes, we can probably post them.

I think he's just forgotten that such a discussion was had, and now over-reacted into making it something nefarious and secret when he was told point blank--and agreed--that it might happen.

GLS

So you are saying that Bill Reel asked to have himself removed from the panel discussion, etc.?  Then why would he be surprised this was done?

[Scott Lloyd]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

Where are you getting this from?  We get tons of questions coming from people having a faith crisis.  We wanted a venue that would make the discussions we were already having easier and would allow others who were inclined to contribute.

 

It didn't function in that manner though.

 

Wow, sometimes I am so amazed at what people come up with.

If I may offer an opinion, the venture was doomed from the start. Whenever you open a forum about Mormonism to all comers, the antagonists are going to congregate there like ants to sugar.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[Greg Smith]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

 

Wow, sometimes I am so amazed at what people come up with.

 

Yeah, I think this type of remark is an excellent microcosm of why there were problems that ultimately proved intractable.

We'd hoped to be able to do what we were doing and continuing to do by email in a forum that would be available to others with the same types of questions. Didn't work out well--partly, I think, because as soon as you make things even a little bit public, there is a certain segment that want to either perform publicly, use it as a  soapbox for their own approach/agenda, undermine answers that support faith in the Church, etc.

Private, "not before an audience" talks remove a lot of that "secondary gain" out of the equation. Given our limited manpower and womanpower, that's turned out to give us more bang for our buck.

GLS

[Scott Lloyd]

7 minutes ago, ALarson said:

So you are saying that Bill Reel asked to have himself removed from the panel discussion, etc.?  Then why would he be surprised this was done?

I think what has been stated is that Bill was informed upfront that such a thing might happen after they parted ways, and he agreed to it. Also, that there are emails in the possession of FairMormon that document this.

(That's my understanding, anyway, as an outsider reading this exchange.)

[Calm]

32 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Yes, and isn't it strange that he thought it strange that Fair deleted him from the text of the FM conference.  Why would he think it strange, if he himself told them to scrub his content from FAIR's history?  

He might have forgotten that this was discussed when FM didn't see the need to do this originally.

[Greg Smith]

14 minutes ago, ALarson said:

So you are saying that Bill Reel asked to have himself removed from the panel discussion, etc.?  Then why would he be surprised this was done?

No, I am saying he was aware that we might remove and/or edit some/all of his material. Or he should have been.

Why would he be surprised? There are two options, I suppose:

1) he is surprised because he misunderstood the discussion or has forgotten about it;

2) he is feigning surprise for rhetorical gain.

I would opt for the first, but I suppose the second is a distant possibility, though I really doubt it because if nothing else it would be tactically stupid of him to make a claim that could be so easily disproved.

I would have thought people wouldn't assume FairMormon was so stupid as to think that we could somehow "hide" or "alter history." Really? In the age of the internet, archiving, and all the rest? :-) Surely there is a better explanation, isn't there?

I can understand that some people don't like FairMormon. I do wish, though, that they'd either let us be evil masterminds, or stupid and clueless. It's the mix of evil masterminds that are ALSO stupid and clueless that I find so implausible. :-)

GLS

Edited December 4, 2015 by Greg Smith

[HappyJackWagon]

8 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

If I may offer an opinion, the venture was doomed from the start. Whenever you open a forum to all comers, the antagonists are going to congregate there like ants to sugar.

I actually think this was the view FM support board took, acting as if those who came were trouble makers, which led to dismissive attitudes and hostile interactions. I think the board was a test of sorts but it seemed that some FAIR members were wary from the start and brought that attitude with them.

[Greg Smith]

3 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I think what has been stated is that Bill was informed upfront that such a thing might happen after they parted ways, and he agreed to it. Also, that there are emails in the possession of FairMormon that document this.

(That's my understanding, anyway, as an outsider reading this exchange.)

Yup.

And he was clearly aware that our major area of concern was whether his behavior or remarks elsewhere would reflect badly upon FairMormon, or that his old materials on our site might constitute an implied endorsement in the eyes of some.

He's perfectly free to say, write, and do whatever he likes. But, we're not obliged to appear as if we endorse him--which, whatever the trouble it has caused, the action has certainly made clear, has it not? :-)

GLS