catapult magazine

Seriously tho, what happened to Ricky Bobby. Norbert seems to be all happy that he is gone. but i thought he brought some clever insight to the mundane (at times) here. And Dan called him a buffoon which was high road taking at its highest.

Honestly tho, what kind of free speech,d iscussion forum is this, if we can not handle someone who comes at things from a little different angle but MAY spark controversy in some topics? Who makes that call, who put the hammer down and said no more Ricky Bobby. He didnt swear — this pisses me off. Sure some things were MINORLY off colour but seriously, to wipe out all his/her posts? Then we should wipe out all of Grants 1001 posts because he offended me once to, or Norbert because he sprays water in his kids face (abuse, and i HAVE kids), or Dan because he is sitting there up his damn stereotypical high horse.

What I have learned from this site in the last couple years thru minimal posting, but multiple reads is that this is a bunch of people who want the world to join but want to keep it one big clique. I have a choice weather i want to be here or not i know, but what bugs me is that there is a whole bunch of members on the widest used media out there, but if it doesn’t fit the EXACT mold of the "inner eight" or how ever many of you there are, then it is no good. Real Christian. Blah blah. I am so sick of people with attitudes like this. This bothered me before the virtual wiping out of RB by the way, it just took that to get me to write something.

We should call this site:

Pontification is not optional.

Cause this basic fascism is choking the living shit out of what could be potentially a great thing. I dont mind opinion, strong ones are even better, but let others have them too.

Heres the question of the day, besides "What happened to Ricky Bobby?"
"Whats it like to know everything?"

I am sure three or four people in this discussion can reply.

As a new comer to this site I’m also curious about what happened to Ricky Bobby.

Was he contacted and engaged in a dialogue about the concerns of the CINO censors so that it was clear to him that his expression of free speech was a problem for the CINO folks.

Was he respected as an individual and asked to explain or defend himself before he was axed.

Curious. I guess i wonder because I would want to be treated that way.

It does leave me with a curious perspective on CINO and the process of censorship that goes on here.

Eddie, it seems that if a long time member like yourself has these feelings, and like you said has had them for a long time there must be something to it. I hope the CINO folks that take care of censorship don’t write you off like they did RB. I also would love to hear from some long time members in response to Eddie.

My question is does anyone else feel like there is a lot of cliqueism or elitism that includes folks that articulate a certain worldview(s) or present their thoughts wrapped in a particular type of language or tone? Is it possible that Eddie is the only one that notices this?

I did notice in the past few days that I have been a member that not too many people engaged RB in response to his posts. (including myself). Not too many people have engaged or responded to me either. Observations.

Richard out.

I am the person responsible for maintaining and moderating *cino’s discussion board, which is intended to be an open forum for honest and constructive dialogue. And yes, I deleted ricky bobby’s user account, though not for the reasons eddie has suggested above. The only time we have ever censored any legitimate user on the discussion board for inappropriate comments was several years ago when two friends exchanged insults that didn’t make sense in a virtual context. Both were contacted when the material was removed and given full explanations.

ricky bobby’s case was a bit of an accident. After returning from a 10 day trip to Ontario for our Practicing Resurrection conference, I found our discussion board had been bombarded by spammers and proceeded, as I regularly do, to delete the threads about penis enlargement, anal sex and other pleasantries that are posted in an attempt to secure better Google rankings by having more links directed to their sites. During this process, I also delete the users who have posted the spam messages because they are not engaged in the community whatsoever and are merely attempting to exploit this discussion board.

In this process, I found several of ricky bobby’s more irrelevant posts that appeared to do nothing more than toss insults at anyone/thing in the vicinity and assumed they were spam. So I deleted his/her user account and began deleting his/her posts. As it has been a very busy week for me, I didn’t realize until several days later (while still attempting to prune spam) that some of ricky bobby’s posts were indeed legitimate and that he/she was, in fact, a legitimate user. If ricky bobby had engaged conversations in a more constructive and appropriate manner, I probably would not have mistaken him/her for a spammer.

And so I apologize. In my haste to delete spam from the discussion board, I accidentally and inappropriately deleted a legitimate user—something I have never done in the past. *cino has never engaged in censorship on our discussion board.

If ricky bobby would like to continue his/her involvement in the *cino community, please contact me (robvgr[at]cultureisnotoptional[dot]com). In reading more of the threads in which ricky bobby posted, I realize he did have some valuable (if unorthodox) contributions to discussion and appreciate those who have been participating for continuing to engage in constructive dialogue.

I thought having a new and different voice on the board was great. In fact, he/she did a good job of getting me involved again in the discussion board. I have posted very infrequently over the past year, partially because I didn’t want to have my fingers on everything and direct too many discussions. I hope you two (eddie and richard) continue to post and speak your mind and I hope ricky bobby comes back to us.

I fully agree with norbert.

After spending many, many hours over the years reading post after post here on *cino, it wasn’t until the likes of eddie, ricky bobby and ilovealbertabeef (honorable mention to dan) did I muster up the courage to actually start posting my own thoughts.

It was ricky bobby’s forthwith acumen that encouraged me to add my, how you say "not so politically correct" thoughts to the board. In essence, this board would not really be what it is without a full spectrum of topics, worldviews and unorthodox writing styles.

I laud your honesty and willingness to exonerate ricky bobby, laurencer.

"I can change the world, with my own 2 hands . . .
make a brighter place, with my own, two hands . .. "

Thanks for that reply Laurencer. That helps me to understand a bit more about the behind the scenes of CINO.

Is that Ben Harper Eddie? Nice.

With regards to open discussion and welcoming all sorts of different views and basically just engaging and contributing to judgement free community (which is not necessarily confrontation free), i believe another musician put it well when he said that which you fear the most can meet you halfway.

I am glad that we came to this reolution and hopefully Rickky B will come back. Isnt it nice for all of us to play nice and be tolerant and accepting? i think it is.

In short it is redeptive and ordained. and i have nothing more to say.