E-sangha and Control Freaks
by Al
I’ve used the site E-sangha over the last year or two off and on. It is one of the few web forums for Buddhists that has a real critical mass of users. This makes it a great place for people to get together and speak about issues, have discussions, even debates.
The last is the problem though. E-Sangha is run as a dictatorship. Individuals are appointed to be moderators over forums or sub-forums. Those moderators have almost complete authority over these forums. If they dislike a thread, its tone, or just a the way a user is discussing things, they have the power to lock or delete a thread, delete posts, or suspend a user from the site.
How are moderators selected? Who knows? It certainly isn’t by popular acclaim and there is no transparency into the process. How do you appeal a moderator ruling? Well, you can try to find another moderator and ask them. If you’re banned or temporarily suspended, there is no appeal because you’ve been blocked from the site. Basically, E-sangha is about as anti-democratic or populist as you can get in a web forum. Heck, you can’t even find a list of contact points to discuss any of this on the site and, actually, discussing decisions by moderators that one disagrees with in a forum is specifically disallowed and can get you suspended…
In practice, this means that if the moderator dislikes a discussion or a user, they have complete authority, without any recourse, to put a full stop on things or bounce the user. This leads to abuse, which I’ve seen on a number of occasions where a moderator or a popular (with moderators) regular contributor doesn’t like where a discussion is going and gets the thread locked down so it has to stop. Occasionally, people just disappear from the site along with their posts (or even your posts with them).
Of course, what is prompting this post is that I’ve been suspended from E-sangha for three days as of this morning. I received a one way e-mail which from a “Todd” stating that I showed “a general trend of disruptive posts” and a “general lack of respect for the moderators…” This forces them to give me “a few days off.” What this means is that they suspended my account on E-sangha, across the board, for three days.
Who is “Todd” and how do I contact him? Not a clue and no mechanism is given. I’ve never even heard of this guy but he clearly speaks as the Voice of E-sangha. Attempting to go to E-sangha shows me that, yes, I am suspended from all access. The one hyperlink in the e-mail is to the e-sangha home page which, if I try to visit, informs me that my account is banned from the site. How do I appeal this? Apparently, I don’t. I either suck it up and don’t do what I did in the future or I leave E-sangha.
What prompted this? Well, recently, an East Asian Buddhism Forum was created. This forum included a subform for Tendai Buddhism for the first time ever on E-sangha (you won’t be able to visit the link though since the forum was locked down from unregistered users at the same time as I was suspended…). This is a big deal for those of us who want to discuss Tendai because we haven’t had a place before. This forum (and the Shingon one) is moderated by a Shingon priest living in Japan.
On the forum over the last couple of days, there have been some discussions about Tendai in America. In these, I have directly asked the moderator about his motivations based on his posts and things he said in them. It seemed like he had some opinions in regards to Tendai (which has often been at odds with Shingon in Japanese history) and America. I wanted him to explicitly state whatever it was that he was trying to say or to tell me that I was wrong and that he didn’t have an agenda. It just seemed like a hostile environment. I asked him on the forum about it, to which he chose not to reply. That was last night. Today, I get the boot and the forums are locked down from guest users so posts cannot be viewed. I’ve been told by other parties that my posts with the questions have been deleted without any explanation.
This definitely seems like some sort of reaction though I am not sure what it means. I really did not think that my questions were rude though they were very direct, which was probably not diplomatic. I even think that he could simply choose not to answer these questions or move on. After all, we’re all equals in the forums and having discussions except, of course, he’s the moderator.
At the end of the day, it is typical web forum BS where people have disagreements and get thrown off of sites, etc. etc. There is nothing new about this on the Internet in the slightest.
I do wonder and have for some time if E-sangha is really a good vehicle for Buddhist discussions on the Internet. There is no transparency in the decision making. Heck, you don’t even know who makes decisions, nor can you contact these people or appeal decisions. It’s all very clique-like and control oriented. They have a vision of what Buddhist discussions should be and they enforce it in a dictatorial manner.
I’ve had the domains “OpenBuddha.com” and “OpenBuddha.org” for quite a while. I’ve been thinking of putting a MediaWiki on it and maybe a web forum. The question is whether it is worth the effort and if it would be well received. It seems like there might be a reason to create an actually open forum, such as many Wiki sites and associated forums have, rather than the control-oriented one that E-sangha is currently.
Of course, by saying this in public, I’m risking a permanent ban on E-sangha. We’ll see.
Comments
I took a look at Esangha a while back and found it lacking since it practically ignores Pure Land Buddhism. It continues the Western Buddhists general distain/disregard for a practice based on the working classes of the Buddhist world.
basking in the unhindered light,
jim
There is actually a sub-forum relating to Pure Land now on the site with the recent reorganization.
The trouble is that power corrupts. I think personally these forums can easily become like Orwells Animal Farm and the Pigs. You know four legs good, two legs bad.
I had a bad experience with Buddhachat.org . I witnessed some heavy exchanges and nothing has happened. However, if you were to challenge a moderater then all hell lets loose.
Maybe Buddhism attracts those who have a suppressed Nazi inside.
If a new forum were to be set up I would certainly give it a whirl.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I was new on E-Sangha myself as I was very excited to see a site with a sub-forum on Tendai, as you could well imagine. And the thread on Tendai Sangha of America and Blue Lotus Assembly in particular. And I couldn’t believe they were just block or erased. And I couldn’t believe you were just suspended from it for 3 days just for asking a few questions! What is this the IRON CURTAIN?? Why can’t there be a discussion?? I don’t see the problem…it does seem like ‘someone’ has gotten a bit of a ego and control issue. That might be bad for a Buddhist priest! Especially since the only thing you did was challenge his ‘opinion.’ It’s all rather absurd to me. People need to learn to check their egos at the vitual door where people want to come and learn and discuss Dharma with one another. And what was more wrong, in my opinion, was the fact that the Sho-Ren Ko(Blue Lotus Assembly) Thread was just completely shut off. It wasn’t redirected, and you can’t ppost on it anymore. Not even to ask questions. What if someone wanted to ask more specifics about Master Jien Hayes’, Sho-Ren Ko(Blue Lotus Assembly)?? It all seems like some Buddhist Tolitarian State to me. I don’t know if I want to be invovled anymore. Gassho.
It’s a common battle between social responsibility and individual liberty. E-sangha is a relatively peaceful and safe site because of the moderation. There are other sites of this nature that are miserable with trolls and flames. At the same time, many of us consider the moderation to be sometimes too heavy handed. The mods do feel they are the keepers of the faith. They have their own forum to discuss decisions that is invisible to the public. Things seem to have changed since Leo got too busy and Namdrol took the lead in administration. There’s 25 mods now, and more than a few of us who are members discuss these concerns. We feel that the moderation policy should be more transparent, that it smacks of cowardice and fundamentalism. But as you point out, we have little redress for such grievances. But we remain, because of the traffic. We feel that the newbies should have the opportunity to hear our alternative voice as we are able to provide it. We post carefully to say the least. But we present our views. What we don’t do is challenge the mods or argue against the more fundamentalist, scriptural view of Buddhism. There are several other forums and more than a few e-sangha members have migrated to these. But e-sangha has the traffic, the need, and we’re hoping impermanence will apply sooner than later. I doubt a perfect Buddhist forum is possible in this life, though one can dream. I’d be happy to post on another, but feel that where there’s traffic there’s need. And where there’s traffic, with a more democratic moderation, there’s also likely to be messier encounters and perhaps less learning. This existence is unsatisfactory. The Buddha really nails the conundrum of being, and all we can do is press on. Fight the good fight, not with an expectation of winning, but for the joy of doing so.
Well, posting much on E-Sangha isn’t an option for me. The moderator of the only forum for the tradition I am attached to is moderated by a fellow who all but called my teacher and school illegitimate before locking and hiding the entire thread it was on. I’ve been suspended twice for questioning moderator decisions in public and it just isn’t a friendly place.
Of course, on a funny note, the banned topics disappear but if you look at the profile for people like Eijo and such, you will still find the posts under their own posts. Apparently, the system doesn’t block access to the messages, just the threads, which means none of this material is ever actually deleted if you dig a little.
I’ve found e-sangha to be comprised of a lot of USA bashing socialist/communist types. If you happen to be a moderate conservative type like me there’s no place for you. Mostly it’s “capitalism bad, USA bad, capitalism bad,Israel bad, socialism the light of the world, Palestinians blameless victims YADA YADA YADA……
These guys are more like a bunch shrill left wingers than Buddhists. Engaged Buddhism my a$$! SELF engaged more like.
Well, I’m a bit left myself so I don’t mind that aspect per se but I am a big believer in political discourse and discussion. I have family that are conservative or even further Right. I don’t have any issues as long as people are able to converse about it without it becoming acrimonious. We should be able to talk about these things in a friendly manner.
It used to be a good place.
I’m reading all this cause I couldn’t get ‘Code’ to appear and couldn’t find ‘cantact us’ at E-sangha. thanks for comments offered. I’ll just wait for better bb. As to ‘traffic’ (above) -methinks it would move like a wave.
I’ve never been banned, but I spend little time on E-Sangha these days. I noticed the fundamentalist and dictatorial attitudes, and basically decided not to bother.
websangha.org is gathering a bit of momentum as an alternative, but it will take time.
The fundamentalists gather there too, but it seems more flexible.
I’ve also tried the yoga forum run by Georg Feuerstein, but that is likewise fiercly dedicated to one version of the truth.
I was a regular poster on ESangha for a few months last year. Initially I was really stimulated as there was lots of opportunity to be challenging and to argue points of view. There were also some very interesting characters. People that were not afraid to rock the boat for the sake of teasing out the contradictions and inconsistencies of dogma and practice. Of course there was borderline trolling, but then I think that was more due to the undercurrent of control freakery, not to mention rampant condescension, you describe. It presses buttons. For people like myself, there was also the more glaring issue of all too many of the regular members clearly communicating in a way that one indicated a chasm between their understanding of theory and their practice.
I never actually got banned, but received a warning for being disrespectful to a, so called, ordained monk. The said monk behaved like child when I challenged him in an adult manner, and I made comment on that. Pretty soon the thread was awash with moderators and I was summararily flamed. Now I don’t like bullies, and I consider sanctimonious bullies among the worst. So I walked. Oh, and a previous poster mentioned Namdrol. I think there’s a psychology dissertation somewhere in that forum on a study of that man alone.
Believe me they did you a favor. To begin with, any site registered through GoDaddy and using Domains by Proxy as registrar belongs to a criminal organization.
KL Leo, real name, Leo Kah Leong, is a Chinese hood living in Singapore, and he runs the site with another guy (KC something) in the US. The site is not run with Buddhism in mind, the owner is as much interested in Buddhism as is the CEO of Exxon.
The scheme behind E-Sangha is that it is just one of many forums run by this hood; the interest is money, not Buddhism, provided by the dumb people who send in donations or buy through his sites.
They also have many shop fronts on their sites selling all kinds of stuff, i.e. they carry no stock of anything, the real shops are based in the US and China. This is to avoid taxes. They also avoid taxes by using PayPal.
I have also been informed that anyone who posts on E-Sangha is on a watch list, Singapore Govt., Thai Govt., and the FBI. So you could say that those who do post, and act as moderators, are not very enlightened.
members in e sangha are really good,but the moderators are really harsh..its because they think they know everything..first of all moderators must be removed to make e sangha a better place.everyone should be given equal rights
my account was suspended for two times..once it was a three day suspension,and now its a seven day suspension,because of that i couldn’t do anything on e sangha..
now,i would like to delete my account…but how???
please advice if you know.
I had been a member with 59 positive post and mostly positive replies but my account was suspended without so much as an inquiry into facts.After Cave yogi and Kurt Under coffer verbally atacked me in the tibetan buddhism forum they had claimed I wasnt a monk which I proved to be false but they both refused to aplogise I guess this is the way that e Sangha treats ordained sangha.Mr.Under coffer a very arrogant Buddhist in Kagyu and Nyingmapa groups started atacks and encouraged others to verbally atack me since I questioned his arrogant attitude but of course He’s Wellcomed in E Sangha by the over moderator Henry control freak from Hell who must have been asleep while I was being verbally atacked he suspended me for providing evidence that the claims of Cave Yogi and Kurt Undercoffer were false.
disgusted with fake buddhist and fake buddhist online groups :
if this is someones first experience with dharma how sad it is!
Also if this is the way to treat ordained sangha then dont take refuge!
Thubten Pema Tenzin rime monk
[...] have a post from the early part of 2007 that gets regular traffic and comments here on my blog. It is concerned with e-Sangha, one of the [...]
Short comings of E-Sangha are: (1) it is very cliquey, with the moderators holding court as both the authority and the questioner, as both the teacher and the quite unknowledgable disciple; (2) there is a grave lack of enlightenment and realised practitioners on the site; most views held are merely intellectual; (4) the moderators are very violent; (5) it is a fundamentalist site, where any here-and-now dhamma and supramundane dhamma is quickly overrun by incessant views about rebirth; (5) the monks on the site either have no little realisation or are there merely to push the party line and especially the doctrine of rebirth onto beginners, most notably Dhammanando. Whilst Dhammanando has knowledge, he acts like a priest teaching to children, which to me is shameful; (6) there is grave demerit occuring on the site. When so-called ‘spiritual friends’ do not have a clear grasp of the differences between the mundane and the supramundance, the essense of the Dhamma and the intention of the Buddha is lost. It is ironic how E-Sangha talk about the loss of the teaching and do not realise it is sites like their that contribute to it. When the mundance is used to destroy the simplicity and perfection of the supramundane Dhamma, the Dhamma is lost.
It’s a private forum, so they have the right to run their forum however they want. If you don’t like how things work in that forum, make your own.
I did. It’s still no justification for the kind of authoritarian behavior that exists on the board. You’d expect more… enlightenment… from a Buddhist forum.
There is absolute no transparency about who, how and why and from whom decisions are made or originates.
And there is no background information available about e sangha moderator activity.
But beside of this, its not a bad place.
I couldn’t agree with you more. What irks me most are the bragging rights of “popular posters” and E-sangha donors, and the agressive tone in replies to new members who just might sound a little too antagonistic….and these guys get away with it without any censure from moderators or having their aggressive replies censored (which is the job of the moderators anyway). I gradually got sick of the exclusive atmosphere these moderators/donors/celebrity posters are perpetuating and have since turned to my local temple for more learning and discussion in a more convivial and transparent setting…since we all know who each other are.
with Metta.
I use e-sangha and I have had differences with a moderator on a few occasions. Still, I remind myself that any differences on words, concepts and all are still samsara and a product of our ignorance and delusion, so when this happens I just remember that only a Buddha is fully enlightened and free from ignorance and delusion so I back off and consider the possibility that either I am missing something, the moderators are missing something or both. A lot of people are critical of e-sangha for things like the moderators defending “rebirth/reincarnation”. Well, sorry everyone, but the Buddha taught about rebirth/reincarnation. You don’t have to accept it as definitely true because of that, in fact the Buddha also said we should try things before accepting them as true, but to discard it as definitively false is equally foolishness. Reincarnation is real, though not in the way most people understand it. People tend to attach the idea of “reincarnation” to their individual being’s identity, but Buddha also taught about “no-self” which implies no individual being. No one can attain understanding of reincarnation until letting go of self and any idea of individual being.
I agree the moderators are heavy-handed at times but – ultimately – they are doing their best to protect Buddhist teachings from the same distortions that practically destroyed the intended effect of teachings by men like Jesus and even Muhammad.
All the best on your path, with or without e-sangha.
[...] E-sangha and Control Freaks [...]
This is a very interesting discussion. I have been posting to e-sangha since 2004. I don’t have a lot of posts, though I do present rather dangerous ideas at times that are out of the mainstream thinking, in the Tibetan Buddhism forum anyway. That’s the point of my participation, to unstick the paradigm that too many Tibetan Buddhist wannabes are stuck into.
Namdrol and I go back a long way to the first aol BB, maybe 1996 or 7. That was pretty chaotic though nothing like the newsgroups of that time. Basically the forums became free for alls and very difficult for newcomers to glean helpful information except that dharma folks seemed to like to fight a lot. It served personalities like Ed Hollingsworth, [zenmar, banned from e-sangha], but rarely served Dharma.
I suspect N has input in keeping that chaotic beast under wraps. Too much control? Censorship is a dangerous protocol. I have stated as much on the forum without retaliaion from the mods. What is the balance between the two? Gentle pushing and wearing them down under their own terms of engagement. I am pushing open discussion on one banned topic and I notice some thawing. Maybe there is hope.
I am a low profile poster but well respected and have very deep credentials in the Tibetan Buddhist community. Maybe that makes me one of the so called ‘celebrity’ posters. I am also anonymous though a few people know me personally including Namdrol. Still I follow the rules by refraining from posting when I want to break dumb rules. There is no need to prove myself to anyone. It is a game, but not an ego game. Who am I defending, an anonymous screen name?
Having watched the digital on line buddhist community’s birth in the mid 90′s I can say it has not improved much except that the e-sangha forum is a safe place for newbies to interact with knows-it-alls, knuckleheads and genuine practitioners. There is good information and there is bad information.
One area that I applaud is the insistence of presenting some credential before posing as a teacher. No more fake roshi or lama ‘so and so’. True, credentials can be falsified but at least that is something.
My main beef is with certain posters not the mods. I would propose that the e-sangha type community issue its own credential by allow members to vote on posters; and the yeahs and nays would be fixed to the posters’ avatars. There is so much bullshit. I, no doubt, would be one of the worst offenders..live by fire die by fire.
It would also hearten me that a buddhist forum is non-profit, though it takes money to make these things work well. That said, in the wider perspective, aside from Vinaya rules for the monastics, Shakyamuni never put the onus on money, just greed. Is e-sangha raking in major bucks? I doubt it.
Too much control? Most of the respondents here seem to be crying sour milk because of their personal experience rather than taking a wider view of the alternative results of too little or no control, with the Tendai episode a notable exception.
Accountability? That’s a joke no matter how you slice it. It is the internet, it is the illusion of pixels in front of you. We can all get over that. There is no accountability unless the organizers submit to another level of outside control, like if the members could drag their asses out and flog ‘em, an eye for an eye kind of thing.
In the end I use e-sangha, they use me [I count as a hit on their google ads]. Fair enough.
P
[...] E-sangha and Control Freaks [...]
I have been on and off E Sangha myself over the last few years. Initially as someone just interested in Buddhist ideas, as I was increasingly disillusioned with Christianity, and later as a practicing Buddhist. My main problem with the site however was simply the nastiness, unkindness and total lack of compassion, especially for newbies or enquirers. I felt rather like the guy on the radio the other day who as a boy, sent a girl he fancied a love letter, only for it to be returned to him with the spelling mistakes corrected in red pen!
As someone who originally believed the HH Dalai Lama was an example of a “typical” Buddhist (smiley, kind, friendly etc.) it was a heck of a shock to discover this harsh and unfriendly environment in which every “error” was brutally corrected without any attempt to communicate or learn from the other person. And yet such exchanges were rarely if ever moderated – there seemed to be a concern for doctrinal purity, over common-all-garden compassion for other human beings.
You may assume I am talking about myself, and sure, I was extremely hurt by some of the things said to me personally. However, my principle concern is not my feelings getting hurt, but how the site treats other, far more vulnerable people, often attracted to Buddhism because of the peace it offers. Unfortunately, they sometimes find pitifully few examples of such peace on E-Sangha.
If I were a moderator of that site, I'd be extremely concerned about the many threads that start off as personal problems or newbie's struggling to understand unfamiliar concepts, then rapidly degenerate into flamewars. What kind of impression is that going to give of the dharma?
I was one of those who got banned and my posts deleted on e-sangha. I was arguing against one of the forum rules: the one about not being able to debate certain 'core Buddhist teachings'. I said this rule was ridiculous; if reason is on your side, why should you fear debate on it? If anything it should just give you an opportunity to teach the reasons for believing it. Anyone who actually cares about finding the truth should be able to accept reasonable criticism and admit when they are wrong. If they cannot, then they are nothing more than dogmatists.
But not only did they ban me, they deleted my posts, and erased all trace that I ever existed. Again, if reason is on their side, shouldn't they just be able to give said reason? I emailed this point to them, but no reply. Could it be that they didn't have an actual, rational rebuttal to my argument, but rather than admit it they just tried to pretend I didn't exist?
It just seems brick-in-your-face obvious to me that if you don't allow free inquiry into ALL ideas, censor points of view just because they disagree with you, and generally can only defend your ideas through totalitarian/dictatorial means, then you show yourself to be someone who only has contempt for truth and intellectual honestly.
Totally agree with the above posts. The forum moderators get very upset with anyone who asks the "wrong" questions.