He's got a lot of knowledge and experience of Muslim societies and imo he'd be a great choice for the role...

I did live in the Middle East for 25 years. I am glad to try and help. My experience is as a friend of the Islamic world who has known quite a few Muslims as friends, coworkers and neighbors. I still hope that a progressive Muslim will step forward and share these duties with me. I believe that the DU Admin is now committed to insuring that racism and bigotry against any group will no longer be acceptable on DU. Perhaps you can explain better than I can what the duties of the group host would entail?

When it comes to duties, I suspect this group will be pretty quiet for the most part, so it won't be much work. This is a safe haven, as all the groups in 'Religion & Spirituality' are apart from Religion, and the hosts can lock threads or block people from the group who they think are causing disruption and not friendly to the SOP the group has. Here's some info on hosts...

About Group Hosts

Group Hosts perform a similar role to forum Hosts, but they have additional powers. 1) They can lock threads which they believe violate their group's stated purpose; 2) they can pin threads to the top of their group; 3) they can block out members whom they believe are not adhering to their group's purpose; 4) they can make other members Hosts of their group; and 5) they can remove any Host of their group that became a Host after they did.

If a group already has Hosts assigned, members who wish to become a Host must contact one of the current Hosts. Current Hosts may select any other member to become a Host, without restrictions. If a group does not have any Hosts assigned, members who wish to become a Host of that group must contact an Administrator for approval. Before assigning a Host, the Administrators may post a thread in the group asking for member feedback.

Groups are not required to have any Hosts assigned. If no Hosts are assigned, then nobody will enforce the group's Statement of Purpose.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=modsystem#hosts

...and would add that Group hosts go slightly beyond simply having powers, they are leaders and should "host as they would want to be hosted," which in my opinion means promoting an active group.

This thread is the last straw for me: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002161797 - I am willing to put some energy toward this project.

DU needs this to be an active resource for promoting positive discussion of Islam.

If Douglas Carpenter or Harun would like to be lead host I would say they have authorization of this group to proceed with requesting host power.

It's like a pack of dogs descending on a bone whenever a story comes up with the word burqua in it. I do especially like the single-issue 'feminists' that get attracted to those stories. Never hear them utter a word about feminism any other time, but if the woman's a Muslim, they're onto it every single time...

Thanks for seconding the nomination, big kahuna!

GD hosts really need to crack down on these religion threads. The SOP is clear: "No posts about Israel/Palestine, religion, guns, showbiz, or sports unless there is really big news.

I think Douglas Carpenter should probably go ahead and ask for host power: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1013434

Do you want to PM him?

Aloha

I'd send an alert, but then the GD hosts would all sit around arguing about my alert and it'd just feel all weird...

That's one ugly thread, and as a feminist I really do get annoyed when I see people who've always said negative things about Muslims at DU hiding behind the cloak of feminism to peddle a far less noble cause. You've got far more patience than me and yr posts in that thread have been great!

Just checked and we've now got hosts for this group. Thanks to Douglas and Harun for taking it on and I'm really looking forward to this group being a friendly and respectful environment where I hope I'll learn more about Islam and there might be a chance to educate some DUers who I've seen say some pretty ignorant things about Islam and Muslims...

Last edited Sun Jan 15, 2012, 06:13 AM - Edit history (2)

I think it's a discussion that needs to be had, I've been kinda disappointed at admins unwillingness to give hosts clear guidelines and I think the result is what you describe, a sort of sit back and someone else will take care of approach, because being told that someone disagrees with you is just too much.

Thank you for the compliment. I try to not take it personally; they know not of what they speak.

You're right, we now do have awesome hosts. Time to post some threads!

And now my better judgement kicked back in, I'm backing right out again

Looking forward to some constructive discussions...

Thanks Violet!