The Non-Existent Freethought Blogs Mission Statement
Well of course we’re excluding some atheist voices; how could we not, short of having every atheist who wants to blog in the entire world join the network? And the answer is that there are no criteria. We decide as a group which bloggers to add to the network. We have a whole long list of potential invitees and even an official subcommittee to sort through them and make suggestions. But we makes those decisions based on consensus. Sometimes there is disagreement about a particular blogger — it would be an enormous shock if there wasn’t — but in every case when someone votes no but the group agrees to add them, the person who disagrees has welcomed them with open arms, as they should.
Yes, it can be a bit like herding really opinionated cats; I’m okay with that. In fact, I like it that way. As the owner of the network, I could just decide to add anyone I like and ignore the rest, but in the very first conversation with PZ about joining FTB, I told him that I wanted to make decisions by consensus whenever possible. I wanted it to be a community, with all that entails — including inevitable disagreements. And I very much like the community that we’ve formed, even when I disagree with what someone else has written.
There is a good deal else that Loftus seems confused about in his post and his comments. For instance:
I’m still trying to get a handle on it, and I suspect my prompting could help you get a handle on it as well.
I don’t see what there is to get a handle on. We have a lot of different people with different opinions. What is so hard to understand about that? He also says that FTB “puts people into leadership positions who don’t think very critically.” We do not have leadership positions here. We’re not a military unit with ranks. I’m sure John disagrees with many things said by people here. So do I. But so what? When you disagree, say so. No one has a problem with that.
In the end, Loftus really does seem to think that we should be imposing a single viewpoint on every issue on our bloggers, or that any blogger who gets disagreed with by another on the network should follow his lead and take their ball and go home:
GregFromCos, let’s say they all shared an agenda. Then they would have a much greater impact, agreed? But when one says one thing and another disputes it and the same readers are there, then the impact of their voices gets muffled or muted. I don’t see why the person who vehemently argued against prostitution and pornography stays there. What holds her there? That’s my question. Her distinct voice was drowned out. It’s up to her to decide for herself, but it was an important issue to her and she was shouted down.
No, she was disagreed with. It’s not the same thing. Why is Loftus so averse to disagreement? It baffles me. Her “distinct voice” wasn’t “drowned out,” it was given a platform on which to assert itself even in the face of disagreement. How is that a bad thing for anyone involved?
What really makes this all the more amusing is how utterly contradictory it is. Indeed, in the very post that prompted the one linked to above, he criticizes FTB bloggers for thinking too much alike:
Greg Laden, a Freethought Blogger, is calling for the resignation of DJ Grothe who is the President of the James Randi Foundation (JREF) which hosts The Amazing Meeting (TAM) every year. A few other Freethought Bloggers have cooperatively written posts that criticize him. Do you ever wonder why several Freethought Bloggers write on the same topic from time to time? It’s because they all share an email where they talk among themselves and ask other Bloggers to chime in.
Why would anyone wonder why our bloggers write on the same topics from time to time? There just seems to be a major disconnect from reality here and Loftus seems terribly confused. On the one hand, if several FTBers agree on a subject and each write about it expressing a similar perspective, that’s bad and it’s obviously all orchestrated behind the scenes; on the other hand, when we disagree we’re drowning each other out and undermining atheism in the process.
And many of his commenters have joined in to declare the exact opposite of John’s argument, as he has clearly implied before as well. This was addressed by Mikhail to Justin Griffith:
Justin, you’re too good a guy for free thought blogs. I’m serious about this, and this is obviously a compliment. It’s too bad a decent guy like you has to be associated with the cultists at free thought blogs who demand absolute conformity and insult those who think outside of the box.
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