SHARON'S STORY - 12/05

If you want to hear some "juice" on Fritz's history with Crosswalk (and his past shenanigans), I can give you quite a bit.

First, an overview: Fritz was moderator for Crosswalk, then he switched over to Christianity.com, then back to Crosswalk, then the two sites merged, and he presides over them both now.

This is the big picture, but there's more to it. I'm not sure why Fritz first switched to Christianity.com, but his stay there was very short.

Basically, the moderators and employees under him revolted - complaining to management, etc., about his iron rule, and they fired him. And Christianity.com was pretty darn conservative to begin with. So he went back to Crosswalk and resumed his control of that site. A few years later, Crosswalk bought Christianity.com. Once the merger had settled and the new forum began, Fritz banned all of the forum moderators who had complained about him. And quite a few of them were pretty darn
right-wing on their own; they just weren't aggressive about it.

All of this happened in a 6-7 year span, maybe less.

I was banned by him from Crosswalk the first time around; since Fritz has taken over once more, I haven't had any problems. But reasons for my first ban speak volumes.

As always, Crosswalk has had a "no pro-homosexuality views" policy. But while he was there, lots of people started anti-gay threads anyway. I learned of ways to express the liberal view without spelling them out in ways that would violate TOS. So I never got warnings from him.

When he left the site for Christianity.com, the new Crosswalk management was more laid back. Technically, they still had the same TOS, but they
rarely pressed people about it. So lots of debates about gays ended up going unregulated, so both sides could present their cases. When Fritz returned to Crosswalk, he went through those threads and banned everyone RETROACTIVELY.

In other words, he didn't give people a chance to fall in line with his new rules; he banned everyone who had violated his rules while he had spent a year or two employed by another website. Buit when he banned me, he said his reason was not simply because I talked in favor of homosexuality in his absence; it was because a group of 14 posters had gotten together and tried to see if they could get me banned. What was amazing was, he admitted this to me! I was banned because he got tired of people complaining about my views.

So keep that in mind as you contemplate your banned selves; odds are, there are some posters out there who really, really wanted you to disappear. Fritz is bad news, but I don't think he's the only problem.