Formal complaint against Suttacentral for unfair treatment and discrimination

Try to be sensible .

No, without transparency and public awareness, it’ll be all bad water! I only tell the facts and it’s important to stay with the facts here.

@sujato

Dear Venerable ,

In this dispute , fairness and kindness is utmost important ! How you deal with and shows to the public will determine if the Buddha teaching is in the action .
you can choose a better approach , if the mods and some members have weaknesses , why not advise them to be more sensible , let’s give each other a chance , we are not enemies !

Regards .

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My understanding is that the vast majority of donations go to SuttaCentral, not to this site. Giving to SuttaCentral means giving to have the Suttas publicly available, and that has very little to do with any discussion happening here.

As for “moderation by the mob”, what I see is feature whereby the site is self-regulating. It seems quite reasonable to me to unload some of the burdensome task of moderation to the users. What might be discussed, I suppose, is how many votes are needed and to what extent the moderators have a final say. But the basic principle seems quite democratic to me.

The allegation that Ayya Vimalanyani has “serious disrespect of the Buddhist Monastic code” is serious. This is a judgement of someone else’s intentions and impossible to substantiate. To me she is just opening up a discussion. Personally I think such discussions are very important. They do not in themselves imply disrespect, rather the opposite I would say.

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With due respect Bhante, it’s impossible for me to prove that you’re mistaken in this matter when almost every single post I wrote to provide proof of her offense in that thread have been deleted by your dear admins, or by the dear mob as a result of that terrible auto-feature. I’ll be honest, it looks like you have clearly picked a side before even take an objective investigation on such a serious ongoing issue here at Suttacentral. I admit I’m never a smooth talker, but I can say without hesitation that my intention is honest and selfless. I don’t care about me, nor you, nor Sujato. I care about the future state of the precious Dhamma. And I have great concern about Its future with the way you folks are doing things here at Suttacentral.

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I’m just wondering what the “serious disrespect” was?

I’m assuming you’re referring to this thread:

I’ve been away for a little while and have only just had a chance to catch up on it. The title says “thought experiment”. It seems to me that Ayya was having a chat with all her friends here. @vimalanyani must have thought that this forum was a safe place for her to share her thoughts and feelings. I would hope that it is.

I can’t help wondering if you’re accusing her of attacking the Vinaya because she was openly sharing her thoughts and feelings.

I’m hoping therefore that you are very active in attending to the hundreds of monks out there attacking the Vinaya by actually engaging (not just sharing their thoughts), deceitfully, in all manner of harmful and corrupt activity - as opposed to just openly talking about their concerns.

By all means, discuss your specific concerns, politely, reasonably, backed up by evidence and example. Defend your perceptions; others who seem to share your views have certainly done so with beautiful courtesy and kind civility. But attacking anyone, monk, nun, lay person, moderator won’t be backed up by any reasonable person here.

This is the problem with typing when we’re upset. We react unfortunately. If you’re having a negative reaction due to community moderation or any other type of moderation, my advice would be, walk away from the keyboard until you calm down. You don’t defend the Buddha, his Teaching or any part of the Patimokkha by the speech displayed in your opening comments; by aligning yourself with the Buddha and these pure symbols and then displaying such contempt for the sharing done by another human being, such actions are what drag the Buddha-Dhamma down.

While others could argue that you previous posts were okay; I would find it reprehensible if anyone thought the out and out attack upon an individual in the opening of this topic was okay. It is not.

This is why both monks and nuns are afraid to share their experiences openly. Because we attack first and listen - if at all - much, much later. She was just talking. Anyone that has read anything written by this nun on this forum will see that she seems to care about the Vinaya and about the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. Perhaps it’s best not to focus on one/few thing(s) about her views/speech that you may perceive as negative - especially when we can’t really know her well at all. Certainly not over the internet.

I’ve seen beautiful communites where someone’s gender is not a cause for shutting them down (though it’s rarely admitted that this is what is happening - and mostly because we aren’t aware of it). Such a culture, where a woman challenging the status quo is seen as a threat to be attacked, does not have to be.

Please actively support your nuns. Please listen to them when they speak. Sometimes all they want is to be heard; their issues and concerns are often so hidden; because they’ve often had a difficult time of even being allowed to ordain, let alone find the support they need to sustain their ordination. Sometimes, their speech may lead to the most beautiful, gradual changes. Let peace and compassion and wisdom be your guides in any such changes.

Support them if you can see they’re true in their love for the Triple Gem. You don’t have to agree with everything they say, but if you think there is something in what they say that is moving the Sasana towards more wisdom and peace and compassion; then support that.

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SADHU SADHU SADHU @anon29387788
Well said!!!

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I second that! :heart::pray:

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Thank you so much Kay for saying what needed to be said and saying it so well.

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It appears to be this whole issue is about the free speech.
It appears Santas argument is that he also openly sharing his thoughts and feelings but he was punished for that.
Then the question comes what is the limitation of the free speech and what constitutes the violation of the terms of service.

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You are quite incorrect here. The issue for me is essentially based in the following words from the OP:

To me, this is slanderous speech.

As I said, others shared similiar views to Santa100 but did so with courtesy and kindness. You’ll notice the community did not hide their comments.

Further to this:

Things may have changed since I last checked this, but I don’t think this is accurate.

As I understand it - and I’m happy to be corrected on this @Vimala or @sujato - what actually happens is that the post becomes hidden and a statement appears saying something like: the community has chosen to hide this or something like that…I can’t remember the exact words. But, you can still click on a link or something to see what the comment was. So it’s not completely gone. Just disapproved of and hidden away.

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When a post has been flagged enough, the post is replaced by:

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

View hidden content.

“View hidden content” is a link that one can click to view the post.

Whether this feature is desirable by the community deserves a topic of its own. It’s unlikely the Discourse creators wouldn’t give a forum’s management an option to toggle this on/off or adjust its parameters. Personally, I don’t think it’s helpful because it gives flagged posts notoriety and attention. I always click them when I see them because they’re rare and I’m curious to see what exactly was said that was so bad that multiple people flagged it. So yeah, deserves its own topic IMO.

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@anon29387788 and friends ,

My suggestion is before anyone flags anyone , why not talk to him or her nicely , that their languages could be offensives , see whether they can agree with you or not .Or politely says your point is one thing but don’t use words others don’t agrees !

Don’t forget those who flags others were also on the verge of angers !
Even the moderators also
get heated up !

They can team up each other with like minded people !

Therefore , why not ,
Take one step at a time . Give others a chance , this means give yourself a chance !

The button is under your fingers .
Don’t pull the trigger first , I know the moderators has the Power on their fingers tips !

After all we are all Buddhists , not mob or gangster and IS members , don’t we practise kindness anymore ?!

Ps .
Me and my moderators and volunteers ?!
Me and mines !? Not going to solve problems with this approach .
Is this not delusional ?!
Please review your statements !
No offense !

Regards .

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I also thought that Ven. Vimlanyani’s ideas about Vinaya were very unfortunate and detrimental to the future of the Buddhasasana, should they be implemented, but I don’t agree with and criticize her ideas, not her personality.

I read your comments on that thread, and while there are a few interesting ideas here and there, the general tone of your later comments seemed to be extremely inappropriate, especially when directed against a monastic person. I don’t think these comments needed to be flagged, I would generally flag only comments inciting violence or containing swearwords or overly offensive language; I also think that the sensibilities of quite many people in the West are tender to the point of ridiculousness, so flagging ends up to be somewhat overused on Western forums. However, I think it is both extremely impolite and unwholesome to talk to a monk or nun the way you did, whether you think they are good in their practice or not - again, not a criticism of your personality, but rather of your particular words.

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Supposedly that @vimalanyani , @sujato , @Brahmali and some others succeed in reforming the whole of the Vinaya and the Sangha at large , what do you think will happens to Buddhism ?! Everyone else will follows this example and soon all over the world would have their own Version of Vinaya ! I really can’t imagine the outcome of it !

Regards .

Is this your imagination?

No , I said suppose , but the way they talked seems really meant it .
Otherwise , why not just focus on their trainings instead ?
Let’s forget about it , reforming or not , not in my hand , I just point out the cons of the reforming affairs and whole thing !

Isn’t this amount to a schism?

You have to discuss with all the Buddhists members , not I alone say then it is schism ! I am incapable of defining , there were many wise and intelligent people out there you can ask !
If you hold the authority ,
maybe you can say something .

Dear friends,

This thread is about forum feedback not the issue of reforming the Vinaya, schisms or anything else. Please note that any subsequent off topic posts to this thread will be deleted.

Warm regards.

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