Brad and Vika

It sounds like Legacy Member has the final word on the issue here, Who will dare to challenge him??

The problem is that sometimes it can be difficult to understand what the posting member is saying, or asking. A topic titled HELP (for example), followed by some garbled up text can be confusing, and I think that the responses sometimes cause a member to give up.

i highly suspect that would happen with or without insurance.

Respectfully to all, as this topic has drifted, I am closing it.

First of all, I don't have the time you apparently do to search endless thread after thread. The one link I did post showed where I repeatedly tried o reason with you, to no avail. As I also said, I'm not here as often as I was, nor do I venture into the PR forum frequently because it's the same old merry go round, and after a while, it's boring. I don't know to whom you are referring, or what happened to her.
As an aside, it's a fruitless effort to expect people to not talk about Islam when it's used day in and day out as the excuse to inflict terror pain and death upon others. As I've repeatedly said, if some Christian bombed an abortion clinic...or let's say Westboro Baptist Church - does something heinous in the name of Christ, I will be the first to stand up and say THAT IS NOT WHAT CHRISTIANITY IS ABOUT. I won't sit on some message board and say things like 'well, the Nazis were worse', or try to somehow pull a parallel from another religion from 2000 years ago. Exact words you have typed here. It's apologetic nonsense, besides the point, irrelevant to today's society, and that's what you fail to understand. That thread of yours was a bait, absolutely
At the end of the day, you're going to twist what I say here as adversarial and come back with some more back and forth. Regarding that one woman that you challenged her 'Muslimness'...I do believe you used the word 'capitulate' because she agreed with me. Capitulate. Hrmm. Surrender to the 'enemy'. Because she did not stand with her Muslim 'sister'. She disagreed with you, and you said she was 'licking Muslim hater azz.' and also that she was 'not friendly to Muslims' even though she is one herself. Maybe it's time to realize that people fight with you not because you're Muslim, but because of the way you conduct yourself.
But at the end of the day, aren't we all on the same side? Don't we all agree that it's NOT RIGHT to kill people in the name of religion? Isn't it ok to despise someone who will bastardize a religion to use it as justification to harm someone???? Until everyone realizes that, this back n forth in P/R will never stop.

I'm not nearly on here as much as I used to be, and I have to say that many times, I don't even bother going into P&R because now that it has its own forum, I find that it's just a barrage of the usual merry go round that was in OT, just multiplied.
So I don't want to sit here and claim that what anyone says in here is a skewered perception, as I have not read every thread, every exchange. But I will say that I have read several, and have interacted with Sofiyya personally, and found her to be caustic, argumentative, and many times will twist words despite whatever is being said to the contrary. I've seen her personally attack people, calling them azz lickers, bashers, or question some people's 'Muslimness', being belligerent, going off on tangents, being snide and ever so clever in the wording of your attack posts. You've personally attacked me and my religion sarcastically 'good Catholic girl you are'. You've called me a basher personally - when I have gone out of my way and repeated ad nauseum how I feel about Muslims (I'm not a hater), yet somewhere in your twisted mind, you turn things around to be the persecuted one.
The threads I've read on p&r that have problems with certain Muslims all seem to address specific instances of violence, terrorism, etc. You turn around and have actually said 'they're not as bad as Nazis' as if somehow trying to mitigate how specific extremist terrorists are tarnishing your religion. I haven't seen you turn around and say 'yes, that's wrong, but they've got it wrong', instead - you turn around with 'oh so who's religion doesn't have violence?' as if somehow to mitigate what happened 1000s of years ago to what's happening NOW.
So you kinda invite your own issues there...because the way I see it, the threads that are there that speak negatively about Islam seem to do so with specific, current events, and are referring to extremist terrorists. To expect no one to talk about Islam when it's used as the reason of killing people TODAY, is quite absurd.
http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/283474-which-major-religion-is-peaceful-and-incapable-of-violence/page__st__40
I don't have the time to wade thru everything to post more, but those familiar with the forum know what I'm talking about.

what do you suppose "admin action taken" means?

This is the pot calling the kettle black. You need to subscribe to your own medicine. It seems to be OK when you degrade Christians ruthlessly but Muslim religion is out of bounds.
The P&R board does get unruly as anywhere on the web and those two subjects are. We are allowed a certain amount of latitude there that is not allowed in the upper forums and I like that. I have to deal constantly with name calling and being bashed but I expect it as it is the P&R forum and any idea or mindset has an opposite that can bring out the verbal beatings but we are adults here and should realize this. If it is so horrid there then stay in the upper forums where one and all should be safe from strife. want to match wits or anything then bring it into the P&R forum and lets all air our viewpoints and even try to have civilize debate. Every once in awhile we do need a moderator to come and quell the uprisings and they have for the most part done a great job at determining the TOS and slapping down the offenders and we go to our corners. I feel for them as this site has people from every walk of life and culture and political ideology possible and for most of the board it is kept civil. In the P&R we are allowed to air these disparate views to where it gets raucous at times and petty at others but we do usually get over it and spend our energy there. The only problems I have observed is that someone will come after another outside of the OT area and P&R and continue it there and that is wrong. These areas are to help people that need help and come here for our past experiences and that is all it should be. Keep the spats in the spats where they should be kept and the rest of the site clean. Of course we should observe the TOS even in P&R and not attack personally but the ideas we express are open game. It called debate and back and forth. Try it as we can all learn new things.

Nice.
The "upper forums" (including the regionals) are not supposed to be a "if you don't like it, leave" kind of place.
To the OP, sometimes moderators make mistakes. Before you go pointing fingers, it's best to try to bring the matter to their attention again. Boing's recent antics should be confined to OT, if tolerated at all.

I'm perfectly aware of the purpose of the upper forums. And while this topic was posted under the Philippines sub-forum, since it is not related to immigration--I'd classify this as OT.
My comment was not directed towards this particular OP or thread. It's a general comment towards those who haven't figured out how to use the interwebz yet. This is a free immigration advice thread, the mods are not paid to do their job, neither are the members for their comments.
To reduce blood pressure and stress in the future, it is, perhaps, best, to glean whatever useful information one can find and then ignore the less useful instead of complaining about 'unfair, mean, rude, racist' members or mods, every so often. I often wonder how these people survive in the real world if they are this likely to pop a vein over something an annonymous poster said on an internet forum.
Frankly, as far as I am concerned, I think VJ is one of the more strictly moderated, "friendlier" forums I've been on.
Regarding the 'take it or leave it' comment--didn't you notice? The OP made a brave declaration that he was going to 'leave' VJ once his journey was over. That is, once he has 'taken' all he can. If one is paying for the service, then I can understand feeling entitled to polite customer service. But when one is not, the internet, in its entirety, is pretty much 'take it or leave it.' IMO, of course.
Have a nice day!

Sorry guys, but I am pretty sure I could pick 'em out of a field and get a good reaction. Depends on the woman I guess.

Thanks Captain - this fits generally with the understanding I and most mods have I think. If you don't like a topic - don't read it/participate in it. If ther is a TOS violation - report it, but don't disrupt the thread.

Lisa, you did not communicate your concerns to the Moderation team as you stated. e.g. A report posted on VJ.
Your issue was reported elsewhere, which does not elevate it to the appropriate area for proper VJ Mod response.
If you have an issue on VJ, please report it on VJ, so that we (VJ Moderators) can respond.
To the issue and post ban, the member was intentionally disrupting an ongoing thread. You may not agree with the thread, but it does not violate the VJ TOS. However, the particular members action did violate the TOS.
Regards,
William

On the surface I'd agree that the mod action seems inappropriate. Posters should not be banned from participating in threads without having violated the TOS.
BUT, come on now, am I expected to believe that AJ just wanted to have some good ol' fashioned Who's Next fun? Pfft. The end goal was (and usually is) a thread like this to talk about how unjust things are around here. It's like how a kid will protest being punished because he wasn't "technically" breaking the rules.
Of course, maybe I'm just being hypersensitive due to the fact that I just finished my annual required "spirit and letter" training at work. Appears to be a spirit violation to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTRg74Gn_Nc

Moved from introducing new members forum.

Nowhere has it been mentioned they married for Immigration Benefit.
Nor is there any requirement for a conventional marriage.
But the one thing I can be certain of is that this thread will hit the top of the Popularity chart.

So default to the flags:
I just can't make an interview yet, I am so nervous = stop, drop, and roll
Thanks for coming all this way to see me, but I am a good girl, so don't touch me = find the nearest exit and plan strategy
I need a few months, and $500 per month please = run as fast as possible to the exit

But lest you forget Charles, you are the one ruining the internet for all of us
Seriously folks - differing opinions are fine, but the personal attacks need to stop or we will have to lock the thread down. Start by not sniping at members (by name) who are not posting here, or who have chosen to nnot be part of this conversation.

There seems to be a lot of bitching and crying about the mods and VJ from those who have been on here for a while and basically don't agree with how VJ operates. This begets the questions, if certain [particular] posters have such an issue, why not just move on or ask them to move on? Why continue to drag down VJ because they are not satisfied with the moderation or VJ?
While I am on here, I play by VJ's rules [TOS] per say. I don't expect an immigration forum let alone EWOK to continually waste their time and energy with [school-yard] personal beefs about the insignificant OT section.
I also do not waste my time holding grudges against any posters nor what they said five years ago. Let alone bring it up every opportunity I can, to basically flame a discussion. It's quite evident that the same posters who regularly cry foul about something they deem offensive or dislike, are the same posters who are antagonistic or the instigators.
It's also no coincidence that since certain posters that have the same ideological views as the aforementioned have left the forum entirely, things have been much calmer.

You know that's something I still get too. "So, is everything going okay? She's still with you?" I don't remember getting this type of inquiry in my first marriage. Is that because she was American and everyone expected it would be okay? It's almost like they are all waiting to hear it failed this time. So many figure she married me because she wanted to come to America. It's actually insulting because they are really saying something else, that she doesn't love me, but just wanted to live here.

As I am in a group who is neither feeling bullied nor of the group accused of bullying, and a member of the UK forum and having read a goodly portion of the threads in question, I feel I am qualified to offer a reasonable opinion: I have to say that I think BOTH sides have responded in ways which were not very nice to the other, and all parties are guilty of escalating the "discussions".
Also, Maven, the fact that I actually feel a little nervous about disagreeing with you (and others) on the forums should be a bit telling about how the tone of your responses make people feel.

Among those whose eyes have been opened, there's quite a si-saw battle of opinions raging -- mucho "he-si'd, she-si'd." It's hoped that the arguments won't go to seed, as with fertilizer in the garden, si'd man.

Suggested, researched, enacted ... SORTED in under 5 hours!
And that's how the furry little ###### makes good suggestions happen.

What are you on about? If you understood the selection process, you would understand that there is no bias whatsoever. How about contributing to this forum, instead of complaining about it mox? If anyone searches your last 100 posts, they will see mostly complaints. Why is that? State your purpose here...