Discussion forum rules [transcipt]

[DarthZeth]

ima just gunna copy the rules fomr the old discussion forum to here.

Originally Posted by Mashuren

Originally I wrote: "Y'all seem to be a little confused about what goes where, understandably, so here we go: generally, if it's not an issue you might see on the news, it's not a Discussion topic. Things like 'what's your favorite kind of cheeseburger' go in Random, things like 'is the use of physical force ever justified except in cases of self-defense' go here.

Nobody's going to yell at you for misplacing things, but on the other hand, nobody wants to have to move five threads in an hour or anything, so please think before you post. If you want to start a topic and are totally paralyzed with indecision, you can always private message one of us mods and ask us where we think it should go."

...But now it looks like I'm going to have to start yelling. Look, I know you can read, otherwise you wouldn't be using a text-based online forum. So please -- stop posting stuff that doesn't belong here in this folder. Do it more than three times in a week and I'm going to start handing out one-week temp-bannings. The other mods and I have better things to do than dealing with moving ten threads a day because people are too lazy to think for five seconds before squirting out another topic.

and

Originally Posted by Kurosen

I hereby declare an end to religious discussions in this sub-forum. They inevitably degenerate into flame wars, attempts at mass evangelization to one person's perspective, go around and around in circles that end up nowhere, or some hellish combination of all of the above. So, y'know, no more. None. Ever, ever again.

Complaints will be kindly ignored. Feel free to start up your own boards for theological discussion.

This doesn't mean you can't talk about your religion at all--just that no more theologically-based discussions of any kind are going to be permitted, and that any thread we see veering heavily in that direction is either going to be nudged in another direction or closed.

This isn't some weirdo anti-religion conspiracy. In an odd twist of fate, despite the fact that I remain religiously unaffiliated, most of my closest friends were the sons of ministers (or whichever ones are allowed to have families, I don't know :B), so religious debate is nothing new or frightening to me. It's just that 'round these parts it doesn't seem to go anywhere.

there yah go

[Critic]

I go with those quotes full time. We need to keep this area clean so we only need to post stuff that is news worthy. Relgion is a sketchy subject and I know I don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. People start wars over a single relgion, and what other people should think

[Patricoo]

Of crose the quickest escape is "My friends are Ministers" Or "I have firends that are [insert what your insulting here]

I'm still po'ed regardless. As a devout catholic I like religious fights. So....that doesn't make any sense. Of corse people staying withen the guidlines of religion...shouldn't be insulting each other about it....Good point critic. You figure it's ironic that people would fight over God.

The way I figure is that I could rant and rant about it but it won't do any good. Question though, why does every forum "Ban religon" but say we can still talk about it, but at the same time...we can't....but we can...but we can't do....damn thats confusing. You just trying to not insult me?

[DarthZeth]

there was a good reason for limiting religious discussion in this forum back in the EZ Whore days.

i dont agree with closing threads like the one about the passion (which was more of a discussion about movies and their effects then religion, imo), but theological discussions invariably got flamy back in the old board. So to cut the problem off at the head, we got a rule that premptively struck at the cause of 90% of the flames.

religion CAN be mentioned, tho. We've had discussiosn about seperationg of church and state and all that kind of stuff. religious persecution (i think) is still on the table. But "god exists" "no he doesnt" "uh huh" "nuh uh" discussions are verboten. Like Kuro said, if you wanna argue about it, there are religious forums for it. Its just not on this fourm.

[Mashirosen]

I'll be completely blunt about it -- some of you kids are barely capable of having calm, reasonable discussions about goddamn anime. A conversational topic as historically inflammatory as religion is out of the question for people who get seriously torqued about whether Vejita sounds better in Japanese or English.

I'm closing this thread because I really don't care what anyone might have to say about this particular rule being "unfair", particularly not after Zeth explained the reasoning behind it so clearly. If any of you can think of other rules that might be useful for this section, bring them up in the Forum Suggestion section and we'll talk.

[Meister]

Less of a rule than a new guideline: there are a lot of threads in this forum with a title that's more or less a varied version of "This is so wrong..." It makes it a little hard to see what the thread is actually about without opening it (and not everyone has a browser that pops up the little quickhelp box with the first few lines). So if you could (briefly of course) describe the actual issue in the thread title when you make a new one, that would be great. Thanks.

[Fifthfiend]

As an update: this came up a bit back in the mod forum a bit back and I figured it's fair to post it here, just so y'all know where I stand on these things:

as far as the discussion forum goes I've been mostly holding things to the standard of

Which to my mind demands a certain degree of respect for other people's ideas, I mean, at the very least, a willingness to address those ideas on their own merits.

Casting aspersions on people's motives, complaining how unfair it is nobody agrees with you, telling people they don't have any business discussing the topic at hand when what they should really be discussing is some entirely different topic, arguing with straw-man versions of people's statements instead of their actual words - all that kind of disingenuous nonsense, to my thinking, constitutes at minimum a gross discourtesy to those members who actually take the care to present their ideas and understandings in an honest and considered way.

I mean I don't care too hard if people in the videogames forum are going on about people being Wii-tards or Sony sluts or whatevs, but inasmuch as this bit of forum is for discussing things that actually are on some level important, I'd rather people approach things in here like serious people should.

I'm not gonna pretend I haven't been guilty of some of the above from time to time, especially in my pre-moddy days, but inasmuch as I'm making the effort to not go there, I'd appreciate the same from the rest of you.