Appreciate that. Thanks, man. I've got some leave coming up, but I'll probably still be keeping an eye on MyGaming in that time.
That may have been a concern, but it may also have been that those who came before me didn't want to ban the topic outright.
In my experience, creating more and more rules only plays into the hands of folks who want to disrupt, as they'll try to find loopholes while goading others into breaking the rules.
If a game tackles a religious topic with particular finesse (or lack thereof), do we want to ban conversation about it?
For now I think it's better if the community makes it known where you guys draw the line on a case-by-case basis, and I'll try to respond accordingly.
With another thread, for example, I may just have posted a friendly notice that we don't really discuss religious issues here because of the unhappiness it has caused in the past, and locked the thread.
In this case, deletion seemed like the best course of action for a number of reasons, such as the negativity already caused, and the thread poll that was created.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.
On one hand I can understand that you don't want a hot subject like religion to be posted on your forums because it can and often does lead to flaming, straw man arguments, circular dribble and generally negative posts.
However, religion is not the only topic that can lead to those outcomes. What about politics, human rights, sports, terrorism, main stream media, universe, aliens, new tech, etc? Someone can post what seems like the most harmless topic and it only takes one person to misunderstand and hijack the thread and turn it into a nightmare.
I've seen heated arguments and flaming over silly subjects like what sport team is the best or whether the PS4 is better then the XBox -one.
What if tomorrow someone posts about the genocide in Ruwanda? What if that thread lead to racism because one idiot misunderstood something the OP said and the whole thread went into chaos, while the purpose of the thread was to create awareness?
What it looks like to me is you are deleting something that your faith don't agree with (or that you are uncomfortable with) and using the excuse of "flaming or inappropriate topic" to avoid having to deal with the subject altogether. I'm led to this assumption because other similarly contentious topics like Politics and Racism are given a free pass. But I could be wrong.
You don't want to outright ban the subject because then it will look like you are censoring and then you will have to put politics on the chopping block and later on it will spread like wildfire and you'll have to blacklist just about any topic that seems inappropriate. So you have a dilemma but you also want your bread buttered on both sides.
I would suggest you create a new section called "Controversial topics" or something where users can post about such subjects. Otherwise, decide what you accept and make it known but don't leave users in limbo about what they can or cannot post.
Last edited by Scr4pmetal; 02-01-2016 at 01:48 AM.
[MENTION=6506]Scr4pmetal[/MENTION] We haven't had to ban topics like you mentioned before, because people know which topics are hot and can incite hatred and negativity. Even newcomers get the vibe of the forum and fall in with the friendly, constructive discussions which are gaming and tech related. If you want to venture "off topic" and vent a bit, TK is a fairly safe haven which touches risque topics sometimes. Just keep it civil and stop a conversation when you see it gets out of hand.
--~<0>~-- {type}DEV --~<0>~--
The rules already cover this under several points:
1. Aggressive or unnecessarily offensive behaviour will not be tolerated. - I.E.: No personal attacks, threats, insults, bigotry, misogyny, hate-speech or condescending language.
5. Check your extreme fanboyism at the door. While there is space for everybody’s opinions, it is important to respect those of your fellow forumites. Argue your points in a civilized and rational manner without getting personal.
7. Trolls will not be tolerated. - Troll: “Most commonly encountered on the internet, a troll is any person who purposely causes controversy in a web community and disrupts a forum for their own amusement.”
12. Stay on topic. Do not derail a thread with pointless posts that bear little relevance to the discussion at hand.
Then I'll deal with it tomorrow.
As indicated above, there is more than enough in the rules already to help deal with a scenario like the one you painted. Though it does seem unlikely someone would want to discuss contemporary history on MyGaming.
As I also said before, I don't mind a good (civil, intellectual) religious debate.
Honestly I didn't read all your posts. Their content was not relevant to the decision I needed to make. I read the reports and reactions from long-standing members of the community in the thread, combined with what I knew about the community's history and "common culture" (for lack of a better term), and made the call based on that.
Thanks for the suggestion. If there is enough interest for a section like that in future, I'll take it into consideration.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.
Damn, I always miss the exciting stuff![]()
I've always felt that the Internet is decidedly not the place to discuss/debate sensitive topics. The nuance of opinion and the subtle, courteous and intelligent discussion that these topics deserve are lost in online text-based "conversation".
If you're genuinely seeking intelligent, open, reasonable discussion on topics such as religion, a gaming forum board is not the place to have it. Thinking it would be is either ridiculously naive or a poor troll effort. Either way, correct decision made by [MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION].
(That said, a religious "debate" between OP and a user with the name SatanBoy could have provided some laughs ...)
“You will know the good from the bad when you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”
~ Jedi Master Yoda ~
To be honest this isnt mybroadband, we are more of a friendly community so we try to avoid all the flames as much as possible... We have had many debates involving religion and they turn out fine because we all understand that there will be one person who is sensitive about the topic, so we would rather chill our opinion that cause a huge war. I'm sure if you created a friendly thread about it there would be no problem, like a debate about the differences between the religions(keeping snarky comments to ones self) and who follows which
*i havent been on the forum as long as others but i do know that the admin are generally quite lenient when it comes to the rules
Oh lawdy lawdy lord lord god guys...come on.
Troll10000000 alert.
Debating why he cant put up a specific debate topic.
/ignored.
PS: Great work [MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION] you clearly have great patience dude.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
― C.S. Lewis