Several people have voiced their opinions regarding members that staff has been reluctant to ban under the "Overwhelmingly Negative Influences" rules, despite the fact that members sometimes say very upsetting and even abhorrent things to other members.

To understand why we ultimately came to our decision (not to invoke the rule), one must understand both the purpose of the forums as a whole, and also the purpose of the rule.

Starting with the former: the forums were created in order to allow people from all religions and religious backgrounds to discuss their beliefs without fear of being banned for holding them. At the time, too many atheist forums would simply ban religious members for saying things that went against "common decency", and likewise, religious forums would often ban atheists for being confrontational. When discussing deeply held beliefs, whether you are an atheist or a theist, discussions often get heated as disagreements get thrown back and forth. AtheistForums.org was set up to allow people to discuss their conflicting beliefs, allowing the debates to get heated, but with some rules in place to prevent all-out anarchy (e.g. flame wars). We've wavered from that purpose several times in our history, but I tend to think that overall (and certainly in our current incarnation) we've done a pretty good job holding to it.

This is a place, and should continue to be a place, where people can express their beliefs, no matter how abhorrent or upsetting they might be to other members, provided that they do so in a discussion.

The purpose of the "Overwhelmingly Negative Influences" rule is to allow staff to remove members who are not contributing to discussions, but are rather disrupting discussions. This behavior goes against the very purpose of the forums, and is the reason why we implemented the rule. Disrupting a discussion can happen in many ways, but one way in which it cannot happen is when a member posts their own opinion in a relevant thread. We aren't in the business of telling people what opinions they can or cannot post, especially if those opinions are about the thread subject in some way. The "Overwhelmingly Negative Influences" rule is not intended to get rid of people with "undesirable" opinions, because in the context of the purpose of the forums, there are no undesirable opinions.

Well, I guess how much this particular "Overwhelming Negatve Influence" is actually contributing to discussions is up for debate, then. Given how much he(and let's face it, we all know who is being discussed) likes to antagonize and minimize the feelings of anyone that shows the slightest bit of vulnerability due to past experience, spends dozens of pages arguing semantics only to try and backtrack later, courts controversy for the sake of courting controversy, and generally relishes in getting a reaction out of people, I'm confident he's just trolling at this point.

I'm all for freedom of speech, but how far do we let someone who is so clearly abusing this freedom to skirt the "no trolling" rule? How many egregiously stupid and nonsensical things does he have to say before it's decided that he's just doing it to piss people off?

People keep responding to the member you're speaking of, though I'm pretty sure this is about the recent rash of bandwagons as a whole. It's no secret that trolls get bored when no one responds. If he were truly a troll, the forum could easily police itself by ignoring him. The small, but vocal, group that seems the backbone of these complaints hasn't even tried that to my knowledge. From what I can see, the staff has given them multiple options from the ignore function to actual ignoring which have thus far been the only things they've ignored.

Every member is a valuable member to some degree, so I hate to see you guys losing people you like, but it's important not to change rules under threat of losing donations or membership. If the staff voted against something, that means the majority were against, as you know. If they pander to one because he either threatens to leave or actually does leave, it destroys the integrity of staff.

I see this as the same situation (the idea of the situation not actual of course) with the Westborough Church. People, including myself, see them as a hate group not a church but a lot of people want to get the government to stop them because they don't agree with what they are saying (God killed the soldiers because America accepts gays, soldiers deserved to die because of the gays, gays are an abomination, really just horrible shit spews from their mouths) but in reality they follow the law with their protests and they aren't physically hurting anyone so the American freedom of speech stands. If you want to be able to say what you want without repercussions you have to be willing to accept others with different mind sets as you. Take the bad in order to keep the freedom. Same here. You don't want the 'government' bending the rules for some or taking away the right over all. If he isn't breaking the rules the best you can do is not interact with him...

Even Shirley Phelps as spokesmen for Westboro has acknowledged their efforts have had actually the reverse effect in regards to public support and policy that they intended.

Even before she said that, I had noted gay people had no better allies than Westboro Baptist in making Westboro Baptist (and to a degree Christianity itself) look bad.

That we have and have had our own "Phelps's" here is a continuing delight to me.


I also note, the Westboro Baptist folks are just as brazen and corrupt in regards to scripture cherry picking as the rest of the 70,000+ christer schisms.

Damn, why can't we get any good Literalists these days ??

(October 20, 2016 at 9:59 am)Faith No More Wrote: Well, I guess how much this particular "Overwhelming Negatve Influence" is actually contributing to discussions is up for debate, then.  Given how much he(and let's face it, we all know who is being discussed) likes to antagonize and minimize the feelings of anyone that shows the slightest bit of vulnerability due to past experience, spends dozens of pages arguing semantics only to try and backtrack later, courts controversy for the sake of courting controversy, and generally relishes in getting a reaction out of people, I'm confident he's just trolling at this point.  

I'm all for freedom of speech, but how far do we let someone who is so clearly abusing this freedom to skirt the "no trolling" rule?  How many egregiously stupid and nonsensical things does he have to say before it's decided that he's just doing it to piss people off?

I've got no clue who is being discussed. PM me. Or maybe PM him and tell him to start jumping my shit. I might just catch on.

(October 20, 2016 at 10:22 am)Shell B Wrote: People keep responding to the member you're speaking of, though I'm pretty sure this is about the recent rash of bandwagons as a whole. It's no secret that trolls get bored when no one responds. If he were truly a troll, the forum could easily police itself by ignoring him. The small, but vocal, group that seems the backbone of these complaints hasn't even tried that to my knowledge. From what I can see, the staff has given them multiple options from the ignore function to actual ignoring which have thus far been the only things they've ignored.

Every member is a valuable member to some degree, so I hate to see you guys losing people you like, but it's important not to change rules under threat of losing donations or membership. If the staff voted against something, that means the majority were against, as you know. If they pander to one because he either threatens to leave or actually does leave, it destroys the integrity of staff. 

bold mine

Well, that's fucking it! If you don't change and do what I want, I'm making the same donation from now on. Take that. I hope you'er happy. See what you made me do!

(October 20, 2016 at 9:59 am)Faith No More Wrote: Well, I guess how much this particular "Overwhelming Negatve Influence" is actually contributing to discussions is up for debate, then.  Given how much he(and let's face it, we all know who is being discussed) likes to antagonize and minimize the feelings of anyone that shows the slightest bit of vulnerability due to past experience, spends dozens of pages arguing semantics only to try and backtrack later, courts controversy for the sake of courting controversy, and generally relishes in getting a reaction out of people, I'm confident he's just trolling at this point.  

I never even thought of reporting him or anything along these lines, in order to have him banned. Everytime he opens a thread or derails yet another discussion, I feel nothing but contempt. Because he obviously is an apalling example of a human being. He's one of the people I certainly wouldn't want to know in real life. But that goes for some others here too, without calling for their ban. Atheists and christians alike. Funnily enough for the same reasons. Showing next to no empathy as far as others are concerned. And he, if we don't name names, gives even christians a bad name. He's the best advertising against his brand of christianity.

Now I'm really confused.

(October 20, 2016 at 12:15 pm)mh.brewer Wrote:

(October 20, 2016 at 9:59 am)Faith No More Wrote: Well, I guess how much this particular "Overwhelming Negatve Influence" is actually contributing to discussions is up for debate, then.  Given how much he(and let's face it, we all know who is being discussed) likes to antagonize and minimize the feelings of anyone that shows the slightest bit of vulnerability due to past experience, spends dozens of pages arguing semantics only to try and backtrack later, courts controversy for the sake of courting controversy, and generally relishes in getting a reaction out of people, I'm confident he's just trolling at this point.  

I'm all for freedom of speech, but how far do we let someone who is so clearly abusing this freedom to skirt the "no trolling" rule?  How many egregiously stupid and nonsensical things does he have to say before it's decided that he's just doing it to piss people off?

I've got no clue who is being discussed. PM me. Or maybe PM him and tell him to start jumping my shit. I might just catch on.

If you took one guess at who it is I'm sure you'd get it right, lol.