New Rule: No Personal Attacks

[Tiberius]

Nonetheless (and its your board - you can do what you want when you want ) the net result seems to be that you have driven away 3 good posters ( if Jaysyn's signature is to be taken at face value) while a growing assortment of twits continue to pour superstitious nonsense all over the board.

Would that you were equally vigorous with the no preaching "rule."

Good posters they may have been, but their reasons for leaving were not so good. I might remind people that rules against personal attacks are forbidden on most internet forums; we aren't exactly being radical here.

On that note, I fail to see how Jaysyn can rationalize his comment "Jaysyn is no longer participating in this community due to constant & radical rule changes." Since when did 2 rule changes become synonymous with "constant"? We don't change rules constantly; we change rules when necessary.

Purple Rabbit left because of the new rule concerning personal attacks. He claims it infringes upon free thought; it doesn't. People are free to think what they want about people; they just aren't free to post directed attacks on these forums. Yes, it infringes free speech, I do not deny that. However free speech must have limits on forums like these if they are ever going to work. If limits aren't put in place, we have no reason to ban spammers, trolls, flamers, etc. I doubt very many people would like to be in that kind of community.

Saerules was banned (she hasn't left...yet), and I've explained why excessively above. If you disagree with a law, the correct course of action is to take it up with the lawmakers. This is how things work in real life. What you do not do is go out of your way to break the rules in front of the people who enforce them. In real life, that gets you sent to prison; here, it gets you banned.

As for the "no preaching" rule; we intend to enforce it as strongly as we enforce any other rule. As a reminder though, talking about one's religion is not preaching, neither is talking about specific religious (or non-religious) beliefs one might hold. As the rule on preaching clearly states:

"To advocate, especially to urge acceptance of or compliance with your own theology, philosophy or point of view is not permitted."

That said, I hope that most of our forum members stay here. We certainly do not wish to drive people away; that was not our intention at all. As I've said before, we are perfectly willing to talk about the rules, and if people can come up with a more agreeable format that prevents personal attacks, we will listen.

[Eilonnwy]

And as I've said many times before, Free speech is not about saying whatever you want whenever you want, it's about doing it in public and not getting arrested. We are well within our rights to limit personal attacks on a private forum.

[Dotard]

I, for one, support our forum overlords.

[Tiberius]

Groveling accepted underling...you may shine my shoes.

[Scented Nectar]

Hello. I haven't posted much recently. I've gotten very behind in catching up here. Except for this thread, a ton of others are still unread. I probably won't bother to catch up on them since I will be leaving the forum at some point after this thread dies down and gets old.

I'm completely ok with the new rules as this is your forum, Adrian. It's your living room and you get to decide whether or not people can smoke in there, to put it another way. In fact, I completely back your right to run your own website with whatever rules you like regarding content.

I'm leaving because I am finding it way more fun to concentrate my time more on youtube these days, where I really enjoy the freedom to use personal insults and crude offensive humour. It's really right up my alley and quite enjoyable for me.

Even if these new insult avoiding rules get changed back, I'm afraid I'll probably be leaving anyways. I'm finding the appeal of video interactions/debates way too compelling to go back to text only style forum ones at the moment. Visuals and audio both add a wonderful element to the whole thing, often with a person's message being enhanced by seeing their facial expressions and vocal tones.

I've enjoyed it here though and will have good memories. It really was fun and interesting, and I hope things go well here no matter what the rules are.

[Eilonnwy]

Sad to see you go. I tried getting into the youtube debates but they were so tiresome for me. But if that's your cup of tea, then have fun.

It would be nice if you could pop your head in once in a while, but we're all busy people. I understand.

[Dotard]

Groveling accepted underling...you may shine my shoes.

Glossy or matte finish sir?

[LastPoet]

I honestly couldn't get what madness was PurpleRabbit on about, since when freedom means to do whatever you want? One is free to do whatever he likes, as long as that doesn't limit the freedom and rights of others. This is my definition of freedom, and free speech falls into this rule. Freedom is not dropping the pants and shit on the sidewalk, that would limit the other persons right to have higiene and freedom to walk on the sidewalk without sticking the foot into a pile. Same way with free speech. If I am ontop of a soapbox, ranting about whatever, and a guy comes along, gets on my side, spewing nothing but insults he is effectively limiting my free speech... However, if the same person, comes and argues rationally against my rant, this is not limiting at all, infact, if my rant is true it will only strenghten it!

I was one that wasn't sure this rule was of any good, but all these events further enhance the idea that this feeling i have is wrong. I mean, look at this! People leaving the forum about.... nothing. If I hadn't saw PurpleRabbit's arguments on IRC, I whouldn't believe he said the things he said, it was all a kind of preconcepted rage! He even claimed the magical sky-daddy got to the staff, whatever that means.

If I had a problem with the staff, I'd use the PM's, and if I had a BIG problem with the staff, I would simple leave, stop posting, and do something else, not pulling an emotional card like "OK, where can I deactivate my account?". It almost sounds like blackmail.

I liked Sae, from the little time i've spend here so far, found her posts witty, a little provocative, that's good, but her reaction was out of line, and something that surprised me. I would like to see her return, but I don't believe she will. Perhaps I will be surprised again.

Emotions are to be felt, not carried into actions, that's reason's job.

[Scented Nectar]

Sad to see you go. I tried getting into the youtube debates but they were so tiresome for me. But if that's your cup of tea, then have fun.

It would be nice if you could pop your head in once in a while, but we're all busy people. I understand.

I might once in a while. It's not looking very likely though from my track record of adding 2 to 5 new people I'm subscribing to a day, plus interacting more in comment areas for individual videos, plus getting caught up in not only atheist topics, but also music, comedy and debates between the 'sex-positive' and 'anti-porn/sex industry' camps of feminism.

I can't say for sure though that I won't in the future want to return, but my growing youtube addiction combined with the new rules make it unlikely.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

You know, of all this talk about how the man is keeping us all down by forcing us like dogs to not hurl insults at one another, I'm just going to pop in and say I'd rather be forced to not hurl insults at others than come here to be insulted.

Given that atheism is usually a fairly touchy subject with most people, you can't say that any forums focued on religion or lack thereof isn't going to attract trolls now or in the future. Regardless of the size of the forums and, honestly, since trolls are partly defined by how they go about insulting people, I'd rather deal with a few fewer posters who think the new rule means the mods will now have the power to rally a full squad of police in riot-gear to kidnap you and throw you in their troll-camp than have this place open to people whose idea of debate involves how much of an idiot I am (to put it nicely).

I have no idea why this is such a hot-button issue with some people since most of you don't even seem to have violated this rule now or in the past to an extent that warrents banning or other intervention. I seriously think that for most if not all of you, this rule could have been fully enforced the whole time and mostly likely all of you would have still made it here without being banned or even warned.

Just to note, I'm not referring to anyone specifically, just the general tone I've read from the last six pages or so.