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.
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.
