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.