Forum Issues and Religious Wars

July 9th, 2008 4:01 PM

Quick note: the NB forums are having some issues on the tech side so they are disabled temporarily.

That's coincidental given the huge flamewars we've seen develop on them over people arguing for/against various religions in forum posts. I don't like the divisiveness that we've had from this and am half-way thinking that perhaps we should just not have religion discussions here on NB considering the mission of the site is about media bias, not promoting or attacking various religions (or lack thereof).

Update 07-10 15:47. After giving an amount of time for those interested to comment. I've settled on the policy.

  • Religion threads within the forum will not be allowed.
  • Comments attacking particular religions/sects on blog posts addressing media bias against that religion/sect will not be allowed. Certain small, cultish groups including (but not limited to) Westboro Baptist Church and Scientology are still permissible to criticize.
  • Since radical Islam is often a topic of discussion here, it will be OK to criticize it, however, extended disquisitions on how it is affiliated with evil supernatural powers is not OK.
  • Persistent "calling out" of others within the forum will not be allowed.
  • Persons who abuse the private messaging system to harrass other users who do not wish to talk to them will have their user privileges suspended upon first offence and revoked upon second.

We will not tolerate people attacking or promoting their religions on this site. Those who continue to do so will be suspended or banned as circumstance warrants.

This decision is final so those who don't like it can look elsewhere if they wish to talk about religion in different ways.