November 14, 2007

Comment Policy

It has come to the point where the blog is in need of a comment policy, Thanks zealots, I guess expecting anything other than childish foot stomping from you was unreasonable.

The policy is going to be put in place to stop one thing happening. It is to stop the zealots reducing every blog post to a discussion regarding the existence of god. If you can't comment regarding the subject of the post don't comment at all.

From now on i am going to be deleting all comments which do the following:
1. Argue over the existence of god unless the blog post is regarding the existence of god.
2. Quote scripture.
3. Use "god done it" (or equivalent) as an answer without offering any reason or evidence.

7 comments:

  1. It has come to the point where the blog is in need of a comment policy

    I agree, people should stop being assholes. You should delete posts that harass people.

    Thanks zealots

    Wait a minute... this isn't going to be about people posting insulting comments to religious people. It will probably attempt to stop religious people from debating...

    guess expecting anything other than childish foot stomping from you was unreasonable.

    Looks like I am right.

    It is to stop the zealots reducing every blog post to a discussion regarding the existence of god.

    The whole thing is that this entire blog is abut the existence of God. So therefore, as long as a post is about that, it is on topic.

    If you can't comment regarding the subject of the post don't comment at all.

    Which the subject of almost every post is God.

    Argue over the existence of god unless the blog post is regarding the existence of god.

    Which most are, unless they are bashing god and calling people who believe in them zealots.

    2. Quote scripture.

    Now, do you mean quote, or just cite. Cause that throws nebulous' entire argument about Jesus putting demons inside of pigs out the window.

    3. Use "god done it" (or equivalent) as an answer without offering any reason or evidence.

    I half agree to this. The whole thing is that with faith, there is no testable evidence, just like with emotions. That is the whole point of faith. Now I agree that people only using "god done it" is not that great, sometimes its the only way, and the best way, to explain stuff. It is just as good as "well, science hasn't explained that yet."

    But in the end, my question is will you delete the entire post if one of those rules are broken in one small part and the argument is many paragraphs long, or will you give some leeway. I say only if most of someone's post breaks one of these rules.

    All in all, I think it is a little one sided, but that was probably not accidental.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have no doubt your comment policy will continue to grow. Seeing your comment policy is like watching a baby being born. You may want to instead look at some existing comment policies that have struggled with the same thing (mainly abuse and off topic remarks) and just develop a simple all-encompassing policy. And remember, it's your blog. You can delete and ban whoever you want.

    Examples:
    Huffington Post Policy
    Jeremy Zawodny's Policy

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  3. I don't think i have the ability to edit posts. so if a post gets deleted feel free to post it again without including the part that caused it to be deleted.

    my intention was not to stop religious people debating, if anything it was to encourage them to debate. What i don't want them to do is regurgitate the spurious nonsense that shows up time and time again on every blog or forum where religion is mentioned.

    by staying on topic we have a better chance of getting to the nuts and bolts of the issue instead of ending up in a game of "who can muddy the waters the most".

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  4. I do agree that things need to stay on topic. It will be a pain to save all my posts just in case they are deleted. Oh well. I want to apologize if I have ever made off topic comments or if I ever used "god done it" too much.

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  5. Aw rules! I like the posts on this blog getting way off the subject thats why I keep coming back. Seriously matt I think your blog is cool it has a nice mix of opinions and great debates and great humour and some great mudslinging. I think its driven by your very contentious and annoyingly Dawkins influenced posts. In the beginning I thought banning quoting scripture was a bad idea but came around to the idea I mean I suppose you reap what you sow. I suppose you did it to keep the peace yeah blessed are the peacemakers. What if people underhandedly include words from the scriptures hidden in the text of their posts I suppose thou shall not kill. And all atheist vs theist vs agnostic arguments end in the existence of god don't they?
    And what if God did do it. I mean don't insurance companies still have act of god insurance for natural disasters does this mean all Insurance are religious although debating this would get off topic still maybe you should start a post about that :)

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  6. Well, I'm new here and don't really know how much of a problem all that the new rules encompass has been.

    Have never been to a blog that stayed on topic completely.

    But, it's your blog and you have the right to do as you see fit.

    and d,
    zealots come in a all stripes; don't assume he just meant religious ones.

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  7. I'm trying not to go overboard with the rules thing, I don't particularly mind too much if comments end up discussing something other than the topic, But when they start of as a theology debate from the very first comment it makes the posts fairly redundant.

    Anyway, it seemed people liked that the posts go off topic so i made a group on tangler if people want to use it to start threads about anything.

    the group could also use some more religious people, so if you know of any send them over.

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