Can we talk about the group rules?

[gcomeau]

69. Ok

What that means is that this is not the forum to come in here and talk about whether there is a god or not. The assumption in here is that there isn't (atheism) or that there is no way of knowing (agnostic). We don't want theists coming in here and saying, "Yeah, but what about...." This isn't the forum for that. If we want those discussions, we can go to Religion for it. Some of us do go there and others don't.

When we have blocked people from this group for violating that, it has been rare and it has been when theists have come in and having discussions. In short, coming in with the attitude that they are going to change our minds about our atheism/agnosticism. We don't want that in here. I don't think that is unreasonable.

I get that you don't think it's unreasonable. I don't think it's unreasonable either, just misguided. It is also however NOWHERE NEAR what you claimed two posts ago when you said the only thing the rules prevent was "calling people out specifically and discussing what is going on in the Interfaith safe have group"

You get that right? That was a completely inaccurate claim which is why I just asked you to explain what I bolded in that statement.



As for the effect the rule implementation you just described has, which is how I originally understood the rules by the way until you claimed otherwise, well just consider this.

This thread, right now, is the most active thread on the entire first page of this group. The reason, rather obviously, is that it at least gives people something to debate. That's sad, but that's just scratching the surface.



It's the most active thread in this group in FIVE MONTHS. That's really sad considering that less than 70 posts isn't a crazily high activity bar for a post to set.

Getting MORE sad... the last post to reach this level of activity, in OCTOBER? It was a "welcome back beam me up scotty" thread. I'm not saying there's anything sad about the thread, I like a good welcome back post and a community rallying up around a member just fine... but it wasn't exactly filled with engaging discussion and debate. It was 68 posts worth of "Hey... welcome back... we missed you.. hey bmus is back!" So we haven't actually found a *discussion* with this level of activity yet and if we want to we have to keep going.


...back to JULY. EIGHT MONTHS. And that was... wait for it... an argument over the group rules. That time it was someone wanting the forum to be just for atheists, and for agnostics to get their own forum. They kind of had a point in that half of all agnostics are theists so it doesn't make sense to have the agnostics in a group where atheism is the default assumption and no discussion of it is allowed... but they also posted a fairly stupid OP that didn't even understand what atheism was so they lost my sympathy.



But dude. EIGHT MONTHS of this groups activity and only three posts at this activity level. One chorus of "good to see you's" and two arguments over the rules. You don't see where that might be viewed as indicative of an issue?


(Last three going back before that? A thread saying we need a new host. Something that got self deleted by it's author but appears to have been about some bogus new-agey Einstein quote which was almost sure to rub most people in this forum wrong but OMG! There was activity! Aaaaand... a discussion about... the religion forum.)


Are you seeing my point here yet?

Edit: I will concede the discussion of what was going on in the religion forum actually fits your conception of this group's purpose and did manage to generate somewhat decent levels of activity. Demonstrating that it is possible for those types of discussions to support decently engaging threads... at apparently the rate of one every 8 months or more.