politics, religion, and beating children

[Zapmeister]

There's no question that religion is everybody's favourite flamewar. A while back, in the newsgroup comp.sys.ibmpc.games.strategic, some guy called Alvin started a thread entitled "Christianity and Gaming", in which he passed some comment about which games are suitable for good Christians.

It soon became by far the most popular thread in the group, and quickly lost any relevance to gaming. People just love to talk about it, anywhere and with anyone.

Personally, I would have preferred to have seen the discussion in this forum retitled to "OT: Religion, politics and beating children" (if that were possible) so that it could stay for the folks that wanted it, but the "OT" would warn off the folks that are only here for Dominions.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
Personally, I would have preferred to have seen the discussion in this forum retitled to "OT: Religion, politics and beating children" (if that were possible) so that it could stay for the folks that wanted it, but the "OT" would warn off the folks that are only here for Dominions.

Hmmmmm but I was trying to free up the original thread so it could continue. Maybe if I had copied the entire thread to a different forum, then stripped it down, renamed it, copied it back. Im not sure if that would be possible. And I probably would still have had to delete some of the Last few Messages. Nahh that would have gotten into unfair judging.

I love such debates but I get them in the newsGroups rather than a game forum. It tends to work better since newsGroups dont belong to anyone.

[fahdiz]

Maybe a good solution would be for Shrapnel to have a separate Off Topic forum, where people could discuss those issues at their leisure (and perhaps with greater liberty of speech?), without cluttering up the game-specific forums for the people like me, who are interested in Dominions II information and not so interested in others' views on non-game-related material.

Several other forums on the net have separate Off Topic forums and it seems to work pretty well.

Edit: I wanted to add that I agree with what Targa said 110%.

[ February 14, 2004, 05:52: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

[Endoperez]

Pity, I was looking forward to show my post in that thread to my religion teacher... I see why it was done, though.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by fahdiz:
Maybe a good solution would be for Shrapnel to have a separate Off Topic forum, where people could discuss those issues at their leisure (and perhaps with greater liberty of speech?), without cluttering up the game-specific forums for the people like me, who are interested in Dominions II information and not so interested in others' views on non-game-related material.

That'd be a good solution in theory, but in practice, most of these these kinds of debates start ON topic, and occur when a thread gets horribly derailed.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
these kinds of debates start ON topic, and occur when a thread gets horribly derailed.

I have a lamentable weakness for trolls. I find it hard to resist replying when people say what I consider to be silly things.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Endoperez:
Pity, I was looking forward to show my post in that thread to my religion teacher... I see why it was done, though.

Your internet providor that you connect with usually gives you access to a email, browsing (by providing a DNS service), sometimes a personal web-page space, and newsGroups.
Ask them about newsGroups. Every job, hobby, pet, team, music group, or any other debate subject seems to have its own newsgroup where people gather to yell at each other. NewsGroups are part of Internet just like www is part of Internet (except newsGroups are much older than www). There are arguments there (ummm I mean debates) that have been going on for decades.

As long as the newsGroups still exist, Moderators dont have to feel too bad about saying "that doesnt fit here" and deleting it.

I tend to live in comp.ai.games (where I learned of GalCiv in '95), comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (where I learned about Dominions1 in '01), and in alt.hacker (I was the 2nd most frequent poster there for 2003)

[ February 14, 2004, 13:33: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
That'd be a good solution in theory, but in practice, most of these these kinds of debates start ON topic, and occur when a thread gets horribly derailed.

...which is why the Moderators have the power to move a thread from one forum to another. If a thread gets so derailed that there's no going back, it just gets moved over to the Off Topic forum. It works both in theory and in practice.

I am the head moderator over at a gaming forum with over 1550 registered Users (many of whom are younger than the average Dom II player), and it works for us.

[ February 14, 2004, 16:57: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Your internet providor that you connect with usually gives you access to a email, browsing (by providing a DNS service), sometimes a personal web-page space, and newsGroups.
Ask them about newsGroups.

I tend to live in comp.ai.games (where I learned of GalCiv in '95), comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (where I learned about Dominions1 in '01), and in alt.hacker (I was the 2nd most frequent poster there for 2003)

I have followed, and a few times posted in, CSIGS and rec.games.roguelike.adom for a few years. It was a link through Illwinter's page that got me into them (google Groups). Now that my father decided to try Linux I have access to IRC, newsGroups etc. programs, I might be able to change into a real newsreader. Are those really worth bothering if I can already read 'Groups through google? I have got IRC to work, but haven't found #dominions to be very active... BTW, thanks for those who told me some servers.

[Gandalf Parker]

I prefer reading my email on linux but I use windows programs for news. Forte is cool. I wouldnt prefer to do either of those thru a web interface because its too limiting.