Hey everyone!
I just wanted to touch base with you and share the results of the Slogan Survey as well as the vote on adding a forums section. We had 728 total votes in the slogan survey and below you’ll find the top 10. As for the forums agenda there were 232 votes and I was somewhat surprised at the results.
Forums Vote:
Question: Would you like me to add forums?
Results:
43% - Yes
30% - Don’t Care
27% - No!!!
IMPORTANT: For those in favor of a forums section, what categories would you like to see and who would like to help moderate? If you voted no, I’d like to hear why :) Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
Slogan Survey Results:
56 ReligiousFreaks.com - Have faith in yourself.
48 ReligiousFreaks.com - Because some like to do the thinking for themselves.
46 ReligiousFreaks.com - Thank God we’re Atheists
43 ReligiousFreaks.com - Defeating stupidity one zealot at a time.
38 ReligiousFreaks.com - Because we’ve learned a lot in 2000 years.
32 ReligiousFreaks.com - Scaring the Jesus out of you!
32 ReligiousFreaks.com - We take the ‘fun’ out of fundamentalism
31 ReligiousFreaks.com - Free thinkers wanted.
30 ReligiousFreaks.com - You wouldn’t believe what they believe!
29 ReligiousFreaks.com - Because there’s no excuse for ignorance
Related posts:
- State Of The Union #2
- State Of The Freaks Address
- Religious Freaks Slogan Survey!
- Religious Freaks Rises From The Ashes!
- Let’s Help Chris Get His PhD
December 14th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Personally I’d like to see forums for all the major religions. Specifically the ones that have tags on the site. Christianity, Judiaism, Muslim, etc. Intelligent design could have its own category, along with forums about faith in general. My dream would be to have believers and non-believers having an at least semi rational discussion of the faiths and faith itself, but the danger is it devolving into nothing more than a flamewar. I also have a feeling that other than some of the regular posters here, believers are going to be few and far between on the forums of a site called religiousfreaks.com.
I think it’s worth a shot, and I know I’ll be sigining up the second that they open to take part as much as I can.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
Personally, I’m sure it will be a great way to show the religious how incredibly stupid their arguement is then have the proof.
December 15th, 2006 at 12:59 am
I am very much looking forward to forums here. I am the admin of a forum in the Bible Belt that serves about 5000 people, and religion is a huge factor in most of the discussions. The people around here are about 85% conservative, fundamental Christians, so even hinting @ anything outside of that mindset is taboo.
It will be refreshing to be involved in more open minded discussions!
December 15th, 2006 at 1:13 am
Let the flame wars begin.
December 15th, 2006 at 5:01 am
Pretty much.
December 15th, 2006 at 5:03 am
I can’t believe my idea never made it in
Religious Freaks - No stopping here, it’s bat country!
December 15th, 2006 at 5:18 am
Oh right now I remember why I never submitted it,
Trademarked.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:44 am
I’m a web developer and I’ve always been against forums. I’m not sure why, I’ve just never really liked them.
The current format seems so simple and elegant compared to a feature-bloated forum. Gasmonso is in charge. He chooses the articles to put up, we get to comment. (I even like the fact that our comments can only be in plain text; it’s easy to read.) What I would be afraid of is that the majority of discussion would move over to the forum, and these article-stimulated discussions will wither away. I think of religiousfreaks.com as an extreme religious news site, but a forum where any topic is discussed will make it less about news and more of a general religion debate site.
Side note: Spammers concentrate their programming (and human) efforts on the popular forums. Expect that your moderators will have to regularly delete advertisements for all sorts of crap.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:56 am
I know what you mean Andrew. I have great reservations about creating the forums. But I am drawn to it because I want users to have more of a voice. Now obviously that can lead to flamewars and general stupidity. I am very aware of that.
But it’s that challenge that makes it so tempting. A year ago when I first created this site, I purposely allowed anyone to leave comments without having to register. I did this to encourage commentary and people said I was nuts.
I think most would agree though that the readers of this site have been exceptional and spam is virtually non-existent. This has allowed numerous interesting discussions to take place.
Part of the success is the amount of control I have on the material. Nothing gets posted unless I post it :) The forums present a challenge, but I think I can get a little something to work. I have a few ideas to maintain control, yet allow people to carry their discussions. More on this later.
What about everyone else, I’d like to hear more opinions on the matter. After all, I made this site for you guys :)
gasmonso
December 15th, 2006 at 11:44 am
sidfaiwu for mod!
ReligiousFreaks.com - only slightly less cool than Chuck Norris!
December 15th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Timmy! Aaaahhh Timmaw! Timmeh.
December 15th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
*blush*
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Agnöstic. I am at gasmonso’s disposal, if he so desires my assistance.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Yea, sidfaiwu is tops on the list :) I start the forums off slow and build them gradually.
It should be a fun experiment.
gasmonso
December 15th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
I’d say we definately need a section for all the currently tagged headers for articles, I think this was suggested by Soxfan. I’d be against a current events section since that’s pretty much what the rest of the site is for in my opinion.
I know on numerous occasions debates have been spawned out of articles that have taken over the commenting. Perhaps there should be a Discourses section made where such occurances can be moved when they reach that level or at the request of the debating parties. This would let the comments on the article take back on their dominance and still let the discussions continue.
Also, as I said in the poll, I’ll gladly give of my time to moderate since I end up at this site regularly during my breaks at work and during the rest of the day.
December 15th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Could we have a second slogan vote with just the top ten?
December 15th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
If you really want a crazy, volatile forum, you make a combined forum for religiousfreaks, psychicfreaks, and politicalfreaks. I imagine that some interesting discussions would happen.
December 15th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Ian, I’ll be using all the slogans from the top 10 and they’ll just rotate. I have a new logo being designed and is near completion.
Should I decide to go into merchandising, I would offer those slogans and anything else someone suggested to make it personal… sort of a custom slogan I guess.
gasmonso
December 15th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Andrew, that would cause my server to explode in a furry of flame wars ;) If I had the time, I would do it though. That much I know.
I should have forums up here in some form by the weekend. I’ll be asking people to test and lend their support when needed.
gasmonso
December 15th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I just ran across another great quote.
Pity its too late to still enter it into the survey.
“Thinking is for heretics.”
December 15th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Historically, heresy refers to beliefs not coinciding with those of the orthodox catholic church. It’s usage in modern and post-modern times is rare and inconsistent with it’s roots.
I know meanings of words can and do change over time, but with something like ‘heresy’, I’d rather it not.
December 15th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
I’m with Andrew on this one (and I also happen to work mainly with web related schtuff) but I understand that most people would prefer a forum. I’ll surely visit but I like the… digital intimacy the current system provides, It’s cozy! :)
December 15th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
I’ve seen religious Creationist/Scientist flameboards.
I’m sorry to say I already know for a fact the fuckers of the religious movement in this country aren’t even going to attempt to argue their point rationally. Give me 3 months and I will have them drooling out the mouth for being exposed as the liars they are.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
They can’t all be liars. I was Christian, and I certainly was a liar. I had good intention, in fact. I think most do.
I think you’re being unjust and unfair.
Harumph.
December 16th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Whoa… Freudian slip perhaps? :D
December 16th, 2006 at 1:50 am
I’ll be interested in hearing the ideas on forums that don’t degenerate into flamewars. It’s possible, but I hope that they don’t degenerate into hotbeds of mutual mental masturbation either. The only thing less interesting than a flame war between the religious and the secular is a long list of comments of the secular pointing out how religious are stupid. It can get impressively redundant and even hypocritical (with the groupthink).
That said, I think the article comments here have generally been high quality and not too redundant, and I hope that carries over into whatever forums (even forums) that the site adds.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:02 am
So basically what you’re saying is that controversy is more interesting.
*faps mentally*
December 16th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Arktis: Yes but the difference between me and you.
1. I could care less what they believe, because in the long run the cultists will only multiply.
2. No religion has good intention. I can point out plenty of social groups that had good intentions which went horridly wrong.
December 16th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Honestly, It’s going to be like talking with one of the Phelps, a lesson in futilism.
December 17th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Revlic: Cults are the most dominant force on the planet. Resistance is futile.
December 18th, 2006 at 3:09 am
Yes that gives them a majority vote. But then again who said the mob is intelligent in anyway shape or form?
December 18th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Q: “But then again who said the mob is intelligent in anyway shape or form?”
A: Wiki
But Wiki isn’t always right.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
hmm well, I think that forums have the potential for either being great, or degenerate into a full on flame fest.
I’d like to think that, because people here are staying very civil, a forum will be nice and calm.
Then again, i’ve seen forums about a lot lighter topics slide downhill at a scary rate.
I see a lot of potential for people being able to made threads on a some topic that are semi-related to things discussed here.
that being said, it might be a good idea to limit thread creation (if possible) to people who have an XX number of posts or something, and a very strict ‘on target’ policy, to stop the ‘guess what i had for breakfast’ threads.
of course, if it turns out to be an utter waste of bytes, you can always scrap it later.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
also, forums have an edit button, a blessing indeed.
Maybe you should try to get at least one religious mod.
Humanistic Jones for mod to
December 18th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
and on the downside the forums have an edit button, a curse indeed. How annoying can those post editors be when they change what they said to not look as stupid as doorknobs
December 18th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
I’m with Jagannath on this one. Being unable to edit once posted forces (hopefully) contributors to more carefully consider what they want to say and how they want to say it.
December 18th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
But the edit buttons are one of the reasons that we developed the process of Quoting for Truth or QFT. You can’t edit someone else’s observation of your idiocy.
December 18th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
If we all have some form of moderator, make sure he shitcans any user who just posts crap and doesn’t try to argue what he posts (people who are basically breathing RSS feeds) or people who just act like robots.
If anything make some private forums for certain people who have earned the right to post in them they can be individuals who have shown they are capable of debating without being total dickholes.
I’ve moderated forums like these before. They all seem to get their flood of complete retards from time to time. It comes with the territory. I’ve found myself spending a lot more time here recently (hey it’s a good website!)
Honestly the only thing I’m worried about is the fact, forums can practically become the community of your website, and if it’s flooded a bunch of people who don’t accept the fact they might be wrong then we are all going to start looking stupid.
December 18th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Revlic:
No one cares what you fear *might* happen, or think; shut up.
December 18th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Obviously because you said it, it must be true.
December 19th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
“”How annoying can those post editors be when they change what they said to not look as stupid as doorknobs”"
oh right, hadn’t thought about that. That’s why I don’t this website :)
Actually Shaze, this thread is about what might happen and what we think. But, let’s not start discussing unrelated stuff here
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