Any ideas on how to deal with religious zealots on a forum?

Dumbass said:
I have seen this come up with politics in foums, I have been involved in forums for 15 years.

Either ban it outright or do this, keep it in one section. Be strict, say in order to maintain neutrality, or not offend, either off limits (best) or kept strictly in one area. You are going to have to be vigilant without being too censoring. This destroyed one guys forum and it WAS number one in the world for its niche. The guy got too heavy handed about censorship so a competitior started another, less censored BB....He let emotions get in the way of just having a policy and sticking with it.

Tough one and you are wise to understand that it has potential to go south. You also might want to bring in a couple of mods so all the heat doesn't come your way when it comes to moderating.

Post the new rule(s) and then respectfully ask for feedback while announcing the new moderator(s) may be the way to go.

Good luck!
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+ Reach out to the one of the nutcases and tell them that you feel that, as a warrior for Jesus Christ, religious topics should be placed in their own special place, and could he please moderate that forum. For baby Jesus?

Use the power of insanity for your own benefit.

If the sub-forum gets too big, delete it periodically and claim that you were "hacked by the Jews again".
 


Create filters in your admin panel for "God," "the lord" "Jesus" "Christ," substituting these keywords for "that shit again," "sky dad," "magician in the sky" or funnier stuff. It's good for LOLs and will keep your resident thumpers from posting shit that gets mocked.
 
freezeprogram said:
+ Reach out to the one of the nutcases and tell them that you feel that, as a warrior for Jesus Christ, religious topics should be placed in their own special place, and could he please moderate that forum. For baby Jesus?

Use the power of insanity for your own benefit.

If the sub-forum gets too big, delete it periodically and claim that you were "hacked by the Jews again".
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A potential sig in every paragraph. Well done sir.
 
If you're looking for advice on how to peacefully and politically resolve a forum situation, I think you're asking the wrong group of people. :)

People around here usually resolve it with, "go back to DP you dipshit fucken loser!", or dickrolls, or by posting things like this:

96RDs.gif
 
New forum rule: "No irrational posts", then place infractions on everyone that talks about God ;)
 
I used to read a philosophy/religion/spirituality forum where they refused to get rid of a certain militant atheist guy. Now I don't read it and a lot of others as well, as it's overall traffic has reduced since my heyday. They never banned him because he kept it "fresh" and constantly posted, or was his friend. For some reason he was exempt from the rules and it's ruining their forum.

Tell them "as admin and owner of the site, I have the right to overrule any and everything I deem irritating or unworthy." Tell them to quit or the ban is incoming. Then ban them when they don't quit. Ban their IP altogether.

EDIT: Actually, here is another story. I ran a forum based around my music business and I got caught between two friends who became enemies. Their constant arguing ran people off. I should have banned one of them or both but never did. I no longer run a forum as it was reduced to nothing by this crap.
 
Either ban it outright or do this, keep it in one section. Be strict, say in order to maintain neutrality, or not offend, either off limits (best) or kept strictly in one area.
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I would love to ban it, but I'm not sure how to word the rules.

On my other forums, I had a rule "no religion/no politics".
That seems reasonable enough.

In this case, I want to allow politics, but not religion.
And a rule "no religion" would seem really strange.

It would tilt the boat in the opposite direction and turn the forum from "Christian Widgetry Forum" to "Aitheist Widgetry Forum", which is just a bad for business.

I'm not sure how to get the point across to the new and existing users that I don't mind religion as long as it's moderate.

I think if I put anything banning/limiting religion in the ruels, I'll come across as an aitheist, which might have negative effect on the bottom line.
 
People around here usually resolve it with, "go back to DP you dipshit fucken loser!", or dickrolls, or by posting things like this:
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Yes, and that's a pretty awesome way of dealing with it. As a matter of fact, this is the best way -- let the community balance itself out.

At the end, a few factions would form each hating on the others. And I would still be making money in the process.

But I can't allow dickrolling on my forum. It's a PG place. So there is nothing to balance religion with. So the moderate public doesn't have any means of shutting up the religious crowd. As a result, the religious users spread and start to take over the forum.
 
reglion is a good money spinner, embrace it, mega churches make big money.. it's almost like a license to print money.

whore that shit out.

Get some chinese communist eaethists to make crucifixes and sell it on your site for $20 each.
 
Use the swearword filter to change all instances 'God' to 'Zeus', and all instances of 'Jesus' to 'Wagenheim'.
 
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