The UF forum is coming soon! Here is the topic organization I’m considering. I’m trying to keep it simple but organized. Let me know if you have any feedback:
- Announcements
- Welcome / Introduce Yourself
- Feedback
Religion
- General Religion Discussion
- In the News
- Questions for Atheists
- Questions for Theists
- Religion / Cult Recovery
- Evangelism
If you’re trying to convert someone to your religion or philosophy, do it here.
General
- Science & Education
- Humor
- Skepticism / Pseudo-science / Paranormal
- Politics
- Technology & Internet
- In the News
For Atheists/Agnostics Members Only
- General Discussion
- Humor
- Religion
- Science
hehe, you’re already covering religion, you sure you want to add a section for politics?
The more controversy, the better. Right?
Very smart move providing separate forums for stuff like evangelism. Not only will no one be able to complain about being left out, there’s valid reason to ask people to not evangelize in any other forum.
I would suggest a forum for cult recovery. Being from the cult of mormonism, I’ve been greatly assisted by the mormon recovery forums at exmormon.org, but I suspect that recovery from other cults like JW’s, or Scientology, would have a lot in common…
Good idea! I’ll add it to the list.
A book section (reviews/recommended reading/comments,etc)
Great idea, JC!!!
That’s a good idea, but I’m not sure there will be enough discussion in there to warrant it its own category. We’ll have to see.
You could add a general culture section, for the discussion of books, movies, tv, music, art with atheistic vibes…. or discussing bad stereotyping of atheists in such cultural artifacts.
…or discussing bad stereotyping of atheists in such cultural artifacts.
Or good ones, even.
“Atheist Media” perhaps?
Just expand your book list and recommended reading (or browsing) even more. Last I looked, William Lobdell wasn’t on it. I just now had to search for his book to get the name right.
I second having a cult section with links, if it continues to get enough traffic.
Having tried the basic class in Lifespring, one of the many est spinoffs as egos running it leave in disagreement to run their very own show, and gotten my money back, I read some of the cult studies sites. One of them used to be a good source of information, then the scientologists bought it. Ha! No unbiased source there anymore!
But Rick Ross and Margaret Singer write some good stuff, and it’s relevant in that christian sects are discussed as cults. Too bad mainstream christianity isn’t yet seen as a cult, ha!
It looks like a decent layout, although “For Atheists/Agnostics Members Only” worries me…how are you going to, erm, check for atheist/agnostic “credentials”? What would stop someone not in those categories from pulling a fast one and getting in?
I mean, it’s not a huge deal, I suppose, but it came to mind when I saw that.
It’s not airtight — but it would have to be a member, and if someone came in to disrupt conversation they would be booted.
Come to think of it, you do seem to have some ability in weeding out trolls…I’ll trust your judgment :)
I would suggest you have too many categories there. Unless the forum gets a lot of traffic, too many categories just spreads out the conversation too much.
“Questions for Atheists / Theists” could be combined, or eliminated altogether. You have two “In the News” categories and one “Politics”, which could all be merged into one. I doubt the “Technology and Internet” forum would get much traffic, especially since you have a separate “Science” forum. And then separate General, Religion, Science, and Humor forums for members only would probably just kill the discussion in each of the corresponding public forums.
I agree that fewer fora and fewer categories is better for the health of the forum overall. Recommendations: lose the category “For Atheists/Agnostics Members Only” and everything in it; lose the category “Religion” and combine its contents with “General”, generally combine/recategorize so you’re left with:
Introduction (or whatever label you deem fit)
* Announcements
* Welcome / Introduce Yourself
* Recommended Reading
* Feedback
General (ditto)
* General Discussion
* Humor
* Science & Education (Technology & Internet went here)
* Skepticism / Pseudo-science / Paranormal
* Current Events (In the News and Politics went here)
* Questions for Atheists / Theists
* Religion / Cult Recovery
* Evangelism
A shorter list could probably be achieved.
I do think separate Questions for … categories would be good since I doubt everyone will quickly and clearly specify which their question is.
That is true. Maybe if there were an obvious mechanism for making that distinction, for instance a radio box that forces you to choose one or the other before hitting Post, and gives the thread a different color or icon or something? Personally, I think that would be preferable to two different fora. Perhaps not.
Good feedback, thanks!
I wonder if we should remove the “For Atheists/Agnostics Members Only” completely. As Jeremy suggests, it might end up killing conversation elsewhere. If someone comes in and starts evangelizing, their posts would be deleted or moved to the evangelism section. Hmm… Decisions, decisions.
I’d say drop that section. It’s not really needed. I mean, the forum itself is home (primarily, like the blog) to atheists. There’s already a section specifically for evangelism, so I really don’t see any purpose in keeping that section.
I’d also like to add that I like Rodney’s layout, with Joe’s edit.
I like the idea of a place to engage believers AND a place to hide from them. The Devout can be a pain in the neck on some topics, but a valuable source of input on others.
I like the idea. I think I see why you have it, to have a place where we don’t hear the same already debunked questions/debates pop up over and over again from every new creationist.
However, I must say it probably wont be used much. The more I think about it, the less I like it. But the idea itself is a nice gesture.
The fewer the boards the better. If you succumb to “board sprawl” and have too many categories it turns into a convoluted mess and makes it harder for folks to figure out where to post. Just my 2 cents…
I have been waiting for this! I do agree with some of the other comments above,that having too many categories could be bad. But, I would have to say, I did like the For Atheists/Agnostics Only
section. What ever you decide Daniel, I think it should be great.
Can’t wait! As a relatively new (3 years or so) atheist / skeptic coming out of some pretty serious Christianity, I’d love to see more “now what” kinds of discussions. As much as I love the political /philosophical / semantics discussions, I’m also really interested in the recovery from religion section. Thanks for all the hard work!
Three years? I’m working off 6 months or so (after 30+ years in the Evangelical world).
I’m looking forward to it myself…
I can’t wait!
I like a lot Daniel. As suggested there may be a few to many categories, at least at first. I like the suggestions give for lopping a couple of them off. I really like the two question categories. Gonna be good!!
Wow was that a poorly written comment….ouch! oh well you get my point
Those two are the boards I’m most interested in as well :)
I’ll chime in with the same thought others have had which is that there are too many different categories. Keep the first three bullet points and then just have two other categories — general relgion discussion and miscellaneous.
I couldn’t see why you had an “atheists/agnostics only” area. Surely a main purpose of your blog is to promote debate with believers and excluding them from an area of the forum seems wrong to me.
Because, most of us here the exact same debate/argument tactics that have been debunked so many times. A lot of high-school age creationists are unaware that their ‘unanswerable questions’ are easily answered. This is repetative, but still we don’t mind answering them. It’s just nice to have a spot to not be dominated by this.
I don’t even see how he would enforce it, but it’s a welcomed idea in my mind. Also, there is plenty of room on the proposed forum for ‘promoting debate.’
Keep it there, Daniel.
actually, I change my mind. But I still agree with the sentiment of the section, and my above post. But it’s not likely to be used much, so it should probably go.
Far too many forums. You’ll end up with some forums having just a trickle of threads, and people won’t like clicking around different forums just for the sake of one new post in a new thread.
You should start out with maybe 2 or 3 forums and gauge how popular it is before splitting off into more specialised forums.
Awesome. Thanks for this. That is plenty of topics too. Any more and I would feel overwhelmed.
Humor. Kind of.
Q. How would you describe Satan’s religious persuasion?
A. Evilangelical
I would suggest doing away with comments on the articles if you are adding a forum. Then make the forum the discussion zone just like they did over at http://market-ticker.denninger.net
We’ll have both. The forum will be for more committed people who want to start their own conversation, but I think having blog comments is important and really adds to the blog.
What if a new article automatically generated a forum thread?
(which is visible below the article and looks/behaves very similar to a comment thread, but is accessible by either the article or the Article Threads forum)
Alright here is my revised version:
Introduction
Announcements
Welcome / Introduce Yourself
Feedback
General
General Discussion
Humor
Current Events / Politics
Skepticism / Pseudo-science / Paranormal
Science / Education / Technology
Religion
Questions for Atheists / Theists
Religion / Cult Recovery
Evangelism – If you want to convert someone to your religion or philosophy, do it here.
Nice.
No media? (recommended reading, tv shows, movies, etc)
Also, I do agree with Joe and others that the one forum “Questions for Atheists / Theists” should be two fora “Questions for Atheists” and “Questions for Theists”, or at least, one forum that is called “Questions for Atheists / Questions for Theists”.
Good luck. This sounds awesome.
Let me think about the media a little more. Those posts could just go under “General Discussion.”
I think I’ll keep “questions” as one section at first and see how that works. I don’t know if there will be enough posts in those to warrant two separate sections. If so, I’ll split it.
There really is no difference between a religion and a cult. :)
But I like the topics!
I really like the Forum ideas. I do agree that having fewer areas is better to begin with so discussions are more concentrated. Also, please keep the comments sections on the articles as well.
Hey Tele…hope you are doing well…JC
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