The policy the staff and myself decided upon at MK5.org, is creating quite a controversy. Tonight, to my complete surprise, a pastor emailed me about the decision to not allow religious threads on the forum. I’d like to share his email and my response:
From: “Russell Page”
To: scott@mk5.org
Subject: no religious threads
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 15:35:27 -0500Scott,
I am the pastor of one of your the guys in your forum. He is always
telling me about the interesting things he learns in these discussion rooms.
It is a shame to stop that. Of course it is your web site and you have the
power to determine what topics your members can handle. I would encourage
you to reconsider your decision. Just because something is “un-debatable”
does not mean it should not be discussed.It concerns me that you say you are a Christian and want to separate Christ
out of your web site because “it can destroy our reputation as a healthy
community.” The only healthy community is one with Christ as the center and
as Christians we should be concerned with His reputation, not ours. Just
something to think about.Love your site and MK:DA. If you want to discuss anything please let me
know if not just giving some suggestions and a different perspective.Russell Page
Harvest Church- A community of Encouragement—
Hi Russell –
First off, let me just say I am glad that you emailed me and I respect your
opinion. I do however would like to make it clear we are not against debate
in our forum. For years, we have allowed discussion on religion. The reason
why this policy was made is because even though the minority who would start
these religious threads did nothing wrong, and spoke in a civilized manner
to prove their points, other members of our community in those threads would
“flame” their ideas and say such things like “It’s our way. You’re wrong. If
you don’t follow my religion, you will go straight to hell”. What started as
civilized discussions on faith ended up in hatred, swearing, and even
threats. Almost every single thread started about religion ends up this way
on MK5.org. The fact is, as a staff, we don’t believe our members of the
community are mature enough to handle such discussions without flaming. The
reason being, most of our community is early teens averaging from about
13-15. Most of the flames that start in our religious threads come from such
individuals. And since, our core audience is this particular age group, it’s
practically impossible to stop it. It is our responsibility as
administrators to keep the environment suitable for all. We can not allow
such flaming to continue, or people will leave our site.This goes back to myself saying we want to promote a healthy community at
MK5.org. Your argument is that we should only be concerned with Christ and
his reputation. I wish it was that easy, but we are a Mortal Kombat website.
That is the center of the focus of my website, not religion. Unfortunately,
I’ll have to say that this decision has been made final and agreed upon by
the entire staff of my website.Yes, I am a Christian. I have no problem with people talking about religion
and their views as long as they can do it in a respectable manner. Sadly,
it’s something that our own community has proven over and over again as
impossible. However, if you would like to help by giving suggestions to
places on the internet that are for religious discussion, be my guest. I
have NO problem passing on such links to our viewers who are looking for
such places to communicate about their faith. Just an idea.Thanks for your input, it was much appreciated.
__________________________________
Scott Howell – Webmaster – scott@mk5.org
MK5.ORG – http://www.mk5.org
The Voice of the Mortal Kombat Community
I feel terrible that someone thinks that I’m against God because I’m banning such discussion on Religion. Hopefully I can work something out with the Pastor, like I mentioned.
In other news, I’ve having a don’t-give-a-hoot-homework-day-and-do-it-later syndrome. Tomorrow I’ll be back on track. 🙂 Nothing much else going on, just silly social issues that I don’t care to bore with you. Wish me luck on my Management Test.