Religious postings appearing in home page feed

[GeraldineMerida]

A player is using his creation of tutorials, currently Kingdom Builder, to spread his religious views in other players' homepage feeds. He announces a new tutorial and then adds religious comments, so that anyone who has favourited that game receives his indoctrination.

I find this very offensive, and hope BGA will do something to protect me from this as soon as possible.

So much is done to protect users from being exposed to mild swearwords, etc., but this is far more objectionable, in my view.

(I have not named the user here, but he should be very easy to find: *

*Moderator edit: please remember that calling out players by name - or enough of the name to make them easily identifiable - is not permitted on the Forums. This is a space for general discussion, not of specific players.

[ufm]

The tutorial itself is perfectly fine so it should not be revoked.
But the first comment there derailed everything as other comments were reactions against it.
Just message someone if you want to share or refute thoughts about sensitive topics.

[jesslc]

I also found it very inappropriate to encounter posts promoting christianity on my homepage here. I feel strongly that BGA is not an appropriate place to promote your personal religious beliefs.

I am considering reporting the person for having an offensive username, but I'm not sure if the mods would consider it offensive. But I believe the system stops people from creating usernames with the word god in them though, so why should this username be any different? Especially when this person is actively using their account to promote christianity here on BGA.

If the person was just doing their own thing playing games here, I would be content with just giving them a private red thumb and moving on. But once they started actively promoting christianity in such a visible spot as the main homepage or the large group for all players of a particular game then I really think that it's time for the mods step in and say this website is not an appropriate place for promoting your religous beliefs so save it for your church.

[RicardoRix]

Misleading \ exaggerated reporting here.
He/she was asked about it, and they replied.
I don't see the problem.

[GeraldineMerida]

I feel strongly that BGA is not an appropriate place to promote your personal religious beliefs.

I am considering reporting the person for having an offensive username, but I'm not sure if the mods would consider it offensive.

I already reported them: the ToS do not allow usernames which are political or involve advertising. This user is 'advertising' Christianity with their username.

In addition, their profile page contains a lengthy evangelistic passage.

[RicardoRix]

They just like being a Christian. Big whoop.
The context of the profile page is 'About me'. Seems accurate.

[GeraldineMerida]

They just like being a Christian. Big whoop.
The context of the profile page is 'About me'. Seems accurate.

How do you think someone who 'just liked being a Russian soldier' and wrote about it on their profile page would get on? Or someone who 'just liked being a swinger'?

BGA's ToS limit what can be posted publicly for fear of making other users uncomfortable/offended, and evangelising is much more offensive to some people than political comments or sexual innuendo.

[Ze Monstah]

They just like being a Christian. Big whoop.
The context of the profile page is 'About me'. Seems accurate.

How do you think someone who 'just liked being a Russian soldier' and wrote about it on their profile page would get on? Or someone who 'just liked being a swinger'?

BGA's ToS limit what can be posted publicly for fear of making other users uncomfortable/offended, and evangelising is much more offensive to some people than political comments or sexual innuendo.

I am also "advertising" an English Musician with my username.
Some people might hate the English Musician I am "advertising" with my username, for different reasons.
Based on your logic, should I be reported for this, or punished? Just because "some" people might hate it, and might consider I am advertising?

You said that "the ToS do not allow usernames which are political or involve advertising" -> His is not political and you only consider his writing about his beliefs, as a form of "advertising".
Again, with this logic, a person who writes on their "about me" section that they like games such as "Puerto Rico" or "Battle of Sexes" or "WWII", could be considered to be advertising racism or sexism or 2nd. World War, right? It's farfetched, but some people might be really offended by seeing someone say they like those games.
This could also mean no one can say "I like" in the "About me" section, because this might automatically imply "Advertising" - which the ToS forbid.

Also, Religion is a bit different than War or Sexual Innuendos that might (unintentionally) hurt a minor, in my opinion.
Even if some people might get more hurt by seeing someone write "I like Hinduism", I think that the person above saying this reporting is a tad exaggerated here, might be right.
Apart from the fact that the Forum is not a place for reporting or public shaming people; I think there's the REPORT section on a user's profile page, for that.

And also, in your first post, you said "I have not named the user here, but he should be very easy to find: his username includes '*'".
Even if the entire username was not mentioned, I was curious enough to search and find who you were talking about, and some people who only gave 3 letters of some usernames they wanted to publicly shame, got warnings from the BGA team, since, you know... public shaming is forbidden.

And also, you are advertising cute bunnies, which some folks might hate, so...

*Moderator edit: reference to specific player removed from the quote

[fruktansvärt]

His is not political

that depends on your definition of political. i would say religion falls under politics, these days, and having the name of a religious book in your username is political.

if i chose the username "ReligiousBookIsBad" (insert the bible, the quran, bhagavad gita, dianetics, what have you) – is that not political?

[Ze Monstah]

His is not political

that depends on your definition of political. i would say religion falls under politics, these days, and having the name of a religious book in your username is political.

if i chose the username "ReligiousBookIsBad" (insert the bible, the quran, bhagavad gita, dianetics, what have you) – is that not political?

I don't agree that Religion falls (or should fall) under Politics these day (or ever), I don't agree with the tendency of assimilating everything to Politics these days, I don't agree with the comparison the Original Poster gave: comparing a user who expresses his love for a certain religion with a hypothetical user who says he loves being a Russian soldier now (I find the comparison kind of offensive, actually), and I don't even agree with people saying war falls completely under Politics.

As for your question, I don't consider "ReligiousBookIsBad" political, the same as I don't consider "MursiTribeIsBad" or anything similar thing. I just consider them offensive and that's all, definitely deserving to be moderated.
The same goes for anything with an insulting or negative meaning addressed to a certain issue (religion, sexual orientation, society and culture in general).

I don't know if you are aware of the exact username in question here, in this post. It's not something negative to anyone (the username doesn't have "IsBad" in it, or anything else with a negative shade). So I fail to understand why you asked the "ReligiousBookIsBad" question.

Why would a certain someone care if a BGA User expresses their love for a thing that that certain someone cannot relate to, if it's not directly offensive to anything?
I mean... The guy just says he likes a religion, he's not bringing a homage to murder or saying other religions are bad or anything else, like I've seen other accounts do (perhaps as a joke), without anyone saying anything.

I wouldn't express my admiration for a certain religion, on my BGA account (like the User in Question does), but I really think people get a bit too upset over anything, these days, making everything look like a political game.