AAF Discussion Forum GuidelinesWelcome all, Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers is an official student organization at New York University. We hold weekly meetings on campus, and hold events throughout the year. Although most of our meetings are discussion-based, there's still plenty of stuff to talk about and share outside of meetings--hence this forum. A few things before we begin: The rules of this forum are simple and, I think, reasonably self-evident. Any questions can be directed to the officers. And really, you're all wonderful and intelligent people so I'm sure we won't have any problems, but just in case, here are the basic guidelines: * The forum is open to everyone, not exclusively NYU students/faculty/alumni. Everyone, in this case, means everyone interested in facilitating the exchange of information and ideas in a respectful, at least semi-intelligent fashion. * Diversity is essential to keeping this forum interesting, so please be respectful of differences and keep debates clean and thought-out. There's far too much drama on the internet as it is. Flaming and other such nastiness will invite the wrath of your administrators, and nobody wants that. Really. * On that, just a clarifying point: Believers -- If you're here, we're assuming you're not the type to do this anyway, but just in case: Please don't bother with the UR ALL GONNA BURN IN HELL CUZ U DONT BELEIVE IN CRIST crap, mmkay? Such posts will be deleted, for obnoxious content just as much as for horrible grammar. Atheists, agnostics, and you lot in general -- That goes for you too. No pestering each other or other people solely because of their beliefs. Remember that we do have religious people on this forum, and that degrading all religion as a whole without stopping to think about the people involved on the other end of this dialogue we're trying to create here is the atheist-evangelical equivalent of the UR GONNA BURN attitude mentioned above. That doesn't mean no serious debating or questioning each other on facts, logical arguments and the like--by all means, go at it--but we're all old enough to know the difference between a productive intellectual debate and a mudslinging contest. In other words, everyone, play nice. * This forum is open to non-club-related, informal discussion, but *please* be considerate about what (and how much) non-AAF stuff you post. We like hearing about other events and happenings on campus, in the city and in the world. Calls for new roommates, catsitters, somebody to take your half-broken stereo off your hands for $10...not so much. You're still allowed to post that kind of thing here if you really feel the need, but please, not in bulk. This list fills up some of its members' inboxes fast enough as it is. * Please respect authors, publishers, and keep a general copyright sensibility. If you'd like to post an article, post a link as well, if available. If you post a long section out of a book (we're not entirely sure why you would, but whatever), remember to cite it--no, we're not insisting on MLA or anything but it's good to know at least the author and the title of the work being discussed. * There's no real censorship on this board, but please keep the content of your posts appropriate to this forum. Offensive or personal remarks are for other boards, and nobody is signing on to this list to read that kind of crap anyway. Links to pictures should be semi-appropriate--or at least warn members when they're about to be subjected to something more than a little bit explicit. "Adult language" is fine (we're all adults here, right?). Conversely, plz tHiNk b4 u p0s7 liek diz because I might be forced to track you down and break your legs. * Please no spamming, post-whoring, or other such nonsense. Not every post in here needs to be the beautifully written culmination of 20+ years of philosophical reflection on the nature of life and the universe, but nobody wants to see a bunch of random useless crap taking up space between interesting and/or pertinent posts. * I don't think I can stress the No Drama thing enough. If you have a problem with another board member, you can bring it to the attention of the administrators, and we can hopefully get it resolved. Off-list messages need not be posted to the entire listserv for any issues to get worked out. Again, this comes down to being courteous to the other members--they do not want to be involved with your interpersonal drama any more than you want to be involved with theirs. * As anybody who's been to the club meetings will affirm, we're really not the type to stand on ceremony. If you get really annoying to the members, moderators or administrators, you will be warned, and if you keep at it, you'll be banned. Simple as that. Like I said: Simple and self-evident. This forum doesn't usually have any major problems but just in case, the rules are at least here to be seen. And, now that all that's out of the way, welcome to the forum! Go forth and discuss. :-) --Your Webmistress |
