Why was my thread about religion deleted?

[Lucian Hodoboc]

Maybe I missed it, but I could not find any rules prohibiting discussions about religion in the rules thread. My thread was simply deleted without any explanation, which is a bit unprofessional on the staff's part. I'm all for obeying the rules, as long as they are publicly listed.

[Dazed & Confused]

You made about 10 threads so maybe someone got sick of them.

[SarahLancaster]

I deleted it because it was a survey and not a thread about relationships.

Perhaps instead of a survey, you can start a thread on how religion affects relationships.

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I deleted it because it was a survey and not a thread about relationships.

It was posted in The Water Cooler and I was under the impression that members were allowed to discuss about anything in that forum section. In The Water Cooler, have seen threads about career, hobbies, education and other things that are not related to relationships, so I really don't see why talking about religion is prohibited. Please, accept my sincere apology if I was mistaken.

[SarahLancaster]

No one is prohibiting you from discussing religion. You posted a survey. Usually, when people post surveys, it's spam and that's why I eliminated it. You also posted several other 'survey-like' threads that same day, which led me to believe you were a spammer.

[Oversharedude]

Sarah is right, we don't like our members being used for survey fodder. The idea behind anonymity here is that we minimise the chance of people finding out anything about anyone unless they willingly share it themselves.
This includes surveys.

Discussion about religion is OK, as long as it doesn't turn in to mud-flinging

[Lucian Hodoboc]

No one is prohibiting you from discussing religion. You posted a survey. Usually, when people post surveys, it's spam and that's why I eliminated it. You also posted several other 'survey-like' threads that same day, which led me to believe you were a spammer.

Uhm... First of all, I did not post a survey. I merely added a poll to a thread - not to an empty thread, mind you, but a thread that contained a paragraph of text in which I invited the people to talk about their religious beliefs without trying to proselytize or to attack other people's beliefs. Secondly, there is nothing in the forum rules against adding polls to the threads. Thirdly, I fail to see how disclosing your own religious beliefs affects your anonymity more than disclosing your hobbies, your career or any other aspects of your life does.

If you don't want polls attached to threads (by the way, vBulletin calls them polls, not surveys:



), I think there might be something in the admin panel that can disable this feature (I'm not sure about vBulletin, as I have not used this software from the administrative side so far, but I have used other forum scripts, and they usually provided a way to disable polls).

And fourthly, how can you think that I was a spammer? Spammers usually come here to advertise things, either by posting links to other websites or by having links in their signature. As you can see, I have not posted any links to advertise anything. If you label any new member a spammer just cause they make four or five topics, then I don't know what to say.

Anyways, I don't want to drag this any longer. Sorry for being abrasive about it. I'll make sure to never post any polls from now on. Thank you for your clarification!

[SarahLancaster]

You're absolutely right. There IS a feature that allows polls.