Community Guidelines
-MODIFIED MARCH OF 2018-At New Age Christianity, our CULTURE is our ‘product’. While we obviously strive to establish this culture in every post we make, we are most excited to see how this culture finds its way into our online community as a whole. As such, we value our community for the deep participation that occurs within the comment section of each post — a commenting culture that encourages robust, thoughtful observations, feelings and insights that bring a subject to life. At New Age Christianity, we love maintaining this culture and take the discussion of ideas seriously. The guidelines below seek to protect the integrity of both.
Major considerations regarding the HEART of our Culture
We are not here to police anyone, however, we understand that much of our content is deeply meaningful to our community members and can create strong reactions to opposing viewpoints. As such, we ask that you help us create the type of culture we are looking to create by keeping the heart of New Age Christianity at the center of your intentions when you engage with other members.
- Honor Our Core Values: The overall gist of our Core Values is relatively simple; treat others with more respect than you think they deserve, be patient with everyone, and stay positive in a world full of negative viewpoints.
- Don’t get sucked into an argument: It is a common misunderstanding to think that to point of discussions is to find agreement, when in fact, the point of discussion is to fully UNDERSTAND the other part (not 'agree with'). If you find yourself in a disagreement, it can oftentimes be resolved by simply disengaging from the back and forth with the individual(s) involved.
- Leave the old way of doing things behind: Read Our Story to get a better idea of what we mean by this. Simply put, everyone knows that the current way of doing things in the world is not working. We can either continue to do things the same way over and over again and keep getting the same results, or we can try doing things a new way. We have no desire to ‘change’ the way the current culture works. We have every intention of creating a NEW culture all together.
- Don’t feel ‘threatened’ by other people’s opinions: Allowing others to hold opinions and views that you believe to be foolish, stupid, ill-informed, ignorant, and the otherwise annoying, WITHOUT feeling threatened by the opinions themselves, is the true mark of someone who is firm in their OWN identity. Other people’s perspectives really should have ZERO bearing on your own sense of peace. If someone else’s thoughts create stress in you, instead of using that stress as ‘proof’ of their error, try using the presence of that stress as your opportunity to become more secure in your own identity.
- Avoid ‘Us’ VS ‘Them’ group-think: As with any online community forum we understand that there is a chance for certain discussions to lean heavily in one direction (for or against) the subject being discussed in the post. In these discussions, when ‘surrounded’ by people who think like you do, please avoid mocking, jabbing, and generalizing the beliefs of other ‘groups’ that you know might disagree with the consensus of the current group. This type of group-think, and ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality is the reason the world is as divided as it is today, and it is certainly not the culture we are creating here at New Age Christianity.
How to leave an Outstanding comment
To help you make the most of your comment, here are four things to do before clicking Submit:
- Read with your audience in mind: Is your comment appropriate for the community — including speakers, New Age Christianity staff, and your fellow commenters?
- Revise: Can I make this calmer and clearer? Can I be more concise?
- Support what you say: Can I make negative feedback more constructive? Can I elaborate further on positive feedback? Can I provide sources that support my claim?
- Review how you say it: Does my comment encourage a healthy discussion or is it going to put others on the defensive? The idea expressed in a comment may be a valid point, but if it is combative or rude to community members, it will be removed.
Do not post content that...
- Depicts pornography or sexual acts: If you have to ask what is appropriate or not, it’s probably not. Please steer clear of this type of content, period.
- Promotes or depicts unnecessary violence or graphic imagery: We understand that sometimes graphic content can be newsworthy, so we may allow comments that are deemed as such.
- Encourages, promotes, or depicts self-harm or suicide: When we receive reports that a person is threatening suicide or self harm, we may take a number of steps to assist them, such as reaching out to that person expressing our concern and providing resources such as contact information for our mental health partners.
- Is spammy: This includes commenting for the sole purpose of directing users to an external site or service or posting deliberately misleading comment titles.
- Has an unlawful purpose or furthers illegal activity: We ask that you agree to comply with all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content.
- Intends to impersonate: a person or brand with the intent to mislead, confuse, or deceive others. Parody, commentary, or fan accounts should be labeled as such.
- Infringes on another’s intellectual property: We will respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable law and are properly provided to us. If you believe that your content has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, you can report it to us here.
Comment Removal
Although we don’t like doing it, occasionally comments must be removed for the overall health of the New Age Christianity culture. To help you avoid the frustrations of comment removal, here are some reasons your comment may have been removed:
- Not appropriate for this culture: pseudoscience, zealotry, personal requests, proselytizing and self-promotion are not acceptable and will be removed.
- Inappropriate language: chat-room banter, text-speak and combatively postured comments are not appropriate. Calls to violence are never acceptable.
- Response to an inappropriate comment: Please use the Flag button instead.
- Terms of Use violation: We will remove any comment that violates the New Age Christianity Terms of Use.
- Monopolizing the conversation: Excessively posting the same comment or link across multiple talks or in response to multiple comments will result in the removal of all comments containing the duplicated material.
- Stereotyping: Sweeping generalizations of any group or individual based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or age will be removed, as will comparisons to specific historical archetypes such as Nazis or Satan.
- Honesty: Don’t post false information, rumors, or hearsay. If you don’t know it to be true, please don’t say it.
- Harassment of others: This includes content that promotes the abuse of other people and their beliefs, or the disruption of another person’s community experience.
A note about comment moderation and our moderators
- Our moderators are human so mistakes may happen. Please respond to the removal email you received if you feel your comment may have been removed in error.
- Harassing or attacking New Age Christianity moderators will result in the removal of your account.
- Removing comments that are not suitable for the community, as well as user accounts in their entirety is within the the New Age Christianity Terms of Use.