Just as a note re. "godless": It implies monotheism, and nothing else. God(s)less is a more inclusive suggestion, but it's a wacky-looking construction nonetheless. As far as political beliefs, I'm hard-left liberal, so at least that was easy. I'd have liked a null option for gender, though--simply because I'm a bit more leery about revealing my gender than my politics, when communicating in an anonymous forum. - Signed, an agnostic who uses the term in the sense that I don't believe there is anything out there, but cannot know for certain, given human limitations. I fall into the soft-atheist/hard-agnostic category, anyway, and tend to identify as an agnostic because sometimes people assume things when I use 'atheist' instead. But I've found beauty and philosophical truth in all of the religious primary texts I've read.
semantically, including 'null' for gender would be kinda silly, imo, since no one is 'genderless' ;-)... but inclusion of a 'prefer not to say' option could cover those like yourself, aconite... my point exactly... as those are personal choices that should not come into play here unless the poster wishes to refer to them... gender, however, is necessary so when referring to other members, we can use 'he/him/his' and 'she/her/hers' instead of having toflail about with acceptably neutral alternatives... and the seriously leery can still opt for 'prefer not to say'...
Currently, the member has to select either Male or Female for gender. In the early days of the forum, you could leave it empty, but that hasn't been the case for a long time. An "I'm not telling" choice would probably be a good idea, even if it does make pronoun references awkward.
When originally asked to state my religion, I replied: ‘agnostic‘ which to me means: ‘I don’t know, I am a sitter on the fence.’ If I had been asked the question in Britain I would have ignored it, as nowadays it is deemed to be impertinent to ask. A person’s religion or lack of it, is of their private preference. I would hope in the Western world in the twenty first century that it made no difference as to what my answer might be, especially on a writing forum. In which case, why ask the new member to make a declaration?
if so, they can simply add that info to their profile blurb... but for the admin to force all to either state their religios belief, or to state that they decline to answer is appallingly intrusive, imo... if they're going to continue doing that, they might as well add the requirement that we all state our race, income, preferred sexual position, stance on abortion/capital punishment, and how we eat oreos... all of which are just as irrelevant on a writing site as what god/s we believe in, or don't...
Only the username, password, gender, birthdate, and email address are required fields for a new member, and the user is not required to make either the birthdate or the email address public (and of course the password is never public). Religion and politics are completely optional. I do see the argument that even asking about them is somewhat nosy and intrusive, but I also feel most members know enough not to answer questions they feel are too personal. The only question I see as currently problematic is gender, because it is required, and the member cannot change it. Birthdate also cannot be changed by the member, but in reality that does change less frequently than gender. Members should have the option of not openly disclosing gender.
Maia, there's a social net-working aspect of any forum, and some people might find religion relevant in that. So I don't see the issue of having an option for it, as long as you aren't required to disclose som sort of association.
I don't see what it matters. Everyone is going to interperet your answer on any of the available questions differently than what you may mean anyway. I might say, "Hey, I'm a Christian." and that could be viewed 58+ different ways. I, for one, Believe in God, hold the bible as the infalliable truth, but think it should be taken into serious context and I do not believe in a lot of other more general Christian beliefs like gay marriage being wrong, or that the unbaptised go to hell (of course these thoughts are held by different denominations but, still, all Christian) so when I say Christian, someone might see that and interperet it as "Obnoxious, close minded republican" when in truth, I'm only obnoxious. My point being that no definition will ever be satisfactory and no title will ever be seen in the same light you probably see it in. All I can really say is, get over it. Some things are just complicated and you should be happy enough understanding who you are, even if other poeple never will.
how about adding species?... being thoroughly ashamed of having to be considered human, i've applied for adoption by amoebae and would like to have that be noted, when my species category changes to a more honorable one... ;-) [terra... i did add the oreos on purpose, to lighten the seriousness load]
lol okay. It definitely worked. I knew it! I knew you weren't! Do artists count as a species? We are pretty odd.
