Policies on Politics & Religion

Political and religious discussions will be locked or removed from the forum, along with political campaigning, slogans, and imagery. As a gaming community, we are not staffed to moderate these types of topics, which often require in-depth knowledge of the subject matter and up-to-date awareness of current events. While we recognize the value of confronting serious real-world issues, many other online platforms are available for discussing politics and religion. The Bell Tree aims to provide an escape from these debates and create a positive, welcoming environment centered on gaming, collecting, and creativity.

Political Campaigning

Promoting a political campaign for a candidate, party, or cause in threads, profile posts, signatures, avatars, and user titles falls under this rule. This includes announcing support for campaigns, asking others for support, displaying campaign imagery, or using campaign slogans.

Public Policy and Legal Matters

Debates or discussions about public policy, government decisions, law enforcement actions, or specific legal cases fall under this rule. These topics often involve sensitive real-world issues that go beyond the scope of this forum and can quickly lead to heated arguments.

Religious Beliefs

Similarly, urging others to adopt religious beliefs or debating religious beliefs falls under this rule.

Neutral Adjacent Topics

Neutral references to related topics, such as mentioning that you voted or reminding others of an election date, are allowed. These rules are intended to reduce debate and discussion of political and religious issues, not to prevent neutral or informational statements.

Human Rights

Statements and slogans in support of human rights are allowed because we do not consider expressions of support for human rights to be political. However, these topics can overlap with politics in many contexts. For this reason, threads created specifically for advocacy, including causes related to human rights, may be locked, as moderating these discussions is beyond the scope of the forum.

Slogans With Multiple Meanings

To prevent escalating political arguments, please avoid using slogans or phrases that have multiple or conflicting meanings, especially those tied to real-world conflicts. If you use wording that could be interpreted in opposing ways, the moderators may ask you to clarify or revise it to something more widely understood and less open to misinterpretation.

Examples of Not Allowed Statements

• "Vote for Candidate X!"
  • This is a promotion of a political candidate.
• "Please support X to become a law."
  • This is a promotion of a cause or public policy.
• "Should X be a law?"
  • This is a discussion about public policy.
• "The police were right/wrong in this case."
  • This is a statement about legal matters and often leads to arguments.
• "Make America Great Again" and "When we Fight, we Win."
  • These are political campaign slogans.
• "Everyone must follow X religion to be moral."
  • This is a statement that advocates for others to follow a specific religion.
• "All Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter"
  • These slogans were created in response to the "Black Lives Matter" slogan and are often used to reject or misinterpret it.
• "From the River to the Sea"
  • This is a controversial slogan with differing interpretations. For this reason, we ask members to use alternatives such as "Free Palestine" instead.

Examples of Allowed Statements

• "I voted today."
  • This describes a neutral action without promoting a specific campaign.
• "Don't forget to vote today!"
  • This is an informative and neutral statement.
• "I follow X religion."
  • This is a personal statement about religious identity.
• "I am celebrating my religious holiday today."
  • This describes an action without promoting specific beliefs.
• "Black Lives Matter"
  • This is a slogan in support of human rights.
• "Trans rights are human rights."
  • This is a statement/slogan in support of human rights.
• "Free Palestine"
  • This is a slogan in support of a humanitarian cause.