Hey HubPages

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   mike202posted 11 years ago

   Can you put all the religious, theology, atheist, etc.. stuff on a separate site, give it their own tab/page or something so the rest of us don't have to be hit in the face with it every time we come to hubpages.

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      CASE1WORKERposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I second that

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      AEvansposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Mike, What a great hub that would make.

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      silverstararrowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I second that too.

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   relacheposted 11 years ago

   I think it would be a lot more productive if they just built a feature that allowed us to block any forum categories we didn't want to read.

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      EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I would love this too. I find looking at umpteen threads with titles like "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" quite irritating.
      
      But HP has always ignored requests like yours, and I think it will carry on doing so. Why? I suspect lots of people post in those spammy religious threads because of the inflammatory, provocative titles that some of the threads have. More posts = more search engine visibility.
      
      Obviously people wouldn't post at all if they could block the religious forum category (out of sight = out of mind and all that jazz).
      
      I would bet money that HP actually pays a couple of people to start some of these threads just to generate traffic.
      
      I would also love it if religion and politics could be separated into two separate forum categories, but I don't think that's going to happen either.

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         EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Edit: "religion and philosophy"

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      Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with you Relache, that would be great.
      
      @EmpressFelicity, "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" really? that's classic!

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Definitely

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3. 63

   Lisa HWposted 11 years ago

   I don't know if they still do it (and I'm not particularly saying I think it's a great idea), but Helium used to separate everyone/everything in the forums; so all Conservatives had their place, all Liberals had their's, etc.  The religions were divided up so that everyone of each religious belief was lumped into threads with others who share the same beliefs.  Oh..  Then they had a place where people could go and have it out with each other if they ran into "issues" with someone else.    All very "neat and tidy", I guess.    In general, I don't like that approach (but it did eliminate some opportunities for people looking to find converts and/or feel superior to others who have different views than they. A whole lot of the people on here really aren't looking for discussion. Then again, how much discussion can really go on when you segregate everyone by political and religious beliefs. 
   
   If it were my site I wouldn't have either religion or politics on it, but it's not so they are.    The big blast of religious threads does hit you in the face, though (especially as Friday comes around and the blast picks up steam).

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4. 52

   mike202posted 11 years ago

   I'm not against these posts really, I guess my complaint is more about making it easier to navigate and find what I'm looking for. I joined HP 6 months ago and mostly want reviews and posts about tech issues, computers, etc. Every time I come to the main page it seems there are always posts like "Is there a God" and "Why I'm an atheist", I don't think these should be blocked, I just don't want to have to browse through them all the time looking for what I want. Maybe the hubpages home page should just be a listing of categories that would make it easier to search.

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      Aficionadaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Suggestion:  In the upper left corner, click on "All Forums."  On the left side of the page that results, choose the category that you wish to browse.  When you finish one category that you like, choose another one.

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   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   It would be such a relief to log onto the Forum and not see the endless threads about religion.  I'm fine with free speech, and everyone has a right to discuss, debate, whatever, but the amount of real estate taken by those threads is huge. I agree with Mike202 - if you're looking for helpful articles on tech issues, the latest Google Zoo Addition or even something fun and silly, you have to search and sift through thread after thread at times.

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      Jean Bakulaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree too. I don't go on the Forums often because some of the comments on Jesuspages.com here get me so annoyed I have to practically sit on my hands to not reply to some of these people. Many  don't even seem to have adequate Bible knowledge to back up their issues. And I'm sure it hurts me in other ways, since I miss the good Forum threads.

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         Aficionadaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         
         See my suggestion above for a quick and easy way to find the threads that interest you.
         
         My suggestion to HP would be to reverse the two columns.  Make the "Latest Forum Activity" a narrower column on the left, and make the listing by category a more visible and wider column on the right.

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6. 84

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   I saw your suggestion, but it would involve extra clicks (sometimes several) to sift through all the topics to see what the latest threads or posts are doing.  To me, the category listings are more archival than real-time dynamic.  I know they're there, and I've used them to search for something specific, but it's not the same as seeing what's moving on the main feed.

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   mike202posted 11 years ago

   could it be this easy? I just found that if you hover your mouse over the title of a post, like say "why did God create atheists" a small grey circle with an x in it appears over the top right hand corner. Click on this and you have the option of hiding posts in this specific topic, in this case 'religion/philosophy'. Done. It seriously limits the amount of useless (to me) clutter/postings I see when I click back to the homepage.

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   Uninvited Writerposted 11 years ago

   This might work
   
   https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta … ndemhfclfc
   
   It is a forum filter for HubPages, it's also available for Firefox. I use it and never see religious or political thread unless I want to.
   
   I would like to be able to block certain people in the forums...

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      mike202posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Looks like you can. The grey 'x' I found gives the option to hide stories from the person who posted, hide stories in that category, or just hide one story. 
      
      I guess I found my answer to this afterall, thanks for the input everyone, I hope it helps others have a more pleasant hubpages experience.

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         EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I must be really dense, but I can't get this grey x to come up anywhere - can anyone upload a screenshot?

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            Uninvited Writerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            That is only on the feed I think.

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               EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I just looked at my feed (something I hardly ever do) and am still stumped.

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                  Uninvited Writerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  If you hover your mouse over any post on the feed it comes up and has 3 options.

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         IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I've looked for that elusive grey X and can't find it anywhere. What browser are you using?

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         Uninvited Writerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         This just works on the feed. If you don't want to see all the forum postings the filter I mentioned before lets you choose categories you want to see.

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            EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Oh yes - I see it now!
            
            I find the feed a bit "noisy", which is why I never use it. And in order to make it do what I want it to do (follow every forum thread except those in the religion category), I'd have to follow every topic there is (except religion), and then filter the feed so that it only showed forum posts and nothing else?
            
            Sounds too much like hard work to me

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   Dame Scribeposted 11 years ago

   +1 to Relache great idea. Hubber wishlist

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    Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years ago

    They talk about religion on this site in the forums????
    
    When did this happen!!!!!!

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    Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

    I'll have to give the filter a try.  Thanks for the suggestion!   Maybe we can get the site to separate Religion and Philosophy; I can think of many philosophical topics and discussions that would fall outside of what we usually see on those threads.

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12. 52

    mike202posted 11 years ago

    Thanks all.

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    cottageindustryposted 11 years ago

    Unfortunately, religious topics draws traffic. Many people have a need to be holy! Most are pretending to know the truth and yet no one has died and come back to enlighten us all.
    
    I find it difficult to have reasonable argument with someone convinced sinners are going to hell or heaven. Nowadays, i look carefully when confronted by so called religious truth sayers because most have never taken the time to examine the origin of religion and how it was created and why. To keep the people in check!
    
    I am all for free speech and all i do is take a glance at the topics and just move on.

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    1. 52

       mike202posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I'm not sure I buy they argument that religion draws the most traffic here, although they do seem to be prolific posters.
       I'm not going to be drawn into a debate, don't come to hubpages for that. And I don't advocate restricting anyones free speech in any way. It's everywhere.  Yahoo, Craiglslist, or any other forum, I don't have to scroll past 20 "who wrote the bible" "do you believe in God" "are angles real" posts to find one or two I might be interested in. I can go to Craigslist and join a religious debate if I want, or I can go to any other topic and not have to wade through all the other ones. By not forcing the topic in front of my eyes, does that limit anyone's free speech??

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    psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

    I wish I could block that forum.

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    1. 52

       mike202posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       you can. Click on the Hubpages logo top left side. On the Hubpages/feed page you'll see all the most recent posts. Hoover your mouse over any of these and you'll see a grey x over the top right side, click on this and you'll have the option of hiding posts from that author, or in that specific category, or just that post.

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