Kinship Themes

[Stelk]

Discussion of Religion and/or Politics is against the forums ToS - See the first post?

It is illegal to not allow a RELIGION to discuss their religion and or religious views and beliefs.

However it is legal to not allow a RELIGION to force their beliefs and views on others. key word FORCE.

Open discussion of religion is allowed under EULA and therefore is legal regardless of what TOS says.

[Stelk]

On a more general note, if I'm looking for a Kinship by theme, (i.e Christian, Hobbit, U.S West Coast, etc.) is there a way I can do that?

It is quite legal to post that you are looking for a Christian Kin, a Hobbit, kin or even a West Coast Kin.

What is not legal is to force members to be Christian, from the west coast etc...

Going into these Kins you must realize that there may well be a few or many who are not, West Coast or Christian.
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If I make a Kin and call it "Disciples of Christ", obviously a Christian kin. I can say that we are recruiting for our Christian kin.
I can not say that we are recruiting only Christians for our Christian kin and then force members to be Christian.

We can recruit players and openly discuss Christianity and Jesus, this is protected. We just can't force you to discuss it, nor
can we force you to be a Christian.
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Think of it as a high school boys football team. I can call it a Boys Football team, I can not however force women to not play.
If a woman joins the Boys Football team the name maybe misleading, but that is ok as long as we openly allow women to join and
we make reasonable accommodations for these women to be able to participate in a non-offensive and non-threatening way toward women.

[Ejinn]

It is illegal to not allow a RELIGION to discuss their religion and or religious views and beliefs.

However it is legal to not allow a RELIGION to force their beliefs and views on others. key word FORCE.

Open discussion of religion is allowed under EULA and therefore is legal regardless of what TOS says.

I don't mind digging up an old thread, because this certainly bothered me a bit.

What Stelk wrote is what I was thinking exactly. Last I checked, unless you live in a dictatorship country where freedom of speech is non existent, there is no way they can control discussion of "Religion" here. Good grief this game for one is based upon a series of books written by a Christian, and secondly what is up with the attempt at severely controlling that of which the company has no legal right (nor right by honor) to control in the first place. If things on a forum get out of hand, (insults, etc), sure control it, moderate and move on, but don't tell us you can control topics of conversation in your forums that you legally cannot control. And if moderators have gone the distance of deleting posts and even removing members because of such topics, all I can say is they are lucky no one has gotten the inclination to pursue things legally. I mean really... I've seen topics and conversations in Mmo forums about Jesus and God, and the Mmo's themselves had nothing to do with Christianity at all, and yet I see them trying to control all of this here? It's really ironic I picked this game of the massive slew of Mmo's out there because the game has a good volume of honorable and clean content, the story has a good direction, and then I see this. I'm going to keep playing, but you better bet some of the content in this TOS means nothing to me, and in fact they really should not even be attempting to indicate in their TOS that they have some sort of right to control the freedom of speech within their forums.

[Aamu]

I think Turbine's position is probably at bottom that someone can't be blackballed from a kinship on explicit grounds of religious beliefs. Someone wanting to join a kinship that's specifically for Christian believers can't be told "You can't join us because you said you believe in Wicca" or Islam or Asatru or Existentialism or whatever. Usually the way people operate such an explicit message is not conveyed. The person just doesn't get their application accepted and other reasons are given to avoid trouble.

[LauraHolt]

Greetings! We’ve noticed a frequently occurring topic with Kinship themes in the LOTRO community, and wanted to take a moment to clarify our overall policy on this issue.


In-Game Policy
As per section 6 of our End User License Agreement (http://lotro.turbine.com/article/312):

Content created by you must not: (a) infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other proprietary right of any person or entity; (b) be profane, obscene, indecent or violate any law or regulation; (c) defame, abuse, harass, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others; (d) incite discrimination, hate or violence towards one person or a group because of their race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender, or insult the victims of crimes against humanity by contesting the existence of those crimes…

What does this mean for Kinships created with a theme that fits one of the above categories? Well, first, it does not violate the rules of this agreement to create such a Kinship. However, such a Kinship must understand that they cannot refuse entry into their ranks based solely on their chosen theme, because that would actually be another form of discrimination (i.e., a religiously-themed kinship cannot deny participation by another player purely because that player is not of that religion; the same applies for race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender).

What about recruitment for such a Kinship in open chat? Players ARE allowed to make such a recruitment offer in chat. For example, “X Kinship invites you to join our Kinship, please send me a tell for more information.” You may not say, “X Kinship invites you to join our Kinship. You must be X, all others need not apply,” where X is a theme that falls into any of the aforementioned categories. Other players should not then engage in discussions on topic X just because a Kinship of that theme made a recruitment invitation in /ooc. Harassment surrounding such an offer will also be handled accordingly. Also, as per section 13 of the EULA, you may not create anti-X Kinships:

You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology is based upon or resembles anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-sexual orientation, nationalistic, racist or sexist philosophies.

Forum Policy
Our policy on the official forums mirrors our in-game policy. Players may post recruitment threads for themed Kinships as discussed above, but should refrain from discussions on those themes. As per our Forum Guidelines (http://forums.lotro.com/announcement.php?f=3&a=1):

12. Discussion of religious or political topics is prohibited on the Forums.

17. Users must not violate, or promote the violation of, Turbine’s terms of service, codes of conduct or end user license agreements.

We hope the above clarifications will help our community understand the rules and reasoning behind both in-game GM and forum moderation enforcement decisions on this topic. These policies are not arbitrary, and are put in place to ensure the most fair and enjoyable gaming environment possible for you, our collective community.

Thank you for your cooperation! If you have questions, please post them below.

I know this is a very very very old thread, but I just wanted to note the irony of the EULA, particularly as it relates to religion. Dear Turbine, you do know that JRR Tolkien was a devout Catholic and Christian Apologist, right? That he himself referred to The Lord of the Rings as a CATHOLIC work? That he spoke of God often and related it to his writings? That, while he did not like allegory, he admitted to his religion being a big influence in his works. To say that religion has zero place in any discussion of Lotr is rather like saying Hobbits have zero place in those discussions... I understand the reason for the EULA and won't violate it as there are plenty of non-Turbine/WB affiliated places to discuss religion in Lotr and I have no desire to grief anyone (or be griefed), but I just felt like someone needed to point out the irony of being afraid of religious discussions surrounding the works of a deeply religious man. It is just strange to me that many quotes by the MAN WHO WROTE THE LORD OF THE RINGS would almost certainly violate your EULA. Like this one: “We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.” ? J.R.R. Tolkien ............... I'm just saying... <shrug>