@FRENCH_WAVE123 @sophia @Dragonmaster101 think you were all involved when I asked for your patience - thank you for this! below I’ve attempted to outline some responses to your questions/comments and better clarify what kind of discussions are appropriate where.
I see @PumpkinGirl has already beaten me to your first question:
to explain in more detail, making (kid-friendly, respectful) projects to raise awareness about issues that strike your passion is productive, creative, and welcome on hopscotch! the key is “raise awareness” - there is a difference here between educating, advocating, and invalidating.
to use an example from one of my project ideas: a project talking about the benefits of grass-fed cattle would be educating (it lays out information with the goal of letting others know about it, and players can do what they like with this information), a project recommending that players buy more grass-fed cattle would be advocating (creator’s opinion is shared, players are urged to take a specific course of action), and a project saying that anyone who eats CAFO-produced meat is a bad person would be invalidating (saying something bad about a belief that someone else may value dearly).
we like educating - we’re an educational community! it probably goes without saying that invalidating is not okay. we also like advocating - but we must understand that certain spaces are more fitted for advocacy than others.
projects are great spaces for advocacy because they allow us the opportunity to do so in a productive way! however, discussing our political/religious opinions in a space like the forum poses a much higher risk for invalidating others than doing so in a project. you might have noticed this during your discussion earlier, where other users felt strong emotions because they disagreed or because they didn’t want to talk about it. the forum - especially the yak - is a public place where replies can happen quickly, and even if you think a conversation is “under control”, emotions can be hurt very quickly.
not to mention, many of our users are young, and are coming into their own ideas about the world. we may not know what circumstances of identity and environment inform someone else’s worldview. so the most important thing is that if someone tells you your advocacy is bordering on invalidation for them (as Dragonmaster has done), I would hope you’d respect their right to come to their ideals on their own.
a little less officially, I talked to a friend about this who is a little stronger in his faith than I am in mine
and he provided some interesting insight. while he does recognize that an important mission of Christians is to share beliefs with others, he knows that the most effective way to do that is through emotional connection and deep relationships with others. while relationships between coders flourish on the forum, the fact that our platform is public “limits the depth of said relationships” (friend’s words), making it not the ideal place for advocating specific beliefs.
hope this insight is helpful, or at least easier to relate to?
hope this helps!
