User:Sips911/R&S

This is currently under construction and will eventually be submitted under the R&S Title. Feel free to edit this

R&S (also known as Yahoo! Answers Religion and Spirituality) is a question and answer resource board category at Yahoo! Answers which is intended to act as a vehicle towards the promotion of education and understanding within the realm of contemporary religious philosophy. Initially, the R&S section served as a place for true knowledge sharing, learning and respect for others' beliefs; however, at some point, mainly its USA section, turned a place to troll and debate atheism vs. Christianity, to the extent that many serious questions on faith/spirituality are either overlooked and ignored, or given unintelligible and funny responses.

Memes
Many of the memes currently in use have, for the most part, been created by atheist or pagan factions within the R&S community. In no particular order, they include: The Rapture, babby, babby eating, lolcat, bran muffins, handbaskets, ceiling cat.

R&S Acronyms

 * AM: Atheist Mafia
 * VT: Vile Temptress
 * JPA: Jewish Pagan Alliance
 * TJM: Tough Jews Mafia
 * FSM: Flying Spaghetti Monster
 * WSIDR: What Should I Do Retard
 * QMM: Question Mark Mafia
 * TIRH: This Is Religion Here (commonly used by R&S superstar, Fireball *see below*)
 * STR: Stop The Rude/Rudeness
 * TLDR: (commonly written as tl;dr) Too Long; didn't read

Drinking questions
A variation of the game, "Hi Bob!" developed. A variety of frequently asked and easily answered questions have become "drinking questions". When asked, many replies reference drinking. Among these are:
 * Pascal's Wager and variants
 * "Why are atheists in R&S?"
 * "If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?"
 * "Why are people gay? Is it a choice?" And other questions regarding such
 * "What's the difference between Catholics and Christians?"
 * "Could God make a boulder so big even he couldn't lift it?"

Fireball
Fireball is the most well-known (and loved) member of the R&S community. Since her debut into the forum in the Year of Our Lord 2008, Fireball has acquired nearly 100,000 points in answers regarding faith and spirituality. Fireball is a self-proclaimed Methodist Christian and is supposedly in her late 50's to early/mid 60's (as calculated by her profile).

Eg: "all things are going to end YOU NEED TO REPENT to JESUS to be SAVED if you want to"
 * Fireball follows a strict rule within the forum that includes, but is not limited to:
 * Not answering questions that are in regards to Fireball (only seen on a rare occasion)
 * Responses that are incoherent and include randomized capitalization's.
 * Uses the acronym TIRH when questions are not R&S related
 * NEVER asks a question in the R&S forum
 * NEVER achieves Top Contributor status
 * ALWAYS gets at least one (1) Thumbs down in every question she answers. Most of the time her answers achieve the "This answer has been hidden due to its low rating" status

Fireball has a significant reputation within the community. Despite everyone disagreeing with what she has to say, almost every R&S regular will stand and defend Fireball at any given chance.

No Chance Without Atheists
No Chance Without Atheists is a user that mainly answers questions in R&S and sometimes asks questions. He has said on many occasions that he got his name from a parody of No Chance Without Jesus whom is usually seen as his Christian counterpart. He is known for his use of extreme language in which he would usually call religious people perverts and pedophiles.

He is also known for defending the LGBT community and is also rumored to be gay himself. Although he is only a Level 5 user, he has said that he has got suspended countless times and blames the user Fireball and other known Christian users for reporting him. Most atheist R&S regulars seem to agree with what he says and therefore will usually defend him.

Unconventional Community Involvement
Despite the intended use of the Yahoo! Answers R&S board to be used as a question and answer resource, some community members (CMs) use the service as a mode of time-wasting entertainment. While such use of the service is a violation of Community Guidelines and/or Terms of Service, CMs willingly risk point loss and account deletion by engaging in these activities.

Such avenues include:
 * R&S Wheel of Fortune: This game is only initiated when the user 'Marlboro Man' is within the forum. He is the only one that begins the game and is found on the rare occasion. Marlboro Man (aka: MM) creates a phrase that always includes an R&S regular's name within the puzzle and community members try to solve the puzzle just like that on the actual TV show. The first to solve the puzzle is awarded 10 points.
 * The Avatar Above Me game: Predominantly unique to Yahoo! Answers Polls and Surveys category, this game has occasionally appeared in R&S.  Questions posed seek answers in a format that deal directly with the community member previous to the one answering the question.(i.e.: What is one word that describes the avatar above you?)
 * Category RAIDs: Community members will flood a category with spurious questions in a concerted manner for a brief period of time. (i.e.: In the cat section, "Was Bill THE Cat?", "How can I stop my cat Harold from hiding my TV remote?", "Can Ceiling Cat has loves?")
 * Troll rolls: which is asking and answering questions of a certain theme or topic repeatedly whilst inciting the fury of the few users who are trying to take the R&S section seriously. Example: Question 1, "Christians, do you only give side hugs?". Question 2: "My pastor gave me a side-hug, but I think he touched me inappropriately anyway?". Question 3: "I saw my wife give a front hug to a man, what should I do!?", etc. Troll-rolls can last an hour, or a week. Successful rolls result in memes.

"Spiritually Speaking..." or "Religiously Speaking...
-The former phrases are often used in the R&S forum when a community member decides to ask a question that is unorthodox or unethical to the R&S forum itself. For example, community members would ask "Spiritually Speaking, what is your favorite color?" The original intention to place theses phrases before the question are 1) Yahoo! Answers does not delete the question off the forum because it is, in theory, a question regarding religion and/or spirituality and 2) Users find it easier to place such so the question falls (hopefully) under the R&S 'Suggested Category' section. Rather than the User having to waste their time to span "Browse Categories > Society & Culture > Religion & Spirituality".

The R&S Princess
Princess also known as Nicest Princess, is a community member that has been a Yahoo! Answers member since 2006. She has been suspended from Yahoo! Answers at least 70 times and is capable of returning to the forum despite suspension. She is well known to ask questions within the R&S forum regarding Tim Tebow an American football star who plays for the Denver Broncos. Her name, Princess, was inspired by her hobby and love for Disney princesses and other Disney characters alike. Occasionally, the R&S Princess will ask questions regarding the Jovian Planet, Uranus and the Connecticut town of Mianus. For example, one question asked could be, "Spiritually Speaking, why is Uranus so gassy?" and "Why is there a hole in Mianus?" The purpose of the Uranus/Mianus tomfoolery is to poke fun at the fact that Uranus sounds like 'Your Anus' and Mianus sounds like 'My Anus'. These questions asked in the R&S forum are considered violations of the forum.

Uncle Wayne
Goes by several names at times, but all use either "uncle" or "wayne" in them, unless he's completely icognito in which case he usually uses a drag queen avatar. Uncle Wayne is most known for his extremem dislike of report monkeys and St. Paul. Regarding the former, he has often times been the leader behind attacks against some of the strongest report monkeys. Some of the most notable ones were "Avatar Game Destroyer" and "The-Account-Destroyer", both with several accounts with super high trust ratings that took the combined efforts of most of the regulars. He is also known to sip one to many snifters of brandy and get all fuzzy and warm.

Types of Community Members

 * Troll: Someone who posts a question within the forum in an attempt to arouse/agitate/infuriate and shock the other members within the community. Trolls are successful when answers to the question are either debatable against the troll's "question"; the community member expresses their disdain for the question and/or the community member tries to give an intellectual response to the question. The troll is generally unsuccessful at "trolling" when the community members call out the troll by posting A) troll fail B) Do Not Feed the Troll or C) a rating scale such as "1/10 for trolling" (see )


 * Poes: A 'Poe' is generally someone of one religion or belief that posts a question seemingly from another religion or beleif's perspective.  Usually intended to make said religion or belief appear unintelligent.  For example, an Atheist might post a question disguised as a creationist asking, "Since the banana is obviously created specifically for human consuption, how can one deny that it was made by an Intelligent Designer?"  Since this idea is widely ridikculed, it makes Creationists look ridiculous.


 * Report Monkey: A community member who does nothing else but violate those within the forum (generally well-known regs) in an attempt to get other members within the community violated by Yahoo! Answers staff and in extreme attempts to even get the member suspended from Yahoo! Answers in general. To combat a Report Monkey, regs often communicate with each other and hold "block party's" to find who the Report Monkey is and "block" him/her from being able to view the reported member's information.


 * Thumbs Down (TD) Fairy: A community member who uses multiple accounts and follows other members to 'Thumb Down' or Rate down his or her answer in an attempt to get the answer removed. A TD Fairy often would report that answer also to get the member's answers removed from questions. Regs generally use TD Fairies as a means to accuse and block Report Monkeys because a TD Fairy is generally also a Report Monkey.

-Gain a rather positive reputation with the other regular members within the forum (see Fireball above: Who qualifies as a Reg with a relatively negative reputation within the forum) -Often be seen within the R&S forum asking/answering questions -Have a personality that consists of humor and relative uniqueness -Often get violated by the Yamster/Y!A staff -Have been suspended by the Yahoo! Answers staff on a few occasions
 * R&S Regs: Also known as 'Regulars' are community members that are often seen within the R&S community. Regs are generally members who communicate with one another and empathize with each other regarding issues, circumstances, theology, and other ideas. Regs are generally contacts/fans of each other and regs often star each other's questions and Thumb Up each other's responses. Regs consider each other friends or pen pals and communicate with one another by other means other than the Yahoo! Answers R&S forum. Regs have been known using Formspring, Facebook, Skype, and e-mail as a means to communicate. Regs often ask questions that do not pertain to the R&S forum (see Spiritually Speaking section), play avatar games, and add a good sense of humor and interest to the forum. To qualify as a Reg, a community member needs to unoffically:

Example: Q: "Why r athiessts so stoopid is it because they dont believe in god?" A: "ahem 'Why are atheists so stupid? Is it because they don't believe in God?' is what you meant to say. Apparently, your God didn't send you to elementary school."
 * Grammar Nazi: Anybody within the forum can be a 'Grammar Nazi', there is no specific category for Grammar Nazi's. A Grammar Nazi is a community member who picks out spelling and grammatical fallacies with a posted question and often rephrases the incorrect portion of the posted question into their answer. These people are usually highly intelligent and have zero patience for intellectual laziness.


 * Other: Since we have categorized practically 95% of the entire R&S community above, the remaining 5% consist of community members that come from other forums on Yahoo! Answers who are not normally seen in the R&S forum. These members typically ask an intelligent question and mostly get crappy answers from the R&S forum because it is....R&S.

e-Hugs

 * e-Hugs are often given and received by R&S regulars who try to imply a hug is given to another community member across the internet. An e-Hug consists of the unconventional and unethical usage of the parentheses sign and the recipient's name in between the parentheses. The following is an example of an e-Hug: (((your name here)))

For example: -(((Name))): Typical e-Hug -((((((((((Name)))))))))): Embracing, squeezy e-Hug -((((((((((((((((((((Name)))))))))))))))))))): Big Friggin' Intense Bromance Bear Hug -(((((Name: "The Christian Side Hug" often given by, and to, R&S Reg "TattooMom". A Catholic Christian herself, the Christian Side Hug is the result of a troll-roll regarding a Fundamentalist Rap Video about side hugs being the only appropriate way to hug someone of the opposite sex.
 * e-Hug Intensity: A community member can give another community member an e-Hug that can range in hug intensity.

There is no limit to the e-Hug's intensity. The more parentheses, the more you love the other community member! :)

-Edited by Meddy aka: MedNerd of the R&S Forum...