Ability to Opt-out of Religiously-tied Events

Hi!

So, I’m in the process of researching to convert to Judaism! And part of that is distancing myself from celebrating any other religions, namely Christmas. However, the current game event mechanic of giving out gifts to be opened on the 25th, with no option to opt out of taking part (other people can still give one gifts and there isn’t a way to refuse them), I wanted to propose the idea to opt out of events that are religiously tied. Since this event is about opening gifts on the 25th (Christmas), I would just like the option to opt out. Largely, this would improve my/user comfort on this site. This would likely be a coding thing!

Thank you for considering!!

For those reading who are experiencing the same dilemma, here's a link to a thread someone has made with code to add into your den's source code to disable the gifting mechanic on your den!

https://www.wolvden.com/chatter/topic/236875

I would support this only if it is specifically stated that an event is tied to a holiday in particular.

This event encompasses Hanukkah, Christmas, Boxing Day, Solstice, and (very very close to) Kwanzaa and Omisoka. Likely a few others I'm missing, too. I'd like it if the dates of things didn't fall exactly on holidays such as Christmas for opening the gifts, but rather just around it.

However, an option to opt out of each individual event would be nice, imo.

Pretty sure the only reason the 25th was selected is because it's a day most players will have off and therefore are not going to miss the event. That's why most game events are designed around holidays and weekends. 

I am not going to stand in the way of someone's right to obstain or participate. Just stating my viewpoint. I don't personally view the events to be religiously tied but can see how people would take umbrage with being forced to participate. I think they are just convenient dates to plan giveaways/events on.

I support making events lets tied to a single religion. While there is a long period you can open them, I think it wouldn't been better if you could open them on Jan 1st, as New Years is a generally secular holiday. 

Simply having the ability to shut off events, as has been proven is possible, would be fine.  Then if there is an event that people don't want to deal with, they can just quietly not participate.  That said, dates aside, the holiday event here is pretty secular.  Even as a confirmed, died in the wool atheist, I don't mind celebrating it.

In my personal opinion, it incorporates a lot of Christmas into it- a lot of gifts all opened on Christmas day (which is mentioned in the news description of the event), plus one of the admins has ‘Giftmas’ in their username, implying that for the staff it is religiously tied. There’s not really anything from Chanukah specifically incorporated into it as far as I can tell, and I don’t know enough about Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, Omisoka, or Solstice to say whether or not it’s tied to them as well. 

Part of what I am trying to observe in the process of conversion is distancing myself from participating in other religion’s cultural events; if the event has aspects of Christmas, Solstice, etc. in it, then that’s also not something I personally feel comfortable celebrating at the moment at least, as I do not celebrate any of those personally. There’s also this question; if the site celebrates these religious holidays all together, are they going to celebrate other religious holidays around other times of the year? What about Rosh Hoshanah, or Purim, or Yom Kippur? From my personal experience on other websites, they tend to celebrate Chanukah because of it’s closeness to Christmas, and not because of the holiday’s importance to Judaism. Will there be similar events incorporating multiple holidays and their traditions around those times of year as well? 

This isn’t everybody’s opinion though, and what I associate too much with Christmas may be fine for someone else! But regardless, the ability to opt out officially is something I would like to have the option of. It removes nothing for other members who are taking part, and only adds to my personal comfort and potentially the comfort of others who feel the same way, for whom this current gifting event has too many similarities to Christmas. 

As someone with trauma/phobias relating to Christmas it would be nice to be able to opt out as an option next time.

Yes, definitely. Honestly I would prefer it as an all events thing, but especially for religiously tied ones. Maybe if you opt out you can also have the achievements related removed?  

Must have missed the Christmas association in the news post.

I'll admit that I might just choose not to associate events with realworld holidays. I probably read over any mention of Christmas in the news post on reflex. But I can see how others find it unavoidable, annoying, intrusive. I have no problems with people not participating or participating. I hate feeling forced to do anything, so I sympathize. I completely understand abstaining for whatever reason.

Edit: oh, okay. The post below helped me out a bit with the Judaism practice of avoiding anything too on brand with other religions. So any aspect of or play off of Xmas is a pretty big issue for some religions. 

To me the event taking a bit from Christmas to make an event did not make it a Christmas event in my world. Now knowing that there are people that have to avoid anything that looks too much like Christmas changes the way I'd define this event. Within that lens, yes it's a Christmas themed event. To someone like me that has no religious ties, I can freely say that this is not a holiday event but within the strict confines of the rules as defined below then yes, it is Christmas inspired and would need to be avoided or have an option to not participate, got it.

In any case, even outside of religious views, participating should still be a player's choice. But now I understand more the importance of a built-in opt-out function.