Reply #180: A proposal for increasing civility here

[subsuelo]

I have a proposal which I believe will go a long way towards increasing civility here. But first, let me copy over from the I/P guidelines the following:

Our goal is to provide a forum where issues concerning Israel and Palestine may be discussed openly but intelligently in an atmosphere of mutual respect for opposing sides.

It's an outstanding goal. I wish we could arrive at that. However, while I believe that Lithos and ugrr are doing an amazing job moderating, there are still some problems. The problems are addressed in Lithos original post here - namely, the issue of how personal the commentary gets towards others. Yet, it continues day after day, despite the moderator here specifically asking us to stop! People keep pushing and pushing the boundary, even after we were specifically asked: please do not spend time arbitrarily trying to parse subliminal meaning from people's words and making assumptions as a result

Question is: how do we solve this issue? I have a proposal that might just solve it, if I may be so bold as to suggest improving on something that I know the moderators and other DU admin here have been working on long before I arrived!

So here is the proposal. How about outright disallowing any personal comments whatsoever towards one another here? And I mean any and all personal comments. Anything that is not on the topic, and has moved in the direction of personal commentary, is not allowed. How about getting rid of personal commentary altogether, since people obviously just refuse to treat others with respect here (not everyone, but some if not most).

Furthermore, how about disallowing any insinuation whatsoever regarding someone else's motives or biases? As an example of how to implement that, may I suggest disallowing use of the word "you" in any comment posted in the forum. That way, the focus will always be on the topic at hand. Even if someone doesn't understand the other and simply wants clarification, they could still post "I'm not following the point about ___", instead of "could you expand on your point about ____". I don't think it's going too far. Too many times there are underlying insinuations about someone's motives, or about their biases, or about the reasons for arriving at the conclusions they have made. Those kinds of insinuations are always disruptive, and they do not promote the kind of atmosphere being strived for here.

To close out my proposal, I ask anyone reading this to take a walk through the last 10 posts in I/P which contain 20 or more responses. Just go through each of those threads with 20 or more (20+ because it indicates where there is a higher likelihood for disagreement) and you'll see what I'm talking about. The personal commentaries, the insinuations, and sometimes outright name calling or attacks (hopefully the more slanderous comments would be removed by now but sometimes some slip through).

After going through those, consider what it might mean to have a rule where personal commentary was completely disallowed here. People would be forced to stick to the topic. If you disagree with someone, fine, state something like "I disagree and here's why" - and that would be it. People would be forced to give only their own opinions, rather than spending their time wondering aloud why someone else holds the views they have, or openly insinuating what someone else really meant.

My own personal experience spending time here is mixed... on the one hand I think the moderation and rules are excellent. Obviously no racist or defamatory type comments are allowed. Plus, it's a board for progressives only. But I have also experienced too many insinuations and mud slinging, for no reason other than someone didn't like my opinion on a topic. It is discouraging to have to battle the personal attacks. I don't come here with the hope of having to defend myself from those attacks. I come here to talk about what's going on in I/P. People obviously bend and bend the rules to the point where it's as if some of those rules just don't exist. I believe my proposal could efficiently counter that. No more commentary whatsoever about the other person. That's the proposal. Thanks for listening.