The Converstion Guidelines

The rules of this forum are simple. Engage in conversation using gentlemanly or lady like behavior as appropriate to enhance the thought provoking comments on the subject of the thread.

Avoid comments which do not enhance the thread, steer away from the topic, are derogatory to a specific individual, his nationality, religious beliefs, relatives, political views, or lifestyle. It is acceptable to have views which differ from others views, it is not acceptable to use those views to act in a manner which is derogatory to the member himself. Please disagree without resorting to uncivil behavior in an attempt to make your view seem correct.

Enjoy the great company and thought provoking conversations, but failure to abide by basic rules of civility will receive no obligatory warning or request to modify your post from moderators. Posts will immediately be deleted and members may be banned for 3 days at the first infraction.

Thank You, Your Friendly Neighborhood Moderators

When you signed up for an account here, you agreed to the Site Rules of Conduct - as shown here - whether you read them or not.

Don has previously posted a request to keep things civil and respectful as we are a community which prides itself on it's gentlemanly behavior.

I would like for you to review one item that could use some refreshed reading:

Quote:

---

An Off-Topic forum is provided for all other situations. While the OT forum is open to discuss anything you wish (within the limitations of our site rules, of course), we strongly urge that you refrain from starting threads on topics that traditionally become highly opinionated, such as politics, religion, sexual preferences, free speech, etc.

---

Read that again and then keep one more thing in mind:

A civilized debate is one thing, a post which gives the reader the choice of agreeing with you or being stupid is not a good starting point for any civilized debate. If you can't start a thread without the condescension or insults, don't start the thread. This applies to replies as well.

Thank you for your understanding.

Over the last months, there has been an increase of troubles in the Conversation forum.
Lately, threads have gone downhill fast whenever certain topics were involved. And whenever they are closed, cleaned or removed, similar threads came up to continue the namecalling, uncivil behavior and childish bickering.

This is showing no sign of improving as long as we don't restrict topics.
And we don't want that, because anything can be an interesting topic if people just remain civil.

So here is what is going to happen. Instead of cleaning up mess, we will issue a temp ban to people who try to stir up troubles or exhibit otherwise uncivil behavior.

As you all know, there are no restrictions on what you can talk about in the Conversation forum. The only restrictions we have are about the way you have that conversation: polite / respectful.

And if I have any say in it (a lot, actually :)) this is how it will remain, because anything can be interesting to talk about.

But if you start a political or otherwise controversial thread, here is what you have to do:

1. State your purpose for opening the thread. What do you want to discuss, or which way do you want the discussion to go. You have to state your intent for creating the thread.
2. If you start a new discussion where you ask for people's opinion on a controversial topic, it is only fair that you start by giving your own.
3. If you quote other people's words (like a politician, priest, ...) put them into a quote block so that it is clear which words are yours, and which are theirs. Also if the quote is important or controversial, include a source reference.

The reason I want to do it this way is that the conversation is not just a billboard.
During the recent increase in political discussion, a couple of threads were started with only a third party manifesto as the opening post, but without any stated purpose by the poster.
Threads like that cause problems because they don't state a discussion topic. This means that everybody starts responding to what he / she thinks is the discussion topic, and pretty soon the thread ends in flames.

The items I mentioned should allow such threads to play out much smoother and on topic.