Don't name names and wish them dead or harmed. Be careful in discussions about children. (Eg. lowering age of consent, etc.) Other than that almost anything should be posted. The bad fruit of fools stinks to everyone except other fools.

It's okay but, there are limits. If both sides are doing it and it's devolved into a food fight, it should be stopped. Unless they are exceptionally creative with their insults, that's boring. If one side does it but, it's not a two sided thing, there still might be some interesting discussion to follow. So, I'd note it and see where it goes.

Is the mission to protect free speech or promote intelligent discussions? IMHO the moment an individual utilizes the claim of superior intelligence over others (by ways of name calling) to reinforce his/her believes/ideals, the premise of "a discussion" (be it intelligent or not) is out the window, and we're simply left with "how far are we willing to accept insults as free speech".

The type of individuals you’ve attracted to your site will just go back to FB if the aforementioned post is considered “outside of the guidelines”.

Who defines civility? I recently saw someone post, on IDW, Anti Zionist (their words) in accusing Jews of being dominant in the global slave trade. So my own research has shown otherwise. There were no facts in the person's response. A google search found "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews". No author is mentioned. There are three books written by Nation of Islam with no author given. Some will say that Jews owned most of the slaves, yet a review of records disprove this. I agree with freedom of speech. I also believe that we have an obligation to ourselves to seek the truth and not perpetuate lies.

My first response as a new member. My thoughts on civility. I'm a 60 year old white guy. A mental health social worker by education and a lifelong Democrat, until Obama's second administration. I remember a question from one of my professors who asked a class mate "How can you be a social worker and a Republican?" This was decades ago and I still remember. I was the only guy in the class of feminists and lesbians, and yet I was accepted. My friend was not so welcome. U Maine now has safe spaces, restrictions on free speach, defined hate speech, microagression training, etc. I see civility as disappearing when people are shut up from the get go based on a perceived identity. So I do agree with civility.

Great premise!

If this is to be a true free speech site, then some offensive language will be necessary. We may not agree with what they say or the terms they use. But free speech is FREE SPEECH!! Like life, it will not always be good. If someone has written something you don't like, then don't read it.

The bigger picture here is more important: I don't see how this site can thrive if every post, comment, link, etc, has to be screened by admin. I just don't see how a finite group of admin can "play sheriff" for a (hopefully) exponentially growing community of free thinkers (ever read The Starfish and the Spider ?). If I'm misunderstanding the overall system at play, forgive me - that's just the impression I've gathered.

Secondly, the idea of censoring free speech, even the obviously spiteful trolls, is repugnant to me - it is completely contrary to the ideals that attracted me to this site in the first place.

There are ways to allow free speech and simultaneously promote intelligent discussion. I'd be happy to share my thoughts if they might prove helpful to the site, @admin (I'm a systems engineering type of guy).

Yes. A little heavy handed. The free market if ideas and our own freedom to associate, whether online or in “human” will curb a good deal of bad behavior.

If you don’t like the way something is said. Don’t engage. There are plenty of other threads to get involved in.

I’d really prefer there not to be any type of speech police. The block function serves that function perfectly. It’s it’s libelous or criminal, there’s the law for that.

Yeah ,i seen your example ,that was pretty lame being offended for saying retard if you feel a need to censor that then maybe you should seek a job a google china . Slurs and slang of what ever ism or phobic doesn't bother me ,every word has its purpose like it or not it was created for a reason to be used in whatever manner ,just enjoy the colorful dialogue isn't diversity our strength . Google china was just a little dig ,all in fun . Yeah you went too far don't be so (**) next time.

Words are just words...

Who decides what is a curse word or offensive? The individual... That's who...

While I personally don't like the word they used because of the personal experience (mentally challenged family members), I am an adult that can look past my personal feelings and take what they said "in the spirit" of what they are saying.

Note that I called it "mentally challenged" where some would say "handicapped". To me handicapped is not correct either. Like I said, who gets to decide what is okay and what is not? Obviously the admin (LOL!), but you have people here from around the globe, each part of the world/background will have their own take on what is correct/incorrect.

If there are some words that you want to consider "not allowed", I think changing the word, similar to what you did in the post in question, is fair... The "word" isn't there, really, so even a reader that might get offended by the word sees that the word is obscured, which could lead them to think that the OP at least tried to be sensitive to the implication of the word?

I don't know...

That said, I think the guidelines are fair and reasonable...

"Bad words" and "naughty words" should not be enough to cause an Admin hammer drop on anyone. For one thing, the admins would burn out too quickly, and be drawn into too many "but he said..." and "she started it ..." contretemps. Assuming that we're adults here, we should be able to work things out in a more adult manner ... for the most part. When we can't, then I think you'll hear about it soon enough.

I also don't like to routinely block people just because I disagree with what they said (that will never cause a block for me) or for being impolite (that might earn one if it's too often repeated) or even for the explicit speech that most of us decry: racism, misogyny and misandry, "homophobia" (how I hate that word - I'm homophobiaphobic, I guess), chauvinism and other signs of ill breeding and "I'm losing the argument at a whole new level" speech. After all, even when I disagree with a person completely, hate his tone, his arguments, his lies - and the horse he rode in on - I still want to know what he's saying, more often than not. (Not that I fear someone like that can best me in any argument, debate, contest of wits or humor, but because if there's a threat I at least want to be able to hear it, or see it, as the case may be. Blocking my ears and closing my eyes, while it might make me feel temporarily better, won't make me any safer, or smarter.)

I think the community can probably police itself pretty well, but you could offer us a tool to make that happen better. Let's say that a new button or "action" be added for, say "Flag for incivility", maybe with an invisible counter (you don't want to promote a bandwagon effect, where people see a high count and then jump onto that - as we very well may do with "Like" responses). There doesn't have to be any immediate action or review, but at least over time you'll have some administrative statistics where you may want to at some point have a pointed - and private - conversation with those who receive too many flags vs. the "likes" that they may also pick up. Likewise, if you get some snowflake who flags everything that he or she disagrees with - for whatever reason - as "incivil", then you might want to discuss with that flagger that maybe this isn't the place for them.

We need more robust conversation and dialog, not less.

I also very much liked the post that suggested that new users be kept on a tight leash, and if they start fouling right off the bench, then have that conversation with them earlier. It could even be in the form of a canned message that more or less repeats the rules of the road that every kindergartner should already know when it comes to speaking and writing in polite society.

Since we can block offensive people , I believe we are capable of taking action in our own defense . We know nothing is gained in arguing with a fool

I had considered doing a post addressing that, it is something we all need to think about more...

I like the legal standards:

• No promotion of acts of violence against any group or person
• No libel

As for Civil, I'd like to be treated like an adult. If I say something offensive, call me out on it and give me a chance to change or dig in. If I dig in, flag me for review by a higher authority. Calling people out prevents a victim mentality and brings them into a sense of community as does being able to respond.

Maybe put an adult filter on posts that use naughty words?

Well, considering this is not DIRECTLY insulting to ANOTHER person, I wouldn't say it's out of line. You could change the insult to "only an idiot...only a moron...only a commie...only a ignorant...only a head in the sand socialists" - I mean, if you are getting into the policing of insults, you open yourself up to LOTS of future policing of posts. I will agree it's a gray area, and can see that you would want to force reasonable and mature dialogue, but two questions ( 1 ) Can you, and ( 2 ) should you? ( 1 ) I don't think you can, b/c you can't force people to be reasonable and mature and ( 2 ) you want site integrity, but should that fall on you, or do you hope the site members itself force this, either through ignoring such posts, or holding each other accountable? Agnostic.com is an example where site members don't, but this site is much more mature, reasonable, and respectful (at least today - who know what it will be tomorrow based on your decision). IDK - it's a hard call, and I can see pro/cons no matter if you are a hard ass, or if you rely on the community to develop and police itself. Another question - if you allow the community to "drive", are you OK if they take the site on a different road than what you envisioned (even if that means it grows exponentially)?

This post should not have been flagged. Let's not turn into FB & Twitter.