Site is a graveyard - How can boards save itself? [Threadbanned users in 1st post]

"IF you don't understand what acting the dick, or being a muppet is then that is entirely on you. Everyone knows what acting the dick and being a muppet means. Pretending you don't is just insulting to everyones intelligence."

Well then at the risk of me being called a dick or muppet, can you please explain further.

It's far too easy and convenient to just say that 'Everyone knows'….. :)

You see that's not quite the experience that users are reporting here. No point in going into detailed particulars, but I and others have instanced warnings and bans that have resulted from posts that were neither uncivil or abusive. You may not want to believe it, but that's how things pan out. Here's one infraction message 'At this point it is simply soapboxing on thread and is causing considerable annoyance to other users'

So who decides what's 'soapboxing' and what are the criteria? Soapboxing is just a term for someone repeating a strongly held view maybe? The CA charter allows for this and I quote 'You are free to express your views in a forceful manner provided you remain civil'. So what's wrong with occasionally repeating a strongly held view and that was the situation above. As to being infracted for annoying others, surely you can see that this is quite inappropriate in a CA thread? You disagree with people in a civil way, they get annoyed and have the poster warned or banned.

Now as I've noted above, I can fully appreciate that if a CA/ Politics thread is dominated by posters with one point of view, that it can be disruptive if others disagree. That's understandable but does boards want a series of echo chambers and if it doesn't there should be a mechanism that allows for a thread to be closed and a new one started with more tolerance and/or parallel threads.

Just my two cents and suggestions. Maybe you or others have better suggestions?

In that case, there are numerous examples of muppetry as in 'misrepresenting arguments & dodging questions' in ongoing threads in CA. Funny thing is that the main perpetrators are at it often & openly and not a sign of any censure.

So clearly interpretation of muppetry is quite subjective?

As to being 'abusive', don't you run into the same problems? In that some people are fairly thick skinned whilst others take offence at the drop of a hat. I take little regard of dismissive/ abusive comments but others are readily insulted.

Frankly, I've no idea how moderators can sensibly arbitrate on such matters. And in that case, light touch modding as mentioned by someone else seems to make best sense.

What if there is no right or wrong in a discussion? Or if the evidence is controvertible?

It just then becomes 'I'm right 'cos I said so'.

Couldn't agree more. One of boards problems are those who insist their views are correct. Other posters are lost to the thread and then they are left to talk among themselves.

I actually addressed your point carefully. There is hardly a subject where evidence is not debatable at some level. Perhaps it's true in the case of some mathematical conventions but not in the real world. The world is not black & white, right or wrong, good or bad, evil or holy - it's shades of these things. So your claim is fallacious.

The only relevance of this is that no one should presume on any thread that they are wholly right and others are wholly wrong.