Civility subsection suggestion

[Joods]

Maybe rewording and tightening the flaming rule a bit would alleviate CL's concerns while not having to resort to dicing the site up with sub forums. I mean, insults can be fun, and I've run afoul of the flaming rule as it's stated now. But, there's absolutely no need for anyone to pitch an insult in every single post they make in a thread.

The problem is people don’t report this often enough. If someone is pitching an insult in every post, the best thing members can do is report one of the posts and mention in the report comment that they are doing it multiple times.

We don't need another sub-forum. What we need to have happen is a better handling of those who constantly skirt the line but don't actually cross it, within the forums that we already have now. They are intentionally being obtuse and flirting with the rules because they know they won't get disciplined. It isn't rocket science and the people engaging in this behavior do it to piss off other people. They need to either get a serious time out or they need to go all together because clearly, they don't give a crap about being civil.

A good example of this is the individual who continually brings up quotes from the past so they can be used against someone who disagrees with him. And it's outright bullshit because he actually does this, not with the intention of keeping with the Prime Directive or the topic, but with the intention of getting a jab in where it's uncalled for. Tell me why you disagree with my POV rather than bring some totally irrelevant quote from three years ago, into a thread it has no business being in. I'm not the only person that this has been done to because many already knew who I was referring to, at the start of this paragraph, based on past and recent behavior. Yet they constantly get away with it. He's did this last week to not only myself, but to other people in the same thread! 

Or how about people who intentionally misrepresent a point of view or the meaning of a word and are completely disingenuous with what they post, even after they get called out for doing so.  They do this to get people riled up. Not because they want honest conversation. They throw up a wall of word salad when called out and further misrepresent everything they've said. This gets overlooked on a constant basis. What good is having a rule about the Prime Directive if people who knowingly skirt the rule, aren't going to be held accountable?

These examples are not rarities. They are common occurrences and knowing it's the same offenders over and over again who get away with shit, is probably the primary reason why people don't bother reporting at all.  I know for me, it's the reason why I didn't report having something I said three years ago, brought back up, get misrepresented and used against me in a recent thread. Seriously, what's the point of reporting, if the person won't ever be held accountable for what they do or if the decision was subjectively based on the opinions of others?  Do something about those kinds of people and you might find that threads and discussions improve greatly.

Having another sub-forum where people are expected to conduct themselves like adults isn't going to work. You're asking too much because everyone has different definitions of what they find acceptably "civil". For example, if I feel like I'm being put on the defensive because someone has intentionally misrepresented something I've said, you're damn right I'm going to call them out on it and I have the right to use any word that makes me feel better, including expletives some might find offensive. If people don't want to be offended, they should behave better. If other people find that I wasn't being civil, perhaps they should point the finger at the antagonist that started it and ask themselves how they would have handled things.