Civility

[Belacqua]

I agree with your 4 points for sure.

I see a productive discussion as one where both sides listen to each other and share their views, so that both come away with better understanding of the other's views as well as maybe even learning a little more about their own. And who knows... perhaps even find some common ground. It promotes self growth and understanding.

A discussion is always more productive when it is civil... without the distraction and deflection of crap posts, personal insults, and mockery to have to sift through.

I think this section is doing really well so far.

I think so too.

It will be interesting to see how things go -- if there will be a niche for this kind of thing. Maybe by ghettoizing the courteous people the rest of the forum will descend into constant F-bombs. Or maybe things will go well here, and the usual insulters will tone things down in order to take part. 

Anyway, I think it's a worthy experiment.

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No complaints here.  Of course I've only found a couple of interesting threads so far.  I'm avoiding all the politics threads.  I haven't thought of any threads I wanted to make myself in this sub-forum yet but I'm sure something will come up.  

This one is a little self-referential for my taste but hey I want to support the effort.  So here I am.

Thank you for lending moral support. 

I agree that if we just use this forum to talk about the forum it's a little too meta. 

But I also think that civility is a serious issue in the world. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think civility has come to be looked down on -- something people want to get away from. 

For example, I think that a lot of Americans associate vulgarity with sincerity. People who swear and insult are thought to be "real," while those who are careful and courteous are dismissed as old-maidish or prigs. It looks to me as if the old idea that we vote for the President we'd like to have a beer with has degenerated even farther, into the notion that someone who speaks as if he's in a formal setting must be fake somehow. It's probably a part of good old American anti-intellectualism. 

(The only character in popular culture with high-level taste in the arts is Hannibal Lector.) 

I think that people voted for Trump because he's uncivil and vulgar. And I think those of us who oppose Trump shouldn't adopt his ways.