New Rule: No Personal Attacks

[Eilonnwy]

I have to say that I'm surprised it wasn't a rule to begin with.
I figured it would have been standard with any forum.

It is pretty standard unless it's a forum dedicated to insulting people like 4chan. This forum used to have the rule but for some reason it was deemed unnecessarily and over time the forum has become a more hostile place to visit.

I do have to say that I've been impressed with the civility (despite even heated arguements) in this forum but trolls will still come and go just like this Edward and his sockpuppet accounts and others like him in the future.
Now, I'm not the sort of person who easily takes offense at anything, but people who do come here and violates that particular rule usually doesn't seem to contribute to any discussion in a meaningful way.

Not having the rule makes it easy for trolls to stay here for a while before they slip up and finally break another rule. Usually we can easily rid ourselves of religious trolls for our no preaching rule, but if they dance the line of insults versus flaming, it can be difficult and it's been frustrating. Edward may have been banned sooner, eventually he was banned for revealing himself to be a member banned over a year ago.

I can also understand the removal of the negative reps, but I'm neutral toward the idea.
As I said on chat at one point, I can understand the reason for removing it - so we can reward the people who contribute meaningfully and ignore the ones who don't - as opposed to using negative reps like some kind of weapon.

Exactly.

I can honestly see a troll at some point in time wiling away his hours just handing out negative reps to people who annoyed him on his main account with a 'give me negative reputation, why don't you, well, take THIS! nya!'

That has happened before, back when we did have the no insult rule. A troll went around neg repping every atheist and he was banned quickly, but all the neg reps had to be manually removed.

So I can see the arguement from that standpoint, but at the same time, some people do really deserve to have a bad reputation at times so the community can point out to others that this person isn't the greatest use of your time to have a meaningful discussion with.

Anywho... I suppose that's my input on this matter.

Neutral opinions are still available.