(10-21-2023, 02:29 PM)quintessentone Wrote: If ATS is going through a planned reset, I hope it doesn't become the hate filled right wing echochamber it was before. It's great to see opinions from all angles.
It IS good to see opinions from all angles. A lot of people can't seem to handle it very well, however. They look a lot like shell-shocked soldiers, reeling from the constant political fighting and bickering of the past few years. It doesn't take much to push the buttons of a person in that state and evoke a fight or flight response in them. They tend to immediately jump to either one response or the other, bypassing all the shades of action between those two extremes.
Neither conversation nor debate can be had in environments like that, when everyone is touchy and on edge, expecting an assault from any direction at any moment. It's our goal of "moderation" here to foster an environment where conversation and debate can take place. An exchange of ideas. One may not convince an opponent to come around to their way of thinking, or they might, but either way it's not going to happen in an environment of rancor. Nothing but fighting and slapping happens then, and that's not productive.
That's why we enforce a policy of mutual, if at times grudging, respect for all members here. Folks don't have to agree, but they do have to disagree in an agreeable manner. Otherwise, no one gets heard, really, over all the shouting.
Just leave the overbearing asshole role to the mods if things start getting out of hand. We can do that, too, if we have to... we just don't often have to.
Life is better when it doesn't come to that.
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