>they're trying to keep intelligent discourse from devolving into flamewars
It's very easy to have no flamewars if we don't talk about it at all. Technically correct, but I'm not a big fan of "O(1) performance!" achieved in such way. Optimization is about doing useful work, not avoiding it.
It's a real shame suppression is part of the strategy. Instead, encourage users to 1) be mindful in touchy topics and consider every little word in their post and 2) to ignore those who clearly aren't trying to facilitate a discussion.
> I think Dan G is doing a admirable job with riding the line as well as is possible.
Apathy is submitting in to the status quo. There are plenty of times where I disagree but can understand a status quo that does not benefit me.
This is not one of those times. This status quo is dangerous to everyone.
Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
It's very easy to have no flamewars if we don't talk about it at all. Technically correct, but I'm not a big fan of "O(1) performance!" achieved in such way. Optimization is about doing useful work, not avoiding it.
It's a real shame suppression is part of the strategy. Instead, encourage users to 1) be mindful in touchy topics and consider every little word in their post and 2) to ignore those who clearly aren't trying to facilitate a discussion.
> I think Dan G is doing a admirable job with riding the line as well as is possible.
Apathy is submitting in to the status quo. There are plenty of times where I disagree but can understand a status quo that does not benefit me.
This is not one of those times. This status quo is dangerous to everyone.