More and more frequently I am finding the type of discourse on this forum has gotten brutally aggressive to the point that it is sometimes impossible to converse about the posted topic without wading through all sorts of off topic attacks and put downs.
Quote:
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No spamming, trolling, flaming or other personal attacks, be they acrimonious or veiled in humor. If you take issue with a Member's position, by all means speak your mind.
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As you might be able to tell from the language above, a certain amount of healthy debate is part of this forum's existance. That debate might be terribly pedistrian (9 vs. .45), or on a level that only a machinist or lawyer could expect to follow. And that's good, because it serves the intellectual needs of whoever wants to participate.
It seems like lately the spirit of the above quoted rule has gone out the window. In an effort to avoid outright insults some members have turned to off topic criticism to denounce the poster instead of addressing the actual position. Some general examples:
A poster states his dislike for a brand of handgun, and is treated to a chewing out because he used the term "clip" incorrectly.
Someone is told that they obviously have no idea what they are talking about because they misspelled something.
A poster states a dislike for some Republican political move, and is called either a gun grabber, liberal or "Democrap".
Negative remarks about post counts granting some sort of status.
One poster denounces another's posts by announcing to the thread that the party is a "hater" or is displaying some sort of other illogical and continual behavior.
Is this how you want your forum? It doesn't have to be all hugs and kisses, but it is getting to the point that you can't even talk about something without having to post retractions and resumes for the right to have an opinion or even ask a question.
For my part, I am sometimes fairly aggressive, but I make it a point to attack the logic and factual nature of the material posted. Often, I'm shown to be wrong, and that is a large part of how I have amassed much of the knowledge I have now. Debate is a great way to get down to the core of something, but I'm seeing far less debate and much more plain fighting and put downs on TFL.
I'm am not calling for more rules, more bannings, and certainly not even more inconveniently locked threads. But a little more honesty in how we conduct our bickering would be appreciated by those who post and those that just want to read something of interest on the topics available here. Thank you.