(04-30-2015, 02:22 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: I think dissension is healthy for a community, and I don't like permanent penalties placed on users who dissent.
That's just the long and short of it. Communities without some level of conflict end up stagnating into circlejerks and hugboxes. The trick is managing that conflict, to keep it from spiraling out of control, but also allow members to feel like they are not being censored.
Nat, did you know that people have managed to have discussions - complete with dissension and conflict - without falling back on petty insults and the like? There are examples stretching waaaaaaaay back in history!
I understand what you're trying to do. You're worried that you'll fail to consider the words you write, and you'll get shut out of this community. But you're going about it all wrong. Dissension is good. On that you and I (and pretty much everyone here) can agree. Conflict is fine. This discussion we're having right now? It's got dissension and conflict. Notice how neither of us has had to resort to insulting one another?
This is not a black and white issue, where there is one side that is filled with free-spirited people tossing around insults in the spirit of free speech and another side filled with 1984-esque thought police. Trying to cast it as such is simply ludicrous.
"Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins."
