I rarely venture into IP territory. As Plutonium Page has aptly put it, "[t]hese diaries are no place for the non-violent." Having seen what have appeared to me to be reasonable diaries and comments get, first sidetracked, and then sucked into the vortex of animosity, I have chosen discretion over valor. No matter how interesting, informative, or compelling I find a thread, when the comments reach the fourth indent and stay there, I go elsewhere.
I was nonetheless disturbed when Hunter posted his warning last week. I do not want this subject to be off-limits for a number of reasons -- most of them articulately stated by Litho this past Saturday. To which I add a personal reason -- that I genuinely feel that much of what goes on at dkos is community education, and this is an area in which my own education in public affairs has been rather superficial.
More below, with a poll.
I suspect that there are a lot of others in the community that believe I/P issues are important and should be discussed here; who would like to partcipate, or participate more in the discussion; and who would do so in a positive manner, if some solution to the problem were found. Accordingly, I offer a brief poll, below, to test this hypothesis.
But first, I offer two suggestions: one is structural and the other is philosophical. I'm sure these two suggestions are not new. I have tried to read most of the recent I/P meta diaries but I have not studied all the comments. But here goes:
1.No mojo for comments to I/P diaries. I know that dfb1968 has previously suggested this, and it has been discussed at this thread, as well. According to Hunter, existing software would not make this self-executing, and so pending an upgrade, enforcement would have to be voluntary. But I think it offers significant possibilities. And I would not eliminate TR's for these diaries.
The largest effect of such a change would be to force single-interest posters to contribute to the larger community or risk losing their ability to flame others, which appears to be so abused. A secondary effect would be to foster political affinities in other substantive areas that might carry over and lessen the instinct to make things so personal in the context of I/P diaries. I know there have been times when I have hesitated to tell someone how stupid they are because I recall a different context in which they so brilliantly agreed with my own (stupid) idea. Finally, this change would remove at least some of the gaming incentive that seems apparent in the piling on that occurs in these diaries.
2.Challenge your assumptions before posting. This is particularly true in the area of suspected 'sock-puppetry', but I see it in all sorts of other insidious ways, as well. The classic example might be, "you don't know what you're talking about -- I lived in Gaza for 2 years", which might be met by the following reply: "I live there right now." Most of the assumptions we make are not so easily disposed of as the example. The problem with many of our assumptions, however, is that they lead us with very little information in search of motives, for which handy stereotypes will often do quite well. All the while they are leading us away from what someone has actually written in their comment. How many times have we all seen the endless thread in which 2 people argue back and forth over what the first one actually said, when we can all see what was said (if we care to thread back). And ultimately, the comment is made, "well, but here's what I think you really meant.
When I try and recognize and then challenge my own assumptions, I often find that I have been letting some of my own demons out to play. I think it is generally more productive of real dialogue to limit my search for motives to what is clearly displayed before me on the screen, leavened with my own common sense and a bit of scepticism.
So now a poll. I know from a recent comment (that I can't find) that a poll about a year ago found an overwhelming desire on the part of the community to continue I/P diaries. What I would like to know is whether there is a significant part of the community that would participate more if conditions were more civil. Thus,