But only "mostly". A few noxious outliers in the human spectrum will neither self-select themselves out nor respond to social pressure. They can damage the appearance of the community and the experience of participating. I see no reason why they shouldn't be tossed out, and I think that the proposed mechanism offers more procedural protection than an offender could expect. -----------
However, it is wise to think carefully before constraining freedom of expression, even within a small, voluntarily assembled community. I will offer some thoughts which mostly express what I think we already think.
In considering what I see as our implicit standards, I see a distinction between freedom of adversarial expression that is intellectual, vs. forms that I would call "person-directed" and "raw-emotional" hostility.
"Person-directed" hostility obviously includes both name-calling and accusations of deliberate falsehood or bad motives. The latter, however, have no sharp line of demarcation to separate them from intellectually valid criticisms that I regard as acceptable if politely stated: for example, suggesting that a person's views seem to be aligned with a body of thought that includes specific, convenient untruths, or with one that advocates specific policies that don't stand up to moral examination.
By "raw emotional" hostility, I mean (for example) rants expressing ones hatred for something, as distinct from expression of reasons why one hates it.
The hardest judgements to make involve adversarial intellectual expression and the problem of classic trolling behaviour. In this area, a lone adversarial statement can seldom be judged as problematic, given that ET isn't a feel-good motivational site for political troops. Judgement of a commenter rests instead on a combination of three criteria:
I also would like to go on record as generally agreeing with the banning policy as proposed, while adding that I fervently hope that implementing it will rarely be necessary.
