The DU civility problem; It's not Business, it's Personal

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I am usually a calm and considerate person on DU. I am sometimes a bad, mean hot-head on DU.

The deciding factor is usually personal attack.

When some one says, "You are..." it is normal to respond in kind. That doesn't make it right, but there's no reason to expect a 'turn the other cheek' policy to succeed better on the internet than it has in millennia of real life.

As with any rule, when the rule is comprehensible and simple and enforcement is uniform almost all of the the populace will follow the rule, even if they have behaved differently in the past before the rule, or before the rule was comprehensible or uniformly applied.

On DU we are talking about public figures and talking to each other. Talking to other human beings engaged on a personal level. If someone says, "Politician X is an idiot" it is not proper to respond, "No, you are an idiot." (Try this at Thanksgiving dinner... see how it goes over.)

Replies and comments should be directed to the Original Post, not the Original POSTER.

Discussion should be about ideas, not about the perceived motives of the speaker.

Are the words "mistaken" and "moron" synonyms?

This is basic stuff. I can go through a week without ever seeing anyone in real life address another human being the way people routinely address each other on DU.

And I am an offender. I have said many things to people on DU I would never, ever say in real life. (Usually in response to a personal attack, but not always. And I sometimes have a "if they bring a knife you bring a gun" mode of response so the 'they started it' defense is limited in its virtue.)

Of every reply deleted on DU, what percentage of them have the word "you" in them?

It should always be business... never personal.

[liberal N proud]

1. I have learned to take nothing personal

It does not always work for me but it helps in most cases.

On edit:

When you dismiss the attempts to attack you personally, it really pisses off those who are attacking you. It helps to keep the blood pressure lower too.

[Fumesucker]

2. LOL .. I got called "a maggot in a shitpile" yesterday..

I asked them if they had been a Marine NCO in a previous life, "maggot" is a favorite term of Marine Sergeant endearment.

[sandnsea]

5. You did not

I said continuing to wallow in hate and animosity is like a maggot that keeps crawling back to a shit pile. I didn't call you anything at all.

[HardWorkingDem]

7. is that an example of an "allegorical metaphor"....?

Or do "allegorical metaphors" consist of something different?

[Fumesucker]

8. Sure you did..

Oh you tried to make it plausibly deniable but you meant what I indicated..

:hi:

[sandnsea]

14. If I wanted to call you a little maggot

I would have. Believe me.

I meant exactly what I said. There are people who are stuck in their hatred the way a maggot is stuck in a shit pile. It's the behavior I'm referencing.

[Fumesucker]

15. It's pretty clear who here has the hatred..

That would be the one slinging insults..

[rucky]

9. At least they get points for creativity.

:shrug:

[Fumesucker]

10. I dunno..

I've heard considerably more creative insults in my life.

"Your odor is of such redolent and offensive pungency that all the skunks in the county should commit suicide from the shame of their inadequacy." is one I still recall from a TV show I saw as a kid.

[Swede]

3. "Never discuss politics or religion at the dinner table"

We do it here and really rip at each other over the smallest difference.

[wookie72]

4. i love a good picture of abe vigoda

he's the male Betty White.

I totally agree we should try to be civil to each other.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. "Male Betty White"

Very good.

[HardWorkingDem]

6. What you address in your post is one reason I took a break from here...

I don't know if the computer age has caused an increase in the lack of civility, or what, but I grew tired of the rudeness here at DU by other members, so I took a break from visiting. Then, I started lurking again and made my first post in a while just today.

I really can't explain what it is about being among a diverse group of people, supposedly with similar beliefs, where ANY dissent is almost seen as being traitorous to the cause and requires insults to be hurled.

Like you, when someone tosses an insult my way, I throw it right back, but what causes people here to start the name calling and insulting first baffles me.

Good message.

[w8liftinglady]

16. me,too-I don't even address my REPUBLICAN adversaries like that

let alone folks on the same side.Maybe I'm just a softie at heart.

[metapunditedgy]

12. I promise to be at least as polite as Rahm would be...

(Actually, I agree that personal attacks are almost always unwarranted.)

[Fumesucker]

13. And of course there was the epic thread from a few days ago..

Calling an entire major group of DUers "spiteful magical thinkers" because they disagreed with the author of that OP.

[QC]

17. The lion's share of the incivility here is the work of

a relatively small group of posters who bully and attack people day in and day out--year after year, in many cases.

It would be very easy to deal with the incivility issue here, if there were any real inclination to do so.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

18. You are correct that there is no inclination to do so

[QC]

20. Yet it is this great, unfathomable mystery

that people are spending less time here, donating less, drifting away, complaining about the ugly atmosphere, etc.

What could possibly be the cause of these things? It is all truly is a mystery far beyond the ken of mere mortals.

[madinmaryland]

19. Choose Civility in Howard County (and maybe DU, also)...

I live in Howard County and this has been cracking us up for a while!!