Posting externally written inflammatory material

[zipplewrath]

People post, with out comment or expansion, whole posts from Huffington or some other publication which if they were original posts here at DU would violate various prohibitions on broad brush insults or unfair characterizations of other classes of people. I realize that there is a desire to allow discussion of these external viewpoints, but in many cases, especially when they are posted completely without comment or additional discussion, it appears to merely be ways of otherwise circumventing the rules.

Is it worth considering establishing a convention that suggests that inflammatory editorials and columns at least present some context to the opinions, especially acknowledging the over all inflammatory nature? As it is now they tend to stay around and not become locked until a real flame fest gets started.

[Skinner]

1. Unfortunately, as your post acknowledges, there are no easy answers here.

We believe that, generally speaking, the members of DU should be permitted to discuss topics that people discuss on other websites.

Many, many years ago, we had a requirement that the OP provide some explanation for why they post controversial externally written content here. In practice, people provided perfunctory explanations which were barely worth the time and effort to read them. It had the feeling of just setting up obstacles, and did not seem to make much difference to how the articles were received.

I think it is good practice to provide some context whenever a potentially controversial outside article is posted. But making it a requirement may not make much difference.

It would be nice if people would just voluntarily refrain from flaming. But I know that is unlikely in the current environment.