Regarding the new forum that I proposed recently...

[EarlG]

17. The forum would have its own Statement of Purpose, just like all the others, but

I do not believe additional rules are necessary. As noted, the current DU rules were written during a time of great division in the party, and they were written specifically to deal with the highly contentious situation that we found ourselves in at the time.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the rules these days is that a lot of people have forgotten what they actually say. That's partly why I posted a reminder of what the "Don't bash..." rule says. And as mentioned, I would consider greater leeway when handling appeals of posts removed under that rule in the new forum, so that DUers aren't punished just for criticizing Democrats.

I think MIRT does an excellent job weeding out new trolls, so I'm not worried about that. The problem with intra-party debate, really, is that people often like to yell "troll" when someone is just disagreeing with them. In my experience, that tends to cause more problems than actual trolls do.

To be honest, what I'm proposing was basically the norm on DU for most of its existence. It's only been in the age of Trump that DUers have been far more united, and with that, more unwilling to tolerate criticism. I don't particularly like infighting, but I also think that we need space for more contentious debates going forward, because those debates are going to happen whether we like it or not. If we're going to argue over the future direction of the party, now is the time to do it -- when we're about as far from an election as we can get. Then once we get close to elections again, I expect people will be ready to tighten the reins. This push-pull has always existed on DU.