Summations Only

A note has been posted to Report Discussion Problems Here 4.0 about this thread. It didn't mention any specific issues, so I'm not sure where the concern lies. I'll look in on this thread periodically and call attention to any Forum Guidelines issues I happen to notice, like this one: The rationale for rule 10 (which needs better wording, but which at present says, "The sincerely held beliefs of other members deserve your respect. Please keep discussion civil. Argue the position, not the person.") is to prevent discussion from becoming personal. Once people become emotional or defensive or feel insulted then the quality of debate suffers.In the opinion of this moderator there is not much difference between "Your argument sucks" and "You suck." Certainly the latter is more directly personal, but our opinions and arguments are direct extensions of ourselves, and ad hominem attacks on them are felt very personally. They're also inconsistent with rule 4 requiring "evidence and reasoned argumentation."

Please, let's keep the focus on the topic.

Hoping to raise the tenor of debate in this thread, I'd like to suggest that we can do better than characterizations of "irrelevant garbage" and "idiotic." Let rationality and reason eclipse emotion.