There's more than a few people here who i think can both handle their spice and also coexist with other people who believe different.
I have learned a lot about the world in the times i get into some nuanced discussion on this forum and it has been a mini-lifeline to the world.
But lately they are too hard to have with a certain type of person present.
Here's a thought.
How about we keep the existing rules for the outer forum ( eventually slackening them up after the world decides to collectively stop being nasty, if ever ).
But we open up a debate/difficult topics club that can only be seen or entered if:
- you have been here a year
- you have 250 posts
- you don't show signs of being a bad debater ( usually green or above ) / like to club other people with your opinions a lot / appear to be involved in partisan, racial, gender, nationalistic, etc internet holy wars
Then the subforum would be shown in the forums listing and clicking on it goes to a link to apply to join & see + participate.
Otherwise only a link to apply shows, and the section is hidden from the public.
If you really abuse the privilege, that right to the club can be revoked after warnings. You only get in actual trouble if you take that bad behavior to the rest of the forum.
You can also re-apply after a year if you have been thrown out.
I think AI is lately good enough to summarize a user's history with an acceptable margin of error. Members of the moderator team would read these summaries and make the final decision. I would imagine we get a dozen applications a month, so it's not a lot of work.
Since we have a hothead filter, then the additional moderation burden shouldn't be too high.
What's the crowd's thoughts on this?