Actually, I am not planning to leave DKos, but I must face the possibility that I will soon be banned in consequence of a flamewar into which I have been dragged. Flamewars are ugly things, unpleasant to the uninvolved, and this one has been spread so widely, into so many different diaries, by posters of such extreme prolixity, that I really doubt the admins, if they really exist, would be able to sort it all out. I, of course, am confident that I am not the initiator of the conflict, but then I know the others will say the same thing. Whose word can be trusted under such circumstances? So I will not blame the admins or Kos if they decide, at last and far too late, to employ the simplest solution of banning all the parties involved, including myself. No one is perfectly innocent of all sin, and I do not claim to be an exception.
I am not writing this diary to further prosecute the flamewar here, but rather to speak about personal attacks. A flamewar is a series of personal attacks gone out of hand. It may begin with just one. Then that attack is returned. Language grows more heated. Tempers grow more short. Other persons, seeing their friends attacked, as they conceive it, or a chance to get in a new hit on an old enemy, join in. It's a flamewar, but it begins with a single personal attack, when such attacks are tolerated.
This is the problem I wish to address here, in what may be my last diary: the growing tolerance of personal attacks on this site.
There are supposed to be rules and standards for conduct here. One such states as grounds for troll-rating:
Personal attacks on other site users, including following them from thread to thread.
The TR is supposed to be the primary tool used by this site to police itself. The TR is meant to hide posts with the potential for disrupting discussion. It has become, instead, a weapon of partisan vendettas.
This is because people take sides. When personal attacks are made, instead of the posts being promptly hidden, partisans of the offending poster uprate it. The offending post then generates retaliation, and the TRs generate retaliation, and the people who TRed it and uprated it are both then subject to the growing abuse.
In short, the TR, meant to be a tool for minimizing disruption, has instead become a weapon for creating it. This community is supposed to be primarily self-policing. It is not. It has failed in this task, because of partisanship. It has failed, because partisanship has caused people to tolerate personal attacks, as long as they are made by "my side" in the dispute.
And if the community is not effectively policing itself, it has been given no other clear alternative. People will often say, "Report it to Admin." Admin does not respond. Kos himself states that it is not possible for him to answer all his email, which is certainly understandable. But who is there to answer in his stead? No one. No one, single address.
The link "Contact Us" does not have an address to report abuse. A person who believes she is the victim of a personal attack has nowhere to turn, if the person she addresses her complaints to does not respond. She concludes, first, that she - with her partisans - is on her own against her abuser; and second, that if personal attacks on her are not dealt with by the administration of this site, no one will deal with any personal attacks she makes in retaliation on her abusers. The result: flamewars.
We are now entering another Presidential election cycle, as premature as it might seem. People are lining up to support different candidates for the Democratic nomination. Partisanship is on the increase. And as long as personal attacks are seen as acceptable, as long as the community will not police itself and there is no clear authority from which to seek redress of grievances, flamewars are going to happen. This will diminish the effectiveness of this site.
If this is to be my last post at DKos, let me take my last opportunity to urge everyone not to let partisanship be so divisive. Take the self-policing mandate seriously. Do not tolerate personal attacks, whether you hate the poster or the target. TR any such attacks, whether on a member of "your side" or the other. Do not uprate such attacks, even if they are made by "your side". Consider the greater good, to which we are all supposed to be committed.
And let me also say to Kos, and the rest of the supposed adminstrators here, it is time to accept the fact that self-policing is a fallible method for ensuring undisrupted discussion. This site has become too large, there are too many people participating. While the more there are of us, the greater the clout we can wield, the greater also is the potential for disruption. There has to be someone accessible to whom people can turn in the fact of intransigent abusers. The key word here is "accessible". The arbitrary and capricious method of adminstration carried on here up to now is simply not good enough.
DKos needs an official cat-herder.
[Pre-emptive Update] I may well not answer comments made in response to this diary if, as I expect, personal attacks are made on me here.