Because thinking and debating is crap
So many things are now considered violations of the rules compared to in the past where now certain detailed information is a violation and it appears that it may be going towards microagressions as what is not allowed to be said. That is why a sister forum may be beneficial so BHW doesn't have to worry about some possible flame war since its on another site that may choose to just go after extremism with a simple ban(not a thread or post deletion) or boot people from threads to prevent them. And that forum could have its "marketplace" link back to the one on BHW with also ad revenue on the site going to BHW.
That's a difficult one. Yes, it would be nice to debate political and religious topics in the lounge. There are many very, very clever people on this forum and I'd love to see their take on certain subjects.
The problem is that people get passionate and some of them are unable to separate an intellectual discussion from an emotional gut reaction. Then it gets messy and overflows into every single section of the site. So, there's a line that's been defined by previous issues.
I'm not sure what you mean by micro-aggressions but we try to strike a balance where people are able to express their opinion without alienating other people from the forum on the basis of their race/gender/orientation. If someone finds it necessary to use pejorative terms associated with a specific demographic in a debate, then I lose sympathy a little.
A platform where anything can be said to anyone as long as they weren't flaming seems unmanageable. How would you define the line between free, heated discussion and flaming? Would your definition match everyone else's?
Ultimately, it'd be defined by a clique of the loudest or most argumentative people on the forum. The problem with having a homogeneous group controlling a platform means that there's no mitigation. Without a counterweight, opinions become more extreme and spiral in on each other. Once the dissenters have gone, you end up with a toxic environment that caters to nobody except a small, extreme group.
I know this might sound like a straw man but there's studies on discrete pockets of cultural homogeneity and their proliferation across the internet. There are some very plausible correlations with violent or fundamentalist groups gaining momentum. The potential for abuse is huge. How do we link to that or call it a "sister-forum" without implicitly condoning offensive opinions.
Our common denominator is Internet Marketing. We've got the lounge to kick back and discuss unrelated topics but it must be contained so it doesn't affect the core focus of every member here.
