"Community-friendly software" is a euphemism for mob censorship, just like Daily Kos and so many other sites where Obamabots troll-rated all other opinions into oblivion.

Now that my personal poster-child for the category of Obamabot, Ripper McCord, is apparently leaving the site because it isn't nice enough for a sensitive soul like him, I think we should all take a moment to remember our favorite posts by Ripper, as a paradigm of courtesy for our beautiful future on TPMCafe.

My favorite post by Ripper McCord was...

"No, cockroach. Democrats want to see a Democrat elected, not brought down by narcissitic tools who can't accept that the primaries are fucking over and the general election has begun."
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/obamabots-rage-while-obama-col.php#comment-3044438

Cockroach.

The term has special resonance for those of us who remember that it's what Hutus called Tutsis during the genocide in Rwanda.

Cockroach.

So in the same beautiful spirit of peace, love, and understanding, I propose a toast to our absent friend, Ripper McCord, gone but not forgotten...

"Go back to Idaho and tatoo another swastika on your ass, you mindless jerkoff!"

It doesn't exactly make sense, but neither do the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne.

Nice post, niceness is always more attractive than anger.

I was taught to regard electronic communication with the same respect as written-on-paper communication.

It's always a good rule-of-thumb to address people online the same as you would face-to-face.

This site is great for it's diversity of issues and people - I wouldn't want to hear from someone who has left all emotion aside.

As a registered Republican, I'm used to being attacked - fellow Republicans have been doing it each other for years for not supporting Bush at the expense of common sense.

Sticks and stones...

I'm a big girl, I can take it. That said - I intend to vote a straight Democratic ticket in all local/state/national elections until the "Bush/Rapture Republicans" are forced to create their own party, I'm not ready to let them take over and orphan me or those that think like me, not without a fight.

I will continue to vote in the Republican primaries, and only for those Republicans that actually adhere to Goldwater Conservatism - none of this culture war distraction stuff.

I would propose a possible self-censoring rule: if you couldn't have your post read on network television in prime time, you may be too emotional. I'm willing to bet that if we eliminated posts with salty language, we might eliminate much of the overheated discussions. Note this also goes for attacks against the GOP: It's a short hop from "F*ck McCain" to "F*ck you!"

Hey, doh, guess what?! Switch Coffee House for TV, and this rule pretty much already exists for all users of this website! It's in the link above the box you type every comment in, the one that says:
(Comment Policy):

Does TPM have a comment policy?

Yes! TPMCafe and the TPM Media network follow a simple set of rules for acceptable commenting.
1. All political viewpoints are welcome. However, hate speech of any kind, libelous statements or threats to fellow users or others will be deleted and may be grounds for suspending or terminating a users account.
2. Four letter words are not banned, but we ask that they be used sparingly as overuse coarsens and undermines the debate.
3. TPMCafe is a venue for lively and passionate debate. But insults, personal attacks and the like make that sort of enlivening exchange impossible. If you just want to scream and taunt, please go somewhere else. If you have any question about what is and what's not acceptable, follow this rule: If you wouldn't use a certain word or talk to someone a certain way in a real-life political discussion at a Coffee House, don't do it here either.

In mho, the problem is that it's not adequately enforced, on Election Central threads in particular. With the primary, they got a huge increase in traffic, and that traffic was mostly Obamabots attacking Hillary people until the only Hillary people left were a few trollish ones and a few intransigent brave ones. They didn't do anything about all the partisan name-calling and food fighting because it was such a huge influx of traffic. BTW, I don't assign that to mercenary motives, I assign it to getting a huge inflow of traffic and having a small staff that they chose to have spend time on other than moderation duties. They just let it happen. But in the three years I've been a member, I've never seen in anything he posted that Josh Marshall didn't still want the type of site discourse elaborated in those rules.

And it's been very clear in numerous posts of his that he wants a wide mixture of political viewpoints here. That includes inviting people like Grover Norquist and Ross Douhat and Christopher Hitchens to post here, not to mention a bunch of liberal hawks on foreign policy in the old America Abroad section. It's just never seemed to be a priority to defend that preference, because management just has never been that interested in paying attention to a lot of the commenting here, unless a contributor complains about them, they have other priorities. Matter of fact, he said straight out at the beginning of TPMCafe that he chose software in the psst with comment ratings systems because it offered some kind of measure of self-policiing. And he wrote up an advisory on comoment ratings at the time that people should never downrate because they disagree with the opinion.

Respectfully, the network news rule would throw a subject matter filter over "[this other commentator] got it wrong, is an idiot, etc."

Imagine Brokaw doing that to Rather.

So I agree, but would impose a banality filter to accompany the mindless vulgarity filter. And not all vulgarity is mindless, of course.

In general I agree, but it's the "may" which makes this a "guideline" for me rather than a rule. Judicious use of "salty language" can come in pretty damn handy sometimes.

Depends on the who and the how, I suppose. :-)

LOL!

The lesson being, I read nearly every post now, because you just never know what you will learn if you keep an open mind.

That's interesting, because I've recently done the same and have come to a completely different conclusion. The more TPM members I read the more lame I think this place is. Originality is nearly nonexistent. What passes for interesting and clever and worthy of recommendation most often, upon closer examination, upon a really thorough read, is tepid, safe, hackneyed, common, prosaic blech!

Thousand word essays saying exactly... nothing! It's like a preacher reading from the bible then giving his flock his "interpretation" of what was just read. When you sit back and really listen, you realize he's really not saying anything. It's pap.

In here it is mostly the same. For instance, take an event in the sports world or entertainment world and transpose everything so that it seemingly applies to politics and politicians and boom! You've got a thoroughly recommended post! Never mind that it is done over and over and over again. (and really not very well.) People really think that's swift. They never tire of it.

Maybe go out and gather up as many different polls you have time for and then give your "interpretation" (like the preacher!) while actually simply stating the obvious. But do it with a sense of real discovery and tada! Rec'd!

Or if you're feeling really lazy take an article from some publication and copy the link and say "you really gotta read this"... same thing.

Then there's the oh so unique "Goodbye" post. One of the lamest use of a computer keyboard I can think of. Ripper's got recommended in no time flat. Seriously. A goodbye post!

We're now commenting in a thread that was started by, I'm sure, a very kind and sincere human being, but I cannot tell you the number of "Can't we all just get along" posts I've read in these pages.

The people who are the cleverest, the most interesting commenters are the ones who blog the least. A shame, but maybe that's the way to go. Keep the crowd wanting for more! I don't know.

I'll continue to read, continue to look for the thoughtful, interesting posts. But I'm not too optimistic.

AVAST, IT'S GOOD TO SEE YE.