[Discussion/Announcement] NSG's "Wing" Megathreads

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I'm perfectly willing to admit that RWDT's idea of "friendly banter" was problematic. That doesn't change the image problem.

For one example, take your signature. I am a religious person with strong views about the nature of the family and its place in society. Given what I've said about watching those views being violently and suddenly punted out the Overton window, I also have the tendency to assume that people will attempt to silence me. I suspect that most socially conservative religious people come to the table with similar assumptions.

Now, when I see your sig, this tendency causes me to assume that I am one of the zealots to whom you refer - and thus that I will have to "deal with it" accordingly.

You and I have had next to no interactions, and solely due to the nature of my views and your presentation of yourself, you've already convinced me that you are an outsider to be feared.

Now, perhaps you'll reveal yourself to be tolerant of - or even open-minded towards - my views. But the point is that you've already alienated me, without even trying. And without a visible counterbalance, my assumption will be that the entire moderation team will be like you - out to "correct" my "zealotry." This is what I mean by an "image problem."

I put it to you that, while part of the RWDT's problem was its unwillingness to submit to the rules, part of it was also distrust of the mods. And that distrust may well have been due to the way you present yourselves. Most of you seem to be social liberals, and if any of you are traditional conservatives, they're not publically presenting themselves as such - causing the mod team to be viewed as a single monolithic block of outsiders. And that, more than any other factor, resulted in hostility towards the mods. Hostility that was only reinforced every time you moderated the thread.

If you want traditional conservatives to trust that the system will work for them, you need to overcome the "presumption of hostility" that many of us bring to the table. If you don't care about us, then you need to come out and admit that we aren't welcome here. It's up to you which option to go with, but I don't see a third one.

If you are alienated by making an assumption about my views without ever interacting with me, that's a you thing, not a me thing.

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Tbh the rule against trolling is enforced weirdly. If I have a point to make which I know nobody will agree with, I have to explain it with way too much detail so I don't get accused of 'trolling'

[La Xinga]

If you are alienated by making an assumption about my views without ever interacting with me, that's a you thing, not a me thing.

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Tbh the rule against trolling is enforced weirdly. If I have a point to make which I know nobody will agree with, I have to explain it with way too much detail so I don't get accused of 'trolling'

I think "Warned for trolling" is the most used warn, even though that isn't the OP topic.

[The New California Republic]

Perhaps the problem is not so much PR as following the very reasonable site rules?

I'm perfectly willing to admit that RWDT's idea of "friendly banter" was problematic. That doesn't change the image problem.

For one example, take your signature. I am a religious person with strong views about the nature of the family and its place in society. Given what I've said about watching those views being violently and suddenly punted out the Overton window, I also have the tendency to assume that people will attempt to silence me. I suspect that most socially conservative religious people come to the table with similar assumptions.

Now, when I see your sig, this tendency causes me to assume that I am one of the zealots to whom you refer - and thus that I will have to "deal with it" accordingly.

You and I have had next to no interactions, and solely due to the nature of my views and your presentation of yourself, you've already convinced me that you are an outsider to be feared.

Now, perhaps you'll reveal yourself to be tolerant of - or even open-minded towards - my views. But the point is that you've already alienated me, without even trying. And without a visible counterbalance, my assumption will be that the entire moderation team will be like you - out to "correct" my "zealotry." This is what I mean by an "image problem."

I put it to you that, while part of the RWDT's problem was its unwillingness to submit to the rules, part of it was also distrust of the mods. And that distrust may well have been due to the way you present yourselves. Most of you seem to be social liberals, and if any of you are traditional conservatives, they're not publically presenting themselves as such - causing the mod team to be viewed as a single monolithic block of outsiders. And that, more than any other factor, resulted in hostility towards the mods. Hostility that was only reinforced every time you moderated the thread.

If you want traditional conservatives to trust that the system will work for them, you need to overcome the "presumption of hostility" that many of us bring to the table. If you don't care about us, then you need to come out and admit that we aren't welcome here. It's up to you which option to go with, but I don't see a third one.

But again most of this talk of the political leanings of individual Mods is largely irrelevant anyway, as I have yet to see a single instance of that interfering with their duty to make fair rulings on the basis of a sound interpretation of the rules.

Unless the primary reason for bringing it up is that some forum users just wouldn't like or trust a Mod solely on the basis of a Mod's political leanings, irrespective of whether it'd actually affect their rulings or not? If that's the case, then it's more of a problem at the user end (a "you" problem) than at the Moderation end.

[Hakons]

An entire group of users was labeled "problematic." That, in itself, represents mod bias, because the group was deemed problematic in the eyes of moderation, then their community was destroyed. "Problematic" is the term of choice, and it's utterly subjective and often levied against right wingers.

[Hakons]

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism. This is one aspect that moderation continuously fails to address. The RWDT was a place for right wingers to talk without the toxic responses we usually get. Maybe you don't believe me, but that's my lived experience and the experience of a lot of others. I'm obviously down to argue against rough debaters every now and then, but I would rather not have that be my only experiences on NSG.

[The New California Republic]

An entire group of users was labeled "problematic." That, in itself, represents mod bias, because the group was deemed problematic in the eyes of moderation, then their community was destroyed. "Problematic" is the term of choice, and it's utterly subjective and often levied against right wingers.

...the RWDT was problematic though, because of the actions of its users, which included breaking most of the forum rules very frequently. Whether that makes the users themselves problematic is up to interpretation.

[Attempted Socialism]

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism. This is one aspect that moderation continuously fails to address. The RWDT was a place for right wingers to talk without the toxic responses we usually get. Maybe you don't believe me, but that's my lived experience and the experience of a lot of others. I'm obviously down to argue against rough debaters every now and then, but I would rather not have that be my only experiences on NSG.

So your ideas are subject to relevant criticism, and that is somehow the moderation team being toxic (Or disregarding toxicity) towards your ideology? If I barged into random threads and alleged that whatever issue was being discussed could be traced back to the fact that Jesus is absolutely made-up (Or whatever would be the anti-theist analogy to your shtick), and now let me proselytise that to the entire thread, do you think there would be a reaction? If it was all I did, or a large part of what I did, do you think my lived experience on the board would shift?
Since LWDT was also closed (Despite not being as rule-breaking as RWDT), should left-wingers claim double persecution? Their community was destroyed, is this also representative of mod bias?

[Grenartia]

An entire group of users was labeled "problematic."

Based entirely on the fact that they were, in fact, problematic.

That, in itself, represents mod bias,

Yes, how dare Moderation be biased against toxic rulebreaking cliques.

because the group was deemed problematic in the eyes of moderation, then their community was destroyed. "Problematic" is the term of choice, and it's utterly subjective and often levied against right wingers.

When you have flaming, flamebaiting, trolling, and trollbaiting running amok, being played off as "bantz", and people baselessly calling others "pedo-enablers", and other people are defending and encouraging them, that is extremely toxic and needs to be stamped out.

Being a right winger doesn't excuse someone being an asshole. And since you'll probably baselessly accuse me of saying all right-wingers are assholes, I want to specifically state that is exactly not what I am saying.

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism.

Surely, you can provide examples?

An entire group of users was labeled "problematic." That, in itself, represents mod bias, because the group was deemed problematic in the eyes of moderation, then their community was destroyed. "Problematic" is the term of choice, and it's utterly subjective and often levied against right wingers.

...the RWDT was problematic though, because of the actions of its users, which included breaking most of the forum rules very frequently. Whether that makes the users themselves problematic is up to interpretation.

Probably the only rules that weren't broken by the regulars were adspam and pornspam.

Since LWDT was also closed (Despite not being as rule-breaking as RWDT), should left-wingers claim double persecution? Their community was destroyed, is this also representative of mod bias?

Honestly, if anyone in all of this has a legitimate case for 'being unfairly persecuted by moderation', its the LWDT regulars.

[Katganistan]

If you are alienated by making an assumption about my views without ever interacting with me, that's a you thing, not a me thing.

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Tbh the rule against trolling is enforced weirdly. If I have a point to make which I know nobody will agree with, I have to explain it with way too much detail so I don't get accused of 'trolling'

No, you have to do it without flaming and trolling. If you find it difficult not to call people names, or dismiss whole groups of people as something horrid, that is on you, not on us.

An entire group of users was labeled "problematic." That, in itself, represents mod bias, because the group was deemed problematic in the eyes of moderation, then their community was destroyed. "Problematic" is the term of choice, and it's utterly subjective and often levied against right wingers.

Individual users' behavior was deemed problematic. Big difference.
Their community was not destroyed -- their thread where they repeatedly engaged in rulebreaking behavior, which anyone is welcome to go view for themselves, was closed.

The rules are not subjective. They are in the One Stop Rules Shop for anyone to see.

Insisting that there is a liberal bias in enforcing the rules says quite a bit, but not about moderation.

[Kubra]

as a regular poster in the LWDT, I can honestly see the mod perspective here. While it is my belief that the LWDT was generally on point more than the RWDT (and of course my perspective may be biased), it would have been pretty unfair to just shut down one.
However, my main concern is, well, containment. My memory of before these threads is that we'd have multiple individual threads on these topics generally cropping up and cluttering the first page, much to the detriment of more specific topics that didn't directly deal with the whole-left right thing. There'd be multiple topics on this or that right wing or left wing thing that would have been less messy than if they were kept to a single thread. Only the endless irish independence threads rivaled the topics in terms of volume.
I think it'd be better if we just combined the LWDT and RWDT into one megathread dedicated to, you know, left vs right matters. I mean, there was enough crossposting that after chatposting they were basically two threads for the same thing. And hey, stick the two sides in one room and perhaps we'll be more likely to report each other.

[Diarcesia]

as a regular poster in the LWDT, I can honestly see the mod perspective here. While it is my belief that the LWDT was generally on point more than the RWDT (and of course my perspective may be biased), it would have been pretty unfair to just shut down one.
However, my main concern is, well, containment. My memory of before these threads is that we'd have multiple individual threads on these topics generally cropping up and cluttering the first page, much to the detriment of more specific topics that didn't directly deal with the whole-left right thing. There'd be multiple topics on this or that right wing or left wing thing that would have been less messy than if they were kept to a single thread. Only the endless irish independence threads rivaled the topics in terms of volume.
I think it'd be better if we just combined the LWDT and RWDT into one megathread dedicated to, you know, left vs right matters. I mean, there was enough crossposting that after chatposting they were basically two threads for the same thing. And hey, stick the two sides in one room and perhaps we'll be more likely to report each other.

As it is, General has the perception that it is NS's containment board.

[Kubra]

as a regular poster in the LWDT, I can honestly see the mod perspective here. While it is my belief that the LWDT was generally on point more than the RWDT (and of course my perspective may be biased), it would have been pretty unfair to just shut down one.
However, my main concern is, well, containment. My memory of before these threads is that we'd have multiple individual threads on these topics generally cropping up and cluttering the first page, much to the detriment of more specific topics that didn't directly deal with the whole-left right thing. There'd be multiple topics on this or that right wing or left wing thing that would have been less messy than if they were kept to a single thread. Only the endless irish independence threads rivaled the topics in terms of volume.
I think it'd be better if we just combined the LWDT and RWDT into one megathread dedicated to, you know, left vs right matters. I mean, there was enough crossposting that after chatposting they were basically two threads for the same thing. And hey, stick the two sides in one room and perhaps we'll be more likely to report each other.

As it is, General has the perception that it is NS's containment board.

Perception? It's the absolute truth, mate. We're folks who go on a roleplaying forum to not roleplay *at all*.
In any case, even a containment board must have good order, and so it's natural we should think how to maintain such.

[Diopolis]

as a regular poster in the LWDT, I can honestly see the mod perspective here. While it is my belief that the LWDT was generally on point more than the RWDT (and of course my perspective may be biased), it would have been pretty unfair to just shut down one.
However, my main concern is, well, containment. My memory of before these threads is that we'd have multiple individual threads on these topics generally cropping up and cluttering the first page, much to the detriment of more specific topics that didn't directly deal with the whole-left right thing. There'd be multiple topics on this or that right wing or left wing thing that would have been less messy than if they were kept to a single thread. Only the endless irish independence threads rivaled the topics in terms of volume.
I think it'd be better if we just combined the LWDT and RWDT into one megathread dedicated to, you know, left vs right matters. I mean, there was enough crossposting that after chatposting they were basically two threads for the same thing. And hey, stick the two sides in one room and perhaps we'll be more likely to report each other.

I'll note that right now there appears to be multiple threads on the front page of general that would have been rolled into the LWDT.
The RWDT tended to meander a lot more, has regulars that are sitting out of general discussion, and also tended to be far more esoteric, so currently there aren't general threads that would be part of the RWDT, but it's coming. The last iteration actually was mostly spam, but the previous ones had endless debates on what crimes the death penalty should be expanded to, the proper role of the state in encouraging virtue, right-wing anticapitalist perspectives, role of religion in society, and etc.
For several of those topics, it made sense to not start a general thread- role of religion in society would quickly turn into an even mixture of one sentence posts that have clearly not thought the issue through and atheist v religious flame wars, for example. But some typical RWDT topics are likely to show up in general eventually.

[Atheris]

Question. Are threads that are about certain viewpoints, say, a megathread about socialism or a megathread about American libertarianism allowed, or do they fall under the ruling?

[Kubra]

as a regular poster in the LWDT, I can honestly see the mod perspective here. While it is my belief that the LWDT was generally on point more than the RWDT (and of course my perspective may be biased), it would have been pretty unfair to just shut down one.
However, my main concern is, well, containment. My memory of before these threads is that we'd have multiple individual threads on these topics generally cropping up and cluttering the first page, much to the detriment of more specific topics that didn't directly deal with the whole-left right thing. There'd be multiple topics on this or that right wing or left wing thing that would have been less messy than if they were kept to a single thread. Only the endless irish independence threads rivaled the topics in terms of volume.
I think it'd be better if we just combined the LWDT and RWDT into one megathread dedicated to, you know, left vs right matters. I mean, there was enough crossposting that after chatposting they were basically two threads for the same thing. And hey, stick the two sides in one room and perhaps we'll be more likely to report each other.

I'll note that right now there appears to be multiple threads on the front page of general that would have been rolled into the LWDT.
The RWDT tended to meander a lot more, has regulars that are sitting out of general discussion, and also tended to be far more esoteric, so currently there aren't general threads that would be part of the RWDT, but it's coming. The last iteration actually was mostly spam, but the previous ones had endless debates on what crimes the death penalty should be expanded to, the proper role of the state in encouraging virtue, right-wing anticapitalist perspectives, role of religion in society, and etc.
For several of those topics, it made sense to not start a general thread- role of religion in society would quickly turn into an even mixture of one sentence posts that have clearly not thought the issue through and atheist v religious flame wars, for example. But some typical RWDT topics are likely to show up in general eventually.

Awww we just didn't get into more esoteric discussion because, well, we really didn't have the volume of posters that the RWDT does. If there had been as many left wingers present I'm sure the LWDT would have been just as big a shitshow, cliques and all.
But I digress. As you say, this well probably result in some degree of clutter.

[Vistulange]

it is usually met with toxic criticism

Sorry, are we not permitted to vehemently dislike your ideas, and voice that dislike?

Because, I mean, if we flame or bait you while doing so, moderation comes down on us just as hard. If you haven't noticed that, there isn't much we can say.

[Salandriagado]

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism. This is one aspect that moderation continuously fails to address. The RWDT was a place for right wingers to talk without the toxic responses we usually get. Maybe you don't believe me, but that's my lived experience and the experience of a lot of others. I'm obviously down to argue against rough debaters every now and then, but I would rather not have that be my only experiences on NSG.

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism. This is one aspect that moderation continuously fails to address. The RWDT was a place for right wingers to talk without the toxic responses we usually get. Maybe you don't believe me, but that's my lived experience and the experience of a lot of others. I'm obviously down to argue against rough debaters every now and then, but I would rather not have that be my only experiences on NSG.

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

I don't know...people who call people liars rather than addressing their debate points are pretty toxic, especially if they do it to everyone they disagree with. There are some posters like that.

[Esternial]

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism. This is one aspect that moderation continuously fails to address. The RWDT was a place for right wingers to talk without the toxic responses we usually get. Maybe you don't believe me, but that's my lived experience and the experience of a lot of others. I'm obviously down to argue against rough debaters every now and then, but I would rather not have that be my only experiences on NSG.

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

I don't see how Moderation would be involved here. They're not tasked with enforcing safe spaces...

[Salandriagado]

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

I don't see how Moderation would be involved here. They're not tasked with enforcing safe spaces...

The only reasonable definition of "toxic" that I can think of overlaps pretty enormously with "flaming" and "trolling".

[Outer Sparta]

Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about conservatives not being welcome on the site. Conservatives are welcome on the site. What is not welcome is flaming and trolling. There are plenty of conservatives who make their points -- points that people might find disagreeable -- without resorting to flames and trolling. These conservatives are not warned, and when people complain of their position, they are told to discuss it because it is not breaking the rules.

If some conservatives find it difficult to make their point without calling their opponents names, that is not a bias against conservatives, it is correcting rule-breaking behavior.

If to improve our PR we are supposed to embrace people trolling and flaming, then our PR will not be improving.

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism. This is one aspect that moderation continuously fails to address. The RWDT was a place for right wingers to talk without the toxic responses we usually get. Maybe you don't believe me, but that's my lived experience and the experience of a lot of others. I'm obviously down to argue against rough debaters every now and then, but I would rather not have that be my only experiences on NSG.

You do realize it's welcome or if it wasn't then moderation would ban people for being supportive of conservatism.

[Diopolis]

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

I don't know...people who call people liars rather than addressing their debate points are pretty toxic, especially if they do it to everyone they disagree with. There are some posters like that.

Or who refuse to accept sources that support points they disagree with, refuse to actually engage with arguments, etc, etc.
There are a lot of posters like that on NSG, and they tend to lean left.

[Diopolis]

Conservatism isn't welcome in NSG. Whenever I post something about religion or conservatism outside the RWDT or the CDT, it is usually met with toxic criticism. This is one aspect that moderation continuously fails to address. The RWDT was a place for right wingers to talk without the toxic responses we usually get. Maybe you don't believe me, but that's my lived experience and the experience of a lot of others. I'm obviously down to argue against rough debaters every now and then, but I would rather not have that be my only experiences on NSG.

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

A dogpile is different from having a debate.

[Salandriagado]

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

I don't know...people who call people liars rather than addressing their debate points are pretty toxic, especially if they do it to everyone they disagree with. There are some posters like that.

Your silly attempt to derail the thread with a poorly-disguised personal attack notwithstanding, no. People calling you out for lying is not "toxic".

At any rate, Hakons' claim seemed implausible to me, so I did a little experiment. I went to Hakons' profile, and clicked through the last ten pages of their posts. I opened every thread that they'd posted in that was in NSG and neither the CDT nor the RWDT (a total of 17 threads). I then searched for "Hakons" in each of those threads, producing a list of all of the posts quoting Hakons (after filtering out posts that weren't of this form, a total of 177 posts). I then read them all, looking for anything that could reasonably be described as "toxic". Two threads had no such posts. One contained only a post agreeing with Hakons. Nine contained nothing but polite, reasonable responses (and a single borderline-spam post that was nonetheless perfectly civil). I also note that one of these contained a very civil response to a significantly less civil post by Hakons. That leaves five threads. Of these: the thread about transgender health protections being rolled back contained one post that was mildly snarky. The riots/protests thread II contained one post which engaged in reasonable debate in a mildly snarky way and one post calling out an uncivil post of Hakons'. The religion in schools thread contained one post that engaged in reasonable debate in a mildly snarky way, and two calling out Hakons' debating tactics as impolite. The US riots thread (1) contained, out of 60 such posts, three mildly snarky posts, three posts calling out Hakons' tactics, and one polite response to an impolite post of Hakons'. Finally, the LGBT adoption thread contained, out of 32 such posts, three that were mildly snarky, and the only post of the entire lot that I'd consider even borderline "toxic" (this one).

That is: Hakons' claim that discussing Christianity or Conservatism outside of the CDT/RWDT is met with toxicity is simply untrue (for reference, the threads that contained only reasonable non-snarky responses above were "is Antifa a terrorist group", "what makes a cult", the Illinois medicaid expansion thread, "should non-profits be taxed", "what makes a good christian", the 4th Coronavirus thread, "what would it take for you to vote for Biden", the 6th and 7th US general election threads, MAGAThread XIX, the Washington & Jefferson statues thread and the CHAZ thread, so there was no shortage of discussion of those two topics in the dataset).

[Salandriagado]

People debating with you is not your opinions not being welcome. It's debate. It's literally the point of NSG. If your opinions can't withstand such scrutiny, the problem is with your opinions, not the scrutiny. Disagreeing with you is not "toxic", and pretty well anything that could actually be reasonably described as "toxic" is already against the rules, and will be dealt with if you report it.

A dogpile is different from having a debate.

Lots of people disagreeing with you is not a sign of them doing something wrong.