And they have. With their feet. Which pretty much defeats the purpose of creating the threads in the first place. You're free to disagree. And have. And are. And most likely will. Over and over again.
My point is that because I value free speech, anything that gets in the way of people freely and easily expressing themselves I see as unwelcome. I have no disagreement whatsoever with your point about the need to curb the idiots, as I also very clearly understand Baron's point. What I disagree with is moderation being left to the whims and fancies of individuals.
Nice try. No, I'd prefer to leave it to a small group of people acting on a single set of standards who are unemotional about applying those standards because their fragile egos are not at stake.
You missed the unemotional bit. There is a reason civilised society does not allow the victim or offended party to decide if there actually was a transgression and if so what the punishment should be.
Unfortunately you're forcing a correlation in that people have mostly been leaving due to interaction style and not just simply leaving for a 100 other unrelated reasons. It's weak at best. Additionally, your attempts at pointing out the fact that I disagree don't take away from the veracity of my points - particularly as you yourself been frequently arguing the other side as well. I'm starting to see an argument style you use which is manipulative. You hypocritically try to paint a poster in a certain light as a method of discrediting their points while at the same time frequently engage in the same behavior as those you're trying to discredit. You then depend on lack of critical thinking by others to not notice it. At this point I simply believe you want this new feature mostly as a control angle and that you're more interested in fostering a rank and file type environment where you get to set rules others must follow in order to participate in "your" discussion. Any aspects of free and open discourse (including points you disagree with - even vehemently) are not something you're interested in.