The best way for us to bring back the Zone is to invite people who can contribute to the conversation.

While I can tolerate RL’s “tone” most of the time, I would NEVER want to subject ANYONE who I invited here, to his rebuttals. And I shouldn’t have to ask them about their political leanings before I do.

What I proposed up there was to use tags to let Zone members structure and mold and evolve the Zone over time, to meet changing circumstances and needs. Some of the discussion was along the lines of using technology to discourage some conversations and encourage others, but I’m really against that, for ethical as well as practical reasons (inflexibility).

In that context, I’m generally in favor of the kind of changes you want to make. Don’t give up just yet, Rob.

Come to think of it, we haven’t even particularly disagreed with you on any of your recent contributions, so perhaps just our failure to support you without question and wholeheartedly now counts as being “uncivil”.

Trying to talk with the political Right is like negotiating with the Taliban. They are willing to debate only when they are getting their butts kicked. Remember, it is the Conservatives on this board that tried to tell us Obama was a Socialist Muslim from Kenya; That Global Warming was a Liberal Plot to Spread Socialism, and that the Covid Virus was a Democratic conspiracy against Free Enterprise. Remember the epidemic of rapes of Nordic girls by Arabs in Northern Europe? And what about all those illegal aliens being brought in for purposes of voter fraud? How about the Benghazi Bullshit hearings? Hillary’s emails? Q-Anon? Pizzagate? The Stacking of the Supreme Court by changing the rules (twice) about allowing debate of the candidates? How about the refusal to allow witnesses to testify at the impeachment hearings? What about the voter suppression epidemic? And then there was Trump. Lets not forget about Trump. How can we ever forget Trump? It wasn’t bad enough that the Right foisted him on us, but then they covered for him and made excuses for him and even punished their own brothers for calling him out.

Perhaps this “incivility” you detect is nothing but a little wholesome and totally predictable….skepticism. Before bipartisanship must come reconciliation. And that requires redemption. We don’t need civility, we demand an apology. You made a good start with your earlier post on the Jan 6 attempted coup.