Mods should work to prevent and sanction personal attacks.

Thank you, Ren, for engaging with me in this debate. I look forward to an insightful exchange. -- Background -- Juggle bought this website for $100K. It hasn't remotely begun to make that money back. We therefore have every reason to assume that Juggle's primary motivation in keeping DDO afloat is to profit or at least break even on its investment, otherwise it has no reason to continue operations or making improvements to the site. Making money from DDO would require growing and strengthening an active membership that involves not only recruiting members but keeping them. What draws people to DDO in the first place is the premise/purpose of the site: to debate a variety of subjects - not to insult people or engage in ad hominem attacks and/or instigate divisive flame wars. Doing so would significantly diminish the quality and perhaps even quantity (members) that participate here. This would interfere with Juggle's overall goal which is to make money. Juggle acknowledges this, hence specifying in the Terms of Service (TOS) that insulting and harassing members is specifically prohibited. When creating your account, you must agree to adhere to the rules of the TOS or else expect to face penalties, including the possibility of having your account closed or perhaps being banned from utilizing the site all-together. The TOS explicitly states that you must agree to not upload, copy, distribute, share or otherwise use content that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, harmful, hateful, harassing, pornographic, threatening, racially or ethnically offensive or abusive [1]. There are other prohibitions, but we can assume that posting overtly offensive comments is the primary focus of this debate. The user known as WriterDave suggested that inappropriate comments (as determined by the TOS that everyone agreed to adhere by) ought to be removed, and that perhaps repeat antagonistic offenders have their accounts suspended or closed in order to enforce compliance with the TOS. In retaliation, most members cried fascism and opposed this idea on the grounds that censorship would interfere with the merit and overall enjoyment of the site. It will be my opponent's burden to uphold this idea, or argue against moderators working to prevent and penalize personal attacks as outlined by the TOS. -- Contentions -- 1. You do not have any "rights" on Juggle outside of what Juggle agrees to. Juggle has specifically prohibited offensive comments (see TOS), so it doesn't matter if individual users don't care about said comments or wish to engage in posting them. The fact is that they have chosen to abide by Juggle's rules in agreeing to utilize this FREE service, so their individual opinions are irrelevant. If they want to post content that Juggle does not condone, they are free to withdraw their membership and post said content elsewhere. While Juggle has no obligation to monitor disputes, it has apparently found it useful to do so in some capacity. There is a precedent of them doing so. If Juggle finds it appropriate to penalize members for violating the TOS, that's their prerogative. 2. You can argue that some users are okay with unmoderated comments, and therefore to appease the membership Juggle should allow it. However that is only the case if it can be proven that a community filled with permissible libel and slander will ultimately attract and keep members to contribute to Juggle's overall goal - generating revenue. I will argue that it is in Juggle's best interest to protect the integrity of the site by ensuring it remains a relatively inviting and insightful community, rather than an unnecessarily rude and hostile one. 3. Moreover, I will argue that the community as a whole will benefit from said moderation even though the site has no obligation to provide it. In fact, when we didn't have moderators, members were whining incessantly about the lack of enforcing rules on Juggle's end. Some even relied on vigilante justice (and this was praised). If the overall consensus is that the community will benefit from moderation, then it ought to be acknowledged that enforcing the rules as outlined via the TOS is the primary purpose of having moderators in the first place. 4. Moderators are ultimately chosen by Juggle. While the community's input is valuable, Juggle has the final say in who has certain abilities to add/remove content. The user known as innomen is one unpaid moderator; Juggle has several other employees who also mod. People who sign up for DDO have automatically agreed to accept the moderation tendencies of the people Juggle has chosen to enforce the rules. 5. I think we can all agree that innomen has been a decent moderator thus far, as have the other mods appointed by Juggle. As such, it is reasonable to assume that the modding decisions these individuals will continue to make in the future will not be absurd or unwarranted (excessive in scope). To my knowledge, nobody has been banned for making a few rude comments. Only overtly antagonistic offenders who have crossed the line repeatedly have been banned, and that was after several warnings. Therefore one must wonder why it would be so harmful to the site to have moderators continue the practice of banning troublesome members, which mods here already do. 6. We have absolutely no reason to believe that any and every post someone finds offensive will be removed and/or the poster penalized. In fact the word moderate itself means "keeping within reasonable limits." You cannot please everyone, and some people are more sensitive than others. Instead what we can expect based on precedent is that reported public comments are to be removed if they are found to be unwarranted and overtly offensive by the moderator's discretion. While calling someone names that can be perceived as derogatory (i.e., racist) is somewhat inevitable on a website such as DDO, making fun of someone's physical appearance, or insulting their sexuality or otherwise irrelevant personal attacks ought not to be condoned. They serve no useful or relevant purpose to the site other than making members feel hurt or unwelcome. This is bad for Juggle's public image and promotes a bad and business model counter-productive to their goals. -- Conclusion -- There's no point in making members agree to abide by rules if the rules aren't going to be enforced. The resolution simply calls for the appointed moderators to carry out the duties assigned to them, which includes but is not limited to enforcing the TOS. In order to enforce the rules, you have to sanction personal attacks that devalue the integrity of the site. This works to prevent future harassment, and promotes a respectful and rewarding exchange amongst members even if they disagree. This is beneficial insofar as upholding Juggle's values, and setting a standard of integrity for members to operate by. I see little to no drawbacks of expecting moderators to moderate. Not all offensive posts are expected to be removed; only the overtly harsh ones invoking unwarranted personal attacks. It is incredibly insulting to the current moderator(s) and community at large to insinuate that you cannot tell the difference between a blatant personal attack and perhaps a rude comment said in jest. Even the occasional disagreement over an ambiguous comment is not enough to negate the benefits of upholding the resolution. Thank you and good luck. [1] http://www.debate.org...