I have a suggestion for a new forum on WQD – maybe a subforum of the DMZ?

Sharksandwich and I (weens) were just talking about how we find that we don’t have many options for healthy participation on WQD. We do some journaling, and some supporting, but we really like to mix it up. There is a handful of us who really enjoy debating controversial topics, and know how to argue without spontaneously combusting or devolving into ad hominem attacks or questioning others’ commitment to sobriety, when someone disagrees with us.

What we were thinking about is creating a subforum of the DMZ where we can take off the gloves, while maintaining something almost like academic standards for argument (except with pottymouth), while discussing topics that you’re not supposed to bring up in polite company.

So, there would be guidelines, something like this:

This is a debate arena. Almost anything goes: no topic is off limits. But there are certain standards of debate that must be adhered to. For instance:

NO:
Ad hominem attacks. That includes: questioning a member’s sobriety, sanity, morality, intelligence or paternal legitimacy; but excludes questioning an argument’s sanity, morality, etc. For instance, it is out of bounds to call someone crazy, but it is within bounds to call their argument crazy.

Taking the argument outside the forum in order to attack a participant. For instance, one would be disqualified from participating if they go into their own journal and let fly with their ad hominem attacks. They are free to say whatever they want in their own journal, of course, but it would disqualify them from participating in the forum.

The point is to be able to debate subjects of interest, heatedly, without losing focus; without having the whole discussion derailed by one person saying, “By the way, how’s your quit going?” or “How is this discussion helping your sobriety?” or “You’re a dry drunk,” or, generally, melting down over it.

And, since there is an "ignore" option, people could opt out entirely.

/me is a widely used command in chatboxes that suggests an action. It just gives a more 3d sense to a chat, and it can be fun. For example instead of saying "I am eating a banana" you could type "/me is eating a banana" and in the chat it would say:
*Twincity is eating a banana*
related to this, other commands could be implemented such as /stats to give the top shouters list, or even similar to my other suggestion but less dramatic a "/help" command which displays a prominent message that you need help in the chatbox
Not sure why this disappeared in the first place :P