"...ideas are generally shot down by site mgmt or ignored, except ..."

Hmmm... that's another pretty general statement, Susan. I wasn't referring to ideas about moderating, but rather ideas about how to make the right points TO chronic offenders that there are better ways to disagree.
There 'are' basic rules we are supposed to follow....no ad hominem attacks, etc., and obvious trangressions are dealt with...eventually. But it is those 'gray areas' where someone is being one-sided and mean without actually saying nasty stuff that are hard to cope with.
   I suspect that, for some people, there are issues that they have such overwhelmingly strong opinions about, that they lose all semblance of rationality and just resort to ranting and name-calling. Religion and Race (as in BNP) are just a couple of the 'hot buttons'
.....yeah, we 'could' ban any discussion of politics, religion, race, sex, Nationalism, war, guns ...etc.... but those are human things...the things that NEED discussing....discussing, not declaiming and demanding.

I have watched this for...gee.... 12+ years now? and tried to discuss, debate and sometimes defend various issues, and I have mostly not had serious clashes with folks...(even MG *grin* only made one half-hearted snide remark at me). It is not that I don't have opinions, is just that I really try to see both sides and try NOT to make flat declarations that I HAVE all the right answers.


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(well, typing that just reminded me of the sig in someone's posts I saw once:

" Those who think they know it all are becoming very annoying to those of us who DO!")