Welcome to the DEBATE conference!

This is a general forum for participants to debate and discuss
a wide range of political, historical, contemporary, and
philosophical topics. The Rules of Engagement are as follows:

1. Forceful discussion or debate is encouraged.

2. It must be clearly understood that personal attacks (flames),
remarks deliberately intended to provoke other users ("baiting"
or "goading"), and foul or abusive language will NOT be
tolerated.

3. While general religious topics are allowed, "sermonizing"
does not belong here.

4. The posting of articles in their entirety, or in their
majority, is not allowed. Paraphrasing of articles is
encouraged. The article may be referred to as a URL in support
of the participant's position, whether pro or con.

5. Opinions or positions are encouraged. Bear in mind that you
may be challenged to provide the factual source that serves as
the basis for your opinion or position. If you put it forth,
it's yours to defend. Should you fail to do so others are
justified in considering it refuted or abandoned.

5.a. Crowing over a "win" is discouraged as being too close to
goading and is singularly unmannerly.

6. All moderating should be left to the Moderators. While
limited inquiries in the echo to moderator rulings will be
accepted for purposes of clarification, any dispute over
moderator rulings will be taken to private means; either email
or netmail.

6.a. The authority of the Co-moderator is the same as the
Moderator.

7. Participants should not be easily annoyed. Leave that to the
Moderators.

8. Cross-posting is allowed. It should be either complementing
an existing thread or starting a thread suitable for this echo.
See #11. Do not start dragging personal vendettas ("crap")
from other echoes over here. See #6 & 7.

9. Don't bite on taglines, whether they are on point are not;
they are only taglines. Taglines shall not be used as a back
door to flames. See #2 above.

10. Libelous postings are prohibited. A libelous posting is the
defamatory assertion, as a fact and without an indictment, that
a person has committed a criminal act. Or that the person is
suffering from a loathsome disease. Where public figures are
concerned, the rule for libel is that applied to the press, the
assertion must be known to the poster to be false or with
reckless disregard for the truth.

Since it is very difficult to determine what the poster knew or
whether he was guilty of reckless disregard for the truth this
rule will be interpreted to allow the poster the widest
latitude. It will be enforced only when there is very strong
evidence of violation.

Note that the rule against personal attacks will cover most
situations between participants.

11. Please do not over-quote. Quote enough of the message you
are responding to so the response makes sense. Quoting 25 lines
of text for a two-sentence response is an irritant and fuzzes up
the message.

12. Assumption of Honesty rule. Anyone posting in this echo may
be wrong on almost anything they post. Anything posted by any
participant will be assumed to be believed by the poster to be
true. Therfore, anything anyone else feels is wrong will be
considered as an honest mistake. Accusations of lying will be
considered personal attacks. You may disagree with the post, but
not attack the poster.

Any term such as "made up" or "making it up" or "invented" will
be treated exactly the same as an accusation of lying. It will
take an extreme case for the moderator to even consider the
possibility that an accusation of lying is true.

Note the following points:

a. Accusations of lying against public figures, or statements
made by those not participating in Fido, are not covered by
this rule. However, the rule about libel may apply.

b. Humor is assumed to be made up, and is not covered by this
rule. However, it will not be used for or subject to personal
attacks. That is covered under the personal attack rule.

13. Echo protection rule. Behavior that has the effect of
sabatoging this echo, whether in this echo or others, will lead
to a ban from this echo. That behavior will be defined as
encouraging others to break the rules, or using false statements
to convince others that the rules have been changed.

Any moderator who makes rules for his echo that limit or forbid
the participation in his echo of anyone who posts in this echo,
based on that participation will not be permitted to participate
in this echo.

This rule will be adjusted as is seen necessary.

If something becomes an irritant, we'll add it to the rules.

MOD Bob Klahn, 1:3603/140, bob.klahn@bex.net

Rules modified 6/22/09.



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... Bob Klahn - Moderator - Debate Echo...
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