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I appreciate the efforts made by the moderation team in the M/E forum, and I support harsh rules in this part of the forum because I think it is the only way to moderate it.
However, I think that we should remember the purpose of the rules (make debate possible): in certain cases, a rule can be "violated" but it does not make sense to enforce it.
For example, it is forbidden to say "apartheid" in the ME forum because some people think there is an analogy between what happens in Palestine and what happened in South Africa, and the ones who wrote the rules consider that this comparison is flaming. But someone who wants to complain about some bad arguments used by other people could say the word "apartheid" without intention to flame, yet according to the rules he should be infracted, like in this post
http://www.debatepolitics.com/middl...stinian-land-irreversible.html#post1059055974
Another example, it is forbidden to talk about "land theft" because some posters could talk about Israel as "land stolen from Palestinians" or about Palestine as "land stolen from Israel". In this case, it makes sense to infract the words "land theft".
However there is a third case (the colonies in West-Bank or in the Palestinian part of Jerusalem) where this expression is factually correct: the land was attributed to Palestinians by the UN, yet Israeli occupied, colonized and annexed this Palestinian land unilaterally, without negociations, in total violation of the international law and without any compensation. The adequate word to describe this process is "theft":
theft"
Theft - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
"to steal":
Steal - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
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Now I'm not saying that the rules should be changed, but I think they should be enforced only when they make sense. In the two cases I have mentioned, it does not make sense to enforce the rule.
However, I think that we should remember the purpose of the rules (make debate possible): in certain cases, a rule can be "violated" but it does not make sense to enforce it.
For example, it is forbidden to say "apartheid" in the ME forum because some people think there is an analogy between what happens in Palestine and what happened in South Africa, and the ones who wrote the rules consider that this comparison is flaming. But someone who wants to complain about some bad arguments used by other people could say the word "apartheid" without intention to flame, yet according to the rules he should be infracted, like in this post
http://www.debatepolitics.com/middl...stinian-land-irreversible.html#post1059055974
Another example, it is forbidden to talk about "land theft" because some posters could talk about Israel as "land stolen from Palestinians" or about Palestine as "land stolen from Israel". In this case, it makes sense to infract the words "land theft".
However there is a third case (the colonies in West-Bank or in the Palestinian part of Jerusalem) where this expression is factually correct: the land was attributed to Palestinians by the UN, yet Israeli occupied, colonized and annexed this Palestinian land unilaterally, without negociations, in total violation of the international law and without any compensation. The adequate word to describe this process is "theft":
theft"
a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
Theft - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
"to steal":
-1
: to take the property of another wrongfully
a : to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully <stole a car>
b : to take away by force or unjust means <they've stolen our liberty>
c : to take surreptitiously or without permission <steal a kiss>
d : to appropriate to oneself or beyond one's proper share
Steal - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
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Now I'm not saying that the rules should be changed, but I think they should be enforced only when they make sense. In the two cases I have mentioned, it does not make sense to enforce the rule.
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