I feel that our progress towards the goal will be in exact proportion to the purity of our means...They say ‘means are after all means’. I would say ‘means are after all everything’. As the means so the end. (Gandhi)
I have not been very involved in this issue. Not involved in the flame wars, the troll wars, the Obama wars. I really enjoy the diversity of opinions posted in diaries on DK, and over the years, I've gotten much better at not getting sucked into personal battles, where I feel the need to take on an individual or several on a specific issue or comment. There's certainly value in having discussions at that level, but it's something that I personally try to avoid. The conflicts I've had rarely have satisfying outcomes, in terms of achieving agreement/understanding, and I've often subsequently regretted my judgement and word choice, while in the heat of conflict.
So I've been behind the curve on all of this, and will remain so, deliberately. Not because I don't care about trolling, or race issues, or site moderation, but because they're not my focus at DK. Some people are much more actively involved in these issues, and I appreciate their contributions to DK, although I may not always agree with them. I like that DK functions as forum where a diversity of people can exchange ideas, and am not surprised that sometimes things get ugly.
That said, the current boycott is an opportunity to have a discussion about how to address problematic behavior on DK. There seem to be some entrenched positions on the topic, and I'd like to focus on ways to improve discussions on DK.