This thread may not go well.. but it has to be said...

[MADem]

47. No they are not. I invite your attention to those community standards.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards

These broad community standards of behavior are maintained through the combined efforts of members posting and serving on citizen juries, using their own best judgment to decide what behavior is appropriate and what is not.

You are either part of the solution, or you're not. The odds of getting called to jury duty for anyone isn't that huge--even for paying members. Using time zones as an excuse doesn't cut it either...If I'm in Europe or on the west coast I still get called...in fact, if you are a fan of civility, your input would be valued in the wee small hours, as it were.

This is a sandbox that we're ALL expected to police. You can refuse to help, if you'd like, but if you do that you also lose any credibility when you complain about the "tone" or attitude here.

It's also obvious from your remarks that you don't get how the jury system works at all. No one would be "waiting" for your input. If you aren't online, you won't get called to a jury. The pool is people who are logged in...No one waits very long for jury results. As a juror, you have 15 minutes to do your thing, if you dither, you get dropped from the pool and someone else steps in to finish the job.

You can and will do as you please, but you are wrong about how community standards are determined and you don't understand the mechanics of the jury system. You might give it a try before you reject it out of hand.