Actually i think that what's needed is a way to contain the argumentative, stirring-the-pot behaviour by giving it a place to occur, but one that is confined and strictly moderated.
My suggestion from another thread:
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Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt
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Originally Posted by Bryan21cag
Besides i think it would have the reverse effect you want if you get rid of this area then the sub forums would just get hijacked for most of this type of posting and then you would need to get rid of those and start new ones and so on and so on.
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This is exactly why i wouldn't do away with the general discussion area, it would break open the "playground gates" and have the effect of these posts spilling out into the more useful sub-forums.
If anything, i would go about it the opposite way: keep a certain venue for argumentative posts, speculation and forum-fighting for those interested in it and as a place to vent, but tightly contain it to a single thread.
I vote for a single sticky thread titled "Rants, arguments and speculation megathread". Any post or thread that just aims to stir things up gets promptly moved/merged from its original location into the megathread. This way people who want to argue can still do so and the rest can easily ignore them without having to scroll through half the first page.
The only drawback is that it requires some work from the moderators but to be perfectly honest, they already have their hands full as it is.
Maybe it would actually be easier for them to just cut and paste/merge the offending posts or threads into a single "quarantine" sticky, than having to paste big, bold red letters on offending posts, keep tabs of how many strikes each poster has before a ban is instituted and so on. Just move everything that causes trouble to a single thread and let them go about their business without being able to influence other threads and pull them off-topic.
What do you think moderators?
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I think it will also have the welcome side-effect of being hard to follow the flow of discussion (since it would be a bunch of posts moved from other threads, without the supporting context and flow of the original conversation), so it would discourage the behaviour even more.