It is what it is

Happens to me as well... :D Those were examples of interminable arguments that happen to be common in GOG. I was not asking for answers to those questions. :) Sorry you thought otherwise.
See above. This is a meta post about how to handle these sorts of arguments. It was not an invitation to restart said arguments. Sorry for confusion...

It is what GOG has let it be.

It is what we make it into. ;)

What kind of community this is varies wildly depending on which topic you're posting in and which subforum are you reading. You'll see a lot more dudebro behavior in places like The Witcher 3 subforum, Witcher 3 being a relatively new AAA title advertised by GOG codes which came with GPUs - they're generally pretty polite dudebros tho. You'll see dramas about giveaways in some topics in which people you've never even heard about keep posting and recognizing each other, you'll see people who are otherwise very calm, polite and reasonable losing their shit over politics.

So the answer is: What kind of community you get heavily depends on what kind of community you want and which discussions you participate in. Of course, it also depends on whether Crosmando is in his "Humble regretful" mode or "I'M GONNA CUT YOU!" mode :-P

There is no such thing as suggestion, you either force someone to do something, or you do not.

You've obviously never seen The Manchurian Candidate. :P

Me too.

4th comment in that link of yours said it rather well:

Ah, in which case your original post is not valid. For each of those points people will have, validly, view points on them. Restricting that is called censorship.

Anyone else got stuck at that article? I can't stop reading.

Can you kindly point out what specifically leads you to believe I advocated restricting discussions? :)
:)
Some people would say that inside of the "not forcing" set there are gradations.
Gradations such as suggesting versus ignoring. It's not that black or white ;)
This here is of course a substantial post. Thanks fenix

Now let's take it to the next level. Given the existence of different sets of preferences: A wants community to be X. B wants community to be Y. What kind of meta level "rules" help coexistence and avoiding "conflict" aka: interminable arguments.

My takeaways are in the OP. Others are welcome.

The way I see it, this community should be a welcoming community. We should be accepting of other users, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and a whole bunch of factors that are too numerous to enumerate in full here. In particular, we should not make posts that make certain classes of people uncomfortable.

In particular, if, say, Zoe Quinn were to make an account here and post, she should be respected like any other poster. It's OK to criticize her ideas, but we should not be making personal attacks on her. Similarly, it is OK to criticize the Feminist Frequency videos (but make sure you at least watch the video or read the transcript), but it is not OK to make personal attacks on the maker of those videos.

Also, there are some terms that, simply put, are offensive and should not be used. (Note, however, the use-mention distinction; It is OK to mention the words as long as you don't actually invoke the meaning of said words.)

Another thing: Downrating should only be done to posts that detract from the conversation, are offensive, or are otherwise problematic. In particular, disagreement with the context of the post is not a good enough reason to click the "-" button.

The part after:
Here's the takeaways I see:

These are your opinions. They are not enforceable across the community otherwise it would be censorship, hence the original post is invalid.

But where do you see me saying that those opinions of mine should be enforced? I have not, and that's why I don't see what you consider invalid...

I'm not advocating censorship. At most I'm advocating self-censorship aka: be tolerant and nice even if you feel otherwise.

Precisely because I do not agree with censorship, the change I want needs to come from convincing others like you that being nice and tolerant is better. ;)