having been burned by doing so in person in the past causes me to want to reserve the right to question motives whenever my little alarm bells start going off.
Do you recognize a difference between "reserve the right to question motives" and "reserve the right to publicly impugn motives"?
If you want to keep in the back of your mind the idea that people and internet conversation are both complicated, so it may be that what we can see isn't the entirety of it, that's fine. But just blurting out dismissing people because you assume/believe their motives are suspect isn't fine.
And that lack of other information- such as body language- is why one must be especially cautious in being accusatory & confrontational in online discussions.
That doesn’t mean you need to set your cynicism and mistrust aside. But it DOES mean you may need to ask better questions before reaching conclusions about others’ hidden motives and positions just based on their postings on ENWorld, etc.
And, we can expand on that a little - frequently, what someone might call a "motive" or "bias" might be better seen as a perspective that deeply moves them.
It is very easy to see a person and decide, "Well, they had this bad experience, so their judgement on the matter is biased, and should be ignored." When, really, the fact that they had this experience is the bloody point, and the resulting perspective should not be discarded, but accepted as a true thing that must be contended with.
Motive does not, in and of itself, make a statement true or false.
I would love to see "-" threads, where opinions on things could be shared in a non-safe space.
Non-safe spaces generally wind up dominated by those who are willing to behave the worst.
Maybe I need to stick in my speech on psychological safety, and why it is important.
Let only people who sign up and opt in be able to see them?
Conflicts and emnity that develop in that non-safe space will not stay there.