"He's dead, Tim."

Flamebait - Comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage.

Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. Try to be impartial about this; simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. The goal here is to share ideas, to sift through the haystack and find needles, and to keep spammers and griefers in check.

The thing is, each seems to be watched by people who only want reinforcement of their own worldviews. That's no way to develop an intelligent, informed opinion.

I let many companies and people abuse me because I couldn't afford time or attorneys to take them to court. Then I turned my attention to learning enough to be competent enough to put a stop to that. Way overdue.

People should be comfortable representing themselves more. Perhaps not for a crucial criminal trial, but for everything else it should be considered. Basics of the legal system and navigating it should be taught in high school. The fact is that you can combat many opponents well if it costs you next to nothing and they feel they have to pay a lot for attorneys. True to some extent even for well-funded opponents in some circumstances. A major problem is that a lot of information, like process / procedures / formats, is hidden, but you can get it eventually.