Be aware, we have people on the forum who are willfully defiant of this original post and the rules you published.
I’ve seen that they add little to the forum besides revilement and insults.
I may decide to undertake a campaign for their removal, or at least convince them to be more constructive in their participation.
People will purposely throw red meat into a thread or purposely start a flame war with someone in order to pollute the thread with the back-and-forth of personal attacks and reproaches. The goal of this tactic is to cause the rest to drop out of the discussion in frustration and lose the opportunity to challenge and debate the pros and cons of an issue with each other.
The disruptor doesn't want the scholarly discussion of certain topics and will attempt to drive away anyone who seems to be bringing clarity and consensus to a topic.
Here is a FReeper article from 2006 called Using the Delphi Technique to Achieve Consensus [or How the Left builds consensus], posted from the Eagle Forum (Phyllis Schlafly's conservative advocacy group). It discusses how group agitators can manipulate a group's thinking. The original article (with formatting) can be found in the Wayback Machine here.
See this YouTube video from 2011 that chronicles how the Delphi Technique was used in public comment meetings in the San Francisco Bay Area during the push to pass a unified mass transit and land use set of bills: Exposing the Delphi Technique in Public Meetings.
-PJ