All must share alike in prizing intellectual honesty, in responsibly obtaining and providing full and accurate information, and in resolving differences through a process with a strong will to collaboration.

I resonate with this idea.

Granted, I'm not a bona fide Olyblogger (or ANY kind of blogger) and therefore will not try to insert myself into this decision-making process. And I should acknowledge that I'm way too exhausted from 2 back-to-back double shifts -- and a little too altered from a couple of beers -- to be weighing in at all.

But really? Y'all feel like you've worked this out ... enough said ... good to go? You feel like you all have some mutual understanding about the definition of terms such as "civility" and "intellectual honesty?"

For instance, people on this blog frequently chastise TJ Johnson for his lack of civility. Do you all agree that TJ's strait-forward defense of principle on the city council is an example of UNcivility?

I will admit that even as a fairly new and casual, occasional participant on this blog I was encouraged by the idea of a social contract. One of the most annoying things about Olyblog for me is how often genuine attempts at meaningful discourse on a given topic are high-jacked by some mindless digression or series of ad hominem remarks essentially attacking the messenger rather than engaging with the message. If that problem could be resolved I would find Olyblog to be a much more inviting and interesting place to visit.

But these are merely the observations of an outsider. The process here is not mine to participate in. Just sharing some thoughts.

"prizing intellectual honesty" means.  This is an important point for me.  I don't mind a genuine dialogue with people to my right politically, but I do object to swift-boaters, the intellectual dishonesty that characterizes so much of the public dialogue these days. 

I would like to see prizing intellectual honesty changed to demonstrating intellectual honesty or something a little stronger.  

I am sure that the most egregious propagandists that ever lived "prized intellectual honesty."  They just didn't practice intellectual honesty because rhetoric and political pragmatism made intellectual honesty a problem for them as they sought to secure their political ends.