Some quotes from About the Friendly category
In Friendly, posters choose what topics they want to discuss. Suppose someone posts a physics question. Don’t reply about how their question reveals that they’re dishonest, emotional or overreaching. Don’t criticize them for ending the discussion early or for not doing Paths Forward. Those would be topic changes away from their intended topic (physics). If you do want replies like that, put your topic in Unbounded.
Challenging, questioning and disagreeing with people is OK, but don’t subtly or indirectly undermine people. Don’t be passive-aggressive. Don’t hint at people being wrong or bad, while maintaining plausible deniability about whether or not you’re criticizing or attacking them. Don’t imply criticism without saying it openly or directly.
What follows are some quick thoughts from one of the admins - not the Authoritative Final Word by any measure
So, this current topic is named “Trying to understand justification better”. That’s @deroj’s goal. Suggesting that he could be parroting ideas about that topic points out a possible issue with his efforts to try to understand justification better. Therefore, it’s on topic. Also, the issue was raised in a direct and forthright way, and not in a subtle or indirect manner. Finally, @deroj says he appreciated it. So it’s no problem.
Dicta
One thing I will say is that there’s not an expectation that people get these issues 100% perfect. Making best efforts and being reasonable is the standard. You can also course correct based on feedback (both from the people you’re talking to and the admins).
In Friendly I think there should be a general norm of respecting the scope of the topics that people want to talk about.
OTOH, if someone posts in Unbounded and then is like “oh darnit I don’t actually want this unbounded crit”, well, it was misleading for them to post it where they did. It’s not an unfixable disaster (topics can be moved) but the error is on them in that case.