CIVILOGUE

n.

A civil dialogue, particularly one in which the participants avoid insults, personal attacks, and negative generalizations. [Blend of civil and dialogue.]

Some media outlets have decided they've had enough of the endless juvenile trolling and hate-mongering, and have either adopted a stricter moderation policy (such as Politics Daily's calling for a "civilogue") or forced would-be commenters to fill out forms supplying information that would make it easier to track their identities and ban them if they run afoul of the site's rules.

—Matt Zoller Seitz, " Why I like vicious, anonymous online comments: http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/08/03/in_defense_of_anonymous_commenting," Salon.com, August 3, 2010

A shocking example of the Nigerian Press censorship of the Nigerian Public occurred on the Nigeria Village Square last week (December 14). A runty dude called the "Admin" assumed the role of the almighty god, went on a rampage barring & removing, willy-nilly, comments that he/she deign to be "personal attack" on some almighty Tin gods, who are nothing but loose-lips jeun-jeun Nigerian journalists on the payroll of some ruling gangsters, on the flimsy excuse of "civilogue" — a word that is yet to find its way to the world-wide-web of dictionaries but only in the imagination of corrupt Nigeria Journalists.

—KaparaK, " Nigerian media moguls suck: http://www.saharareporters.com/column/lonely-charlatans-pius-adesanmi\#comment-154396" (comment), Sahara Reporters, December 20, 2010

But I can do this: I can knock down political nastiness when it presents itself to me.It is time to say "enough." ... leaning up the mess will not be easy. But it can be done. One polite rebuke at a time. We need a name, of course. I suggest "Civilogues," those whose speech is civil.

—Jeffrey Weiss, " Make Our Ugly Discourse Better: Join the Civilogue: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/28/you-can-make-our-disagreeable-discourse-better-join-the-civilog/," Politics Daily, March 28, 2010

It's slightly odd that the coiner of civilogue, Jeffrey Weiss, originally defined the word as a type of person: "Civilogues,' those whose speech is civil" (see the Earliest Citation). Fortunately, the more comprehensible and to-the-point "civil dialogue" sense is the one that people now use (helped, no doubt, by seeing that sense in the title of Weiss' article: "Make Our Ugly Discourse Better: Join the Civilogue").

barking head

belligerati

halfalogue

hateration

hathos

shouting head

trialogue

Communications

Sociology (General)

You raise a valid point about whether a civilogue should be understood as a person or as a style of discussion. I had two words in mind when I spun up the idea: "Dialogue" *and* "demagogue." I suggest the word is its own portmateau and can have both meanings: A civilogue would therefore be a person who engages in civilogues.

(It's a candy mint! It's a breath mint!)