The world in general – and the internet in particular – have rapidly become places where childish and abusive behaviour are distressingly common. Despite the best intentions of many, a small minority insist on hurling personal abuse into well-meant blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates – anywhere they can spread their vile and violent words.

A friend and I ended up calling it childish behaviour. That’s no insult to children; we just hoped that adults had grown out of playground tantrums.

One of the things we’ll explore here is how we disagree, argue and criticise without descending into that kind of noise. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll introduce a number of topics, and I warmly invite you to join in: to comment, to question, to challenge, and to suggest ideas of your own.

Like grown-ups.