The Ten Commandments ...

[Disserbia]

The only reason I don't like this is because it changes the conversation to proving why an argument is not a fallacy instead of the actual topic and then it just descends from there.

[Neo Art]

Anyone around here long enough to remember how that went?

trick question. it never happen.

but seriously i do not know

Long story short, someone claimed his intellectual superiority by claiming he would (his word, not mine) "humiliate" anyone in a one on one debate. I decided to take him up on that. There was a poll afterwards about who won. 67 votes were cast for an option other than the "joke" option (not including me, I voted for spoon).

8 people voted for him. 17 called it a tie.

I got the other 42.

For those wanting a blast from the past, this is what happens when you think you're smarter than you are.

[TaQud]

trick question. it never happen.

but seriously i do not know

Long story short, someone claimed his intellectual superiority by claiming he would (his word, not mine) "humiliate" anyone in a one on one debate. I decided to take him up on that. There was a poll afterwards about who won. 67 votes were cast for an option other than the "joke" option (not including me, I voted for spoon).

8 people voted for him. 17 called it a tie.

I got the other 42.

For those wanting a blast from the past, this is what happens when you think you're smarter than you are.

lol. I never saw that thread til now. Glancing at some posts between you and Bendira, it looks clear that you won that.
(but what shocks me is that the mods got involved on this bet and made a whole thread about it. Something I wouldn't expect from the mods... )

[The Blaatschapen]

Long story short, someone claimed his intellectual superiority by claiming he would (his word, not mine) "humiliate" anyone in a one on one debate. I decided to take him up on that. There was a poll afterwards about who won. 67 votes were cast for an option other than the "joke" option (not including me, I voted for spoon).

8 people voted for him. 17 called it a tie.

I got the other 42.

For those wanting a blast from the past, this is what happens when you think you're smarter than you are.

lol. I never saw that thread til now. Glancing at some posts between you and Bendira, it looks clear that you won that.
(but what shocks me is that the mods got involved on this bet and made a whole thread about it. Something I wouldn't expect from the mods... )

I can expect it in certain circumstances. They can be quite accommodating, if they so choose.

[Malvoro]

If I may:
There are plenty that come over here from places like 4chan/pol/, which is the fount of "omg source" among other things. Between that and modern culture, which doesn't really encourage intelligent discussion (Jerry Springer anyone?), many people who crave intelligent discussion don't know how to actually go about it properly. Those 10 Commandments are a great idea to teach people, but not as enforceable rules. I would suggest people have a bit more patience and try to steer others towards "correct behavior". If nothing else, the advice lurk moar would allow those who do not know how to debate intelligently to learn by watching how it is done. Further, you yourself must hold to the highest standard that you wish to experience from others, lest they see your behavior and figure that is the norm.

[United Dependencies]

Sadly we tried once. We actually tried to have a real, actual debate post, between two posters.

Anyone around here long enough to remember how that went?

Hahaha


good times...

[Genivaria]

trick question. it never happen.

but seriously i do not know

Long story short, someone claimed his intellectual superiority by claiming he would (his word, not mine) "humiliate" anyone in a one on one debate. I decided to take him up on that. There was a poll afterwards about who won. 67 votes were cast for an option other than the "joke" option (not including me, I voted for spoon).

8 people voted for him. 17 called it a tie.

I got the other 42.

For those wanting a blast from the past, this is what happens when you think you're smarter than you are.

After reading your opening statement I must say that I'm even MORE convinced of Statistism then I was beforehand. Bravo.

[Forsher]

From another thread.

I'm a feminist. And cut out that childish, condescending bullshit. Sounds like you're ranting rather than debating.

The bolded is how NSG decides who is best at debating now. You've missed a lot.

Sadly, I will have to agree with me here.

Demonstrating how someone's argument is fallacious is half the fun of debating.

I mean, if you can't feel superior on the internet, where can you? Personally, I find forums that do have a more intellectual and reasoned base tend to be full of pretentious elitists and cliques. Not my cup of tea, personally. Diversity is what makes forums interesting, If you picked out all the bits you didn't like, you'd lose something from the whole. A forum's dynamic is a bit like a personality in the respect that experiences govern its behaviour. I've known some pretty nasty places filled with supposedly "enlightened" individuals.

Your first paragraph/sentence isn't an accurate representation of the sad reality of discussion/debate in NSG, even if you personally find it to be fun. As an example I'll talk about Alexander's so called policy of fusion and I'll do so in the same manner as I did for the assessment at school... Alexander the Great and his father, Philip II, are conversing in the underworld, this is a portion of their conversation. A = Alexander and P = Philip.

A: My policy was about taking useful features of Persian culture and adding it to our existing Macedonian culture.
P: Ah, so you were creating a new culture: half Persian, half Macedonian. How could you betray your heritage like that?
A: Strawman!

What Alexander did is what typically happens on NSG... instead of posters pointing out where the mischaracterisation (of the argument) happens they just blurt out strawman and, usually, do a runner.

My common problem:

If I say something stupid, everybody jumps down my throat on it.

There is an easy remedy for that.

Except the problem presented in that post is that stupidity attracts attention while cleverness doesn't...

trick question. it never happen.

but seriously i do not know

Long story short, someone claimed his intellectual superiority by claiming he would (his word, not mine) "humiliate" anyone in a one on one debate. I decided to take him up on that. There was a poll afterwards about who won. 67 votes were cast for an option other than the "joke" option (not including me, I voted for spoon).

8 people voted for him. 17 called it a tie.

I got the other 42.

For those wanting a blast from the past, this is what happens when you think you're smarter than you are.

Given that 38 of those 42 votes for you were for reasons best summarised as, "Because the opponent was useless" did you enter with the expectation of winning or was the quality of his discussion atypical?

My summary, to be clear, is covering both "Neo Art, because Bendira completely failed to address any of Neo Art's points" and "Neo Art, because Bendira does not understand the formal debates process".

What often happens on NSG (and I'm not sure where this goes with regards to the list in the OP) is a movement away from the discussion to how the discussion is conducted. Often this comes down to posting style. Here's an example of The Truth and Light complaining about that (I've put the relevant bit in bold) and my post explaining why that happens.

I wouldn't take him seriously either. He threw a vague platitude at me that meant god-knows-what, and I'm suppose to get what from that? And then we have TJ over here who insists on making everyone parse through cryptic and deceptive language just to find out what the hell he is arguing, with hopes of discouraging us from making counter-arguments due to exhaustion. Whatever happened to clarity and conciseness, and why is it that these people have the audacity to police your arguing styles? I can't fucking deal with the hypocrisy.

You may not have noticed this but the only thing your arguing style leaves to address (because it's completely devoid of substance beyond initial assertations and then why you won't go further than the initial assertations... see this post) is the arguing style.

On the problems of asking for sources.

I do want a source. I don't want a source at the same time. Why? Because a source means I have to pay attention to a post that disagrees with mine. If I don't, I've lost and essentially lost a lot of what I've said in my months here as well. The supposed moral high ground is gone as well.

Mind you, one of the last times I saw someone investigate (with sources) an idea doing so was labelled "creepy" so I think it's safe to say any hope that NSG ever had of being a home to rational discussion went out the window a long time ago.

On the other hand, part of the appeal is laughing at people who think they're arguing their point(s) competently. The other part is knowing whatever you're thinking about them, they're thinking about you.

[The Steel Magnolia]

You don't know what you're talking about, have you ever even debated before, are you saying that this should be the new set of rules for NSG? Everyone here agrees that it's either the status quo, or complete chaos, nothing in between. Becoming more strict in rules is what killed this forum and sent all the good posters away. You can't deny that. The Cat Tribe left and everything. I mean I know this shit, I'm a professional debater, prove me wrong. You can't.

What is this cat tribe?

neo art is his successor, and regarded as thus for good reason.

[The Steel Magnolia]

Sadly we tried once. We actually tried to have a real, actual debate post, between two posters.

Anyone around here long enough to remember how that went?

Hah! I read that.

It amused me. Greatly.

[Forsher]

What is this cat tribe?

neo art is his successor, and regarded as thus for good reason.

Er, what?

You've been reading too many feminism threads with too coloured a viewpoint (to boot). ASB is the real deal and Neo Art would (or has in the past) agreed. That's not to say Neo Art isn't still respected, it's just that people are more impressed by ASB.

Unless, of course, your good reason is that TCT made a post somewhere along the line where he figuratively anointed the God of the accusation of creepiness in lieu of addressing an argument instead as his successor? Maybe his standards are greater elsewhere but that's such an absolutely awful response it doesn't really matter (i.e. it's so bad no amount of skill can repair the situation).

Smash, who I suspect may have been TCT back for a temporary return, was much much better (to my mind) than either ASB or Neo Art. Second only to myself, of course, because I'm that much more important than everyone else, because I'm 17! (I know this because I've been reading Neo Art's rebuttal far too much and this is one of his favourite go to responses.)

Or course, we all know TCT is epic because his post on racism regulary does the rounds despite his being long gone.

[Forsher]

I don't want names mentioned - this is not a bitch thread about who's been horrible about what.

Look, I know neither of my posts are particularly in line (that is especially true of the last) with this but I feel it's difficult to complain about very strange ideas of what constitutes rebuttal (let along adequate rebuttal) without specific examples, especially when it's relevant to defeating the claim that a certain poster is the successor of another.

On the other hand, I think it demonstrates why I find placing discussion of the posting style within things like NSG's rules or the OP's list difficult... it's something that comes naturally to me. Although, I must say, I am more subtle than "You stink at this".

That said, pretty much everyone on NSG wouldn't do very well in an actual debate using the same strategies that are used on NSG. Luckily, the same standards do not apply. Although the advantage of NSG over actual debating is that one gets as long as one wants to defend one's position and attack the other. (In some ways, being assigned a side is better when all one is interested in is the debate itself, not so much what is being argued.)

This post has made me remember that a lot of time (and, to be fair, do this a lot/most of the time) it is easier to object to what is being said than to formulate and present one's own argument. (That is, it is relatively easy to define one's position by what it is not rather than what it is.)

[Regnum Dominae]

Sadly we tried once. We actually tried to have a real, actual debate post, between two posters.

Anyone around here long enough to remember how that went?

Hah! I read that.

It amused me. Greatly.

The mods should run that again, but with an actually competent opponent. Neo Art versus ASB maybe. If we can find something they disagree on.

[Forsher]

Hah! I read that.

It amused me. Greatly.

The mods should run that again, but with an actually competent opponent. Neo Art versus ASB maybe. If we can find something they disagree on.

It depends how you want to do it.

As far as I can tell, the last one was a spin-off from a thread but, generally speaking, debates in debating assign sides to participants... so people may end up arguing for positions they disagree with or one's their opponents agree with.

[Swith Witherward]

Out of curiosity, in your experiences - what problems do we regularly run into here on the forums? What do you think we might do to improve that situation? Does falling back on one of these or other fallacies immediately invalidate an argument, or can it be explained and salvaged? Does the current boundaries encourage or discourage the 'shitposting' we often grouse about, or is that just dealing with 'anyone with a keyboard can and will participate' scenarios? Do we perhaps unwittingly suffer under some of these fallacies ourselves, due to 'groupthink' or other phenomenon?

Myself, yes - I see crazy all the time. I see people who BELIEVE WITHOUT QUESTION what they are saying, regardless of how "..." it may seem to me. (I see others who just troll it up for the lulz too, but that's another discussion entirely.) I think education of those who are unaware is a good first step to improving debate overall. And admittedly, the rose-colored-glasses part of me, however small, thinks that a more welcoming less postcount-measures-worth-obsessive environment might be somewhat helpful. But hey.

Yes, education of those who are unaware is a good step to improve debate overall. However, we can only educate. We can't force someone to accept our concept or stance as "the only true one". Our first step should be to rethink our own approach, however.

Everyone on this forum (and beyond it) has the right to believe what they want to believe. We don't have to accept that belief nor do we have to respect that belief but we should respect their right to believe it. In some cases, educating them won't matter.

Are we championing a cause or are we just making pests of ourselves for the sake of being combative? "The bible is a piece of shit" will only draw ire and really doesn't state an argument well. "I strongly disagree with Paul's teachings because..." leaves the door open for dialog/debate, ergo the thread doesn't become a nasty cesspool that Mods have to wade into in order to sort things out.

What about that idiot who is combative? "All gays are pedophiles!" Well, that's a lame opinion stated in lame fashion by an uneducated moron. Why on earth should we waste time trying to dialog with that person? They're really no more intelligent-sounding than the guy who rants about "the piece of shit bible", are they? Our ego demands that we counter these statements and defend our position but really it's nothing more than spinning our wheels in the mud.

Lastly, the one thing that gets people into trouble: incorrect interpretation of what someone posts. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone post a simple statement that gets twisted. The reader weaves their own thoughts and emotions into that post and then, even when the poster attempts to clarify, that person continues to tear into them.

Meh. Just my early morning thoughts on the subject.

[Gauntleted Fist]

For those wanting a blast from the past, this is what happens when you think you're smarter than you are.

I remember that guy! Haha, you completely destroyed him.

[TaQud]

Out of curiosity, in your experiences - what problems do we regularly run into here on the forums?

the overuse of the word "Strawman" and what Hathardic said so far are the only problems I've seen so far