Quality of Debate

davros

Originally posted by Sparks
William, that's called thread hijacking.

Agreed.

Egalitarian

Originally posted by Davros

It is noted and appreciated. And I defer to the weight of modding experience above. I'm going to try to tighten up the debates around here and nip the unproductive tangents in the bud.

Skeptical reasoning will suffer if there is censorship of responses. It seems far more productive to contemplate unrestricted posting for ISS members and moderate non-member posts. The purpose of this moderation should be to temper the debate, and it seems to me that there is far too much heat and not enough light in many contributions. Is it not possible to institute a cap on daily responses, such that it forces posters to read and consider their arguments before posting?

I am not impressed by the level of discussion on other boards at all, where there is a rat-tat-tat of replies until nobody can remember what other posts are. ISS has a duty to encourage informed debate. I have decided to retire from posting on other sites, but am entusiastic that ISS will endeavour to provide its members and prospective members with a forum that reflects the ethos of skeptical reasoning.

PS WG's thread on VVAT was not exemplary, but it highlights the importance of debate among skeptics where there is not agreement. ISS should encourage debate which clarifies the irreconcilability of cynicism and skepticism, as the posts of some 'skeptics' do seem not to understand their contradiction.

Sparks

Originally posted by Egalitarian
Skeptical reasoning will suffer if there is censorship of responses.

That's a broad sweeping statement given that you have given no indication of how responses will be censored. How can skeptical reasoning suffer if you censor words like ****** and **** from the conversation?

It seems far more productive to contemplate unrestricted posting for ISS members and moderate non-member posts.

Party members have free rein and non-party members shall be censored if they get out of line.
A bit stalinesque for my tastes...

The purpose of this moderation should be to temper the debate, and it seems to me that there is far too much heat and not enough light in many contributions. Is it not possible to institute a cap on daily responses, such that it forces posters to read and consider their arguments before posting?

Now that's an interesting idea, but it would need to be a bit more liberal - say two or three posts a day on each thread - but it has the downside that it encourages people to abuse the board by registering several alter egos and to post several ten-thousand-word posts a day.

I am not impressed by the level of discussion on other boards at all, where there is a rat-tat-tat of replies until nobody can remember what other posts are.

And I'm unimpressed with the idea that discussion of topics should be reduced to a zen-like collection of koans instead of an actual considered debate. But you're not innocent of producing noise yourself, you know egalatarian - paragraphs whose sentences advocate diametrically opposite points of view by mistake, incorrect data, broad sweeping generalisations from inaccurate data, subtle put-downs of other posters who disagree with you and so on.

ecksor

Originally posted by williamgrogan
These criticisms are all one sided. There is an element of bullying here. As Davros said, if you don’t want to argue with someone then don’t respond. Most of my posts are responds to other posts.

On that point, you frequently claim that if somebody doesn't address a specific point or answer a claim you've made that they don't have a response for you and therefore you are correct or else you say something like "Oh, isn't it interesting that such and such a part of my post was ignored". If you genuinely feel that the point the poster is arguing is not orthogonal to the point that has been skipped over or not addressed then say so and say why, don't take it as some sort of evidence of opinion or victory, it really isn't helpful.

A smiley wouldn't have made your reflexology comment acceptable in my opinion

ecksor

Originally posted by williamgrogan
Don't forget to take your Jelly Baby picture with you.

If you look closely, the smiley makes this comment acceptable, right!

williamgrogan

Agh, come on Ecksor be reasonable, the picture is taking up a sizeable chunk of my screen!

ecksor

The signature in question is a little bit and even a little bigger than our signature guidelines allow. Feel free to turn off signatures in your control panel if it really upsets you.

The point I would like to get at is that you cannot keep crying "well I'm bound to upset people when I challenge their beliefs" if every other post is worded in such a way that's bound to annoy the hell out of someone. You annoy people that I thought never get annoyed, purely because of your obnoxious and dogged commentary style. On rare occasions you're actually thought provoking, but who the hell remembers those when you're making stupid digs all the time.

You are constantly misrepresenting the opposing side of whatever arguments you get into in such a way as to attempt to make the case that those viewholders are in some way feeble minded, or draw ridiculous analogies or parallels designed to incite the other side. I am convinced now that you do this on purpose to wind people up as if you practiced your debate skills in pub slanging matches or something similar. Whatever, it's not big or clever and it certainly isn't a good reflection on a so called skeptic (or whatever it is you actually call yourself).

williamgrogan

There’s nothing worse than having to explain a joke …….. but when someone does the equivalent of stamping their foot and pouting surely I can make a joke?

Actually I should have said,

Don't forget to take your big Jelly Baby picture with you.

I did laugh when I saw it first but like all these “signatures”, having the same joke pushed in your face in bright blue & yellow ensures a comment. No?

I mean 99% of the post was the picture.



PS

I’m ignoring the compliments.

MeatProduct

I have to say that I looked forward to reading and posting on this forum but from my short experience with it I was left with a rather sour taste in my mouth.

As said, it would be wonderful if everyone was adult enough to not descend into name-calling and the like. Such things do not help a debate and I would have thought that debate is the reason for this forum. So in the name of debate it would seem logical that we leave the tools that dismantle debate at the door.

I have a number of views that I believe in 100% and that someone else does not believe in. For example I am very much anti-Darwinist evolution. Many here would be pro-Darwinist. No problems so far. What I would like to be able to do is post a list of reasons why I think that Darwinism is unrealistic and to have a debate about the points that people may find problematic. If this could be done without people getting excited and feeling that I am attacking their reality then I would be greatly encouraged regarding the future of this forum.

My short experience with the moderator of this forum, Davros, has been a fair one. He is open to suggestions on how to run this forum and I applaud that. However, I will say that I think a firmer hand is needed for this forum as a select few of its members are very childish in how they go about their debates.

Regards,

Nick

neuro-praxis

I shrunk it!

watty

I think this forum suffers from a single person "dominating it" too much. It's too much like visiting a discusion group on a Blog.

I'm not critising the Moderator, Davros, either.

watty

Perhaps it's called "forum hijacking"