Hello everyone. Well, a girl tries to have a little fun and dip her toe into the BBQ pits, and look what happens. She finds her name splattered all over the place. I am doing my best to pretend that the johnnyharvard/ignatioustreilly thing never happened, but a person has their pride right? So I thought I’d add in this:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=24226
From Billdo:
"johnnyharvard,
I’ve been following the thread in GD, and I believe you were behaving there in an arrogant manner, and here have have crossed the line into obnoxious prick.
As I read the GD thread, she was arguing from a perfectly legitimate viewpoint, that of personal experience, and calling you out on your examples, which she found to be overgeneral and offensive. Personal experience is a valid argument here, because one of the questions being discussed is the effect that media images have on overweight people. The view of someone who is or was overweight is quite proper and adds to the discussion.
You really used few facts of your own to make your point. Rather you have simply repeated the simple obeservation that people can lose weight if they exercise and restrict caloric intake. Her point (and that of many other posters) is that, while your simple observation is correct, there are lots of other factors (which she and others validly introduce from experience as well as by anology) which cause other people not to put the priority on losing weight that you feel should they should.
Overall, I would score her ahead on points.
Now you’ve crossed into the pit with the following:
quote:
You’re the smart little (state) college chick with all of the answers that seems to know so fucking much about life and me because of your own shitty personal experience as a fat chick (“Nacho” how damn appropriate) and your own fucking remedial classes in your little pissant college (most likely it’s some second-tier college in a small barren town in Nebraska or Montana or Wymoning or Kentucky or some other place known for academic enlightenment). Come and take on a real man from a real college. You’re going to rue the day (I think it was what, two weeks ago?) when you decided to register at SDMB. C’mon. I’m waiting.
You are a fucking newbie with a big mouth and no sense at how to conduct yourself and I’m calling you on it. You’re so fucking smart - please, show me how smart you are.
This is simply offensive. While pride in one’s educational institution is a good thing, the thought that it renders one superior to those who attended another is arrogant and wrong. It demonstrably does not make you a better debater here on the SDMB.
Likewise, claiming superiority based on post count is grossly misguided. I think Nacho4Sara is a great new contributors and a perfectly fine debater. She is not “a fucking newbie with a big mouth with no sense at how to conduct [her]self.” Rather, you appear to be the one crossing the line into inappropriate argument and comment.
So, johnnyharvard, if you cannot prevail in the underlying debate, there is no reason to move into personal attacks in the Pit."
And hey, let’s not forget (also courtesy of Billdo, my hero):
"johnnyharvard,
Face it. You lost the argument and then moved into inappropriate ad hominem attacks. In the GD thread, you conceeded the primary point and accepted stalemate on the side issue.
quote:
Look Nacho, we’ve debated the OP and I will concede the point that Quicksilver’s premise is wrong. We’ve debated whether or not losing weight is easy and we’ve come to a stalemate - I guess the conclusion is that yes it’s easy from a biological standpoint, but no it’s harder when other factors are considered. Fine.
After giving up the argument, you launched into an attack on Nacho4Sara’s debating style. In so doing, you committed your own logical fallacy. You defended your agrument techniques and denigrated Nacho4Sara’s because she was a newbie. Aside from being pompous and patronizing, your criticism of Nacho was wrong.
quote:
I’m really not interested in debating your own debating skills or whether we should be debating them in the first place. You’re new here and you’ll learn the right way to do things and the right way to make arguments and the right way to conduct yourself at SDMB. I’m simply pointing out those flaws because I want to have a debate, but it’s difficult when the other person doesn’t do it correctly. Personal anecdote doesn’t work as an effective debate tactic nor does feigning personal offense when your position is contradicted by the other side. Whether or not I feel bad about myself - or whether or not you feel insulted by my views - is not the point of the debate. It’s a blurry line indeed, but it’s not that hard to stay on the right side of it.
Personal anecdote can work as an appropriate debate technique when the topic at issue is people’s personal reactions to, in this instance, mass media images. Admittedly, if there is some scientific survey which gauges people’s reactions, that is more persuasive evidence than one individual’s personal reaction, but in the absence of such survey evidence, personal reactions of posters are the only real-world evidence at hand. Where, as here, several posters who have struggled with weight issues all have negative personal reactions to the overwhelming preponderance of thin images in the media, it becomes quite persuasive in the absence of alternative evidence.
Likewise, it is proper for a debater to take offense at a inapproprpriately overbroad and stereotypical example you used in support of your argument.
Quite clearly Nacho was not “avoiding any kind of intelligent discussion.” More important, if you read the thread, it is clear she was not “focused on trying to tell me how my position was coming from personal insecurity.” Yes, she did suggest that you might be suffering some personal insecurity about the issue, but that was not the focus of her argument, but rather an aside she made somewhat late in the game. Indeed, the extent to which such a comment set you off (along with your somewhat excessive concern with the supposed superiority of your educational background) may be taken as evidence of the insecurity she identified.
Finally, yes, this is the Pit, the place to blow off steam. However, it is not an appropriate forum (nor is there one on the SDMB) for personal attacks, particularly when those attacks are based on irrelevant critera like educational history or post count, nor is it appropriate anywhere to post in an offensive manner, whether unthinking or otherwise.
Johnny, you lost fair and square on the fields of debate. Denigrating Nacho4Sara on the basis of her education or the short time she has been with us will not change that, nor will it ultimately assuage your personal insecurities. Face up to it and quit whining. Or go away. Either way, there is no reason for your personal, and unwarranted, potshots at Nacho4Sara."
I wanted to include this lest you think that all newbies are nutcases. I encourage everyone to read my debate and Johnny/Ignatious’s repsonse in the original thread (linked in the Pit addess above).
Yes, I joined the debate after two WHOLE pages. Yes, I used personal anecdote several times. Yes, I responded in like when JohnnyH. attacked my intelligence. (Ya’ll shuld rilly reed the thred abut mys edgacasion!) But I had well over 50 posts when I joined, and my number right now should be hovering somewhere near 120.
So don’t use newbie-ness as an excuse to attack people when their opinions differ from yours, and forget about the lame stereotypes. I refuse to acknowledge J/I because I think he realized his mistake, but I want to address the idea that simply because a person is new, they cannot argue. As Uke said, “Tacky!”
Welcome to all th newbies. Hope you find a more hospitable audience then I did. 
