This current thread features mostly an exchange between two posters as to who has or has not responded to who etc. A third poster (xenophon41) said the following
I find this statement intriguing because I myself frequently ignore points made by other posters, and feel that the expectations and protocol with regards to this might need some clarification.
It is my position that there is no obligation for anyone to respond to anyone. This is a public message board, and not a face to face one-on-one conversation. What is true is that not responding to a point made by your debate opponent may hurt your case, as you may appear to have no rebuttal. But this is not always the case. Points that I don’t respond to are generally those that I think are obviously silly or irrelevant, or that are essentially identical to points that have already been responded to. (I don’t have a set policy about this - it depends on the amount of time and interest and similar factors.)
But of course the posters who made the points that are being ignored don’t think they are silly or irrelevant - they think they are brilliant and conclusive. From their perspective, their posts are being ignored because they simply could not be refuted. My position on that is OK great, be happy. If I am satisfied that my position has been expressed and supported to the point where it’s merits will be appreciated by an unbiased person of reasonable intelligence, I can live with the knowledge that someone out there in internet-land thinks he destroyed me.
(I do agree that in some circumstances it may be appropriate to answer. E.g. if you are engaged in a long running debate with someone, and that person asks you - sincerely - to clarify your position. And probably numerous other similar scenarios. But I’m saying that thee is not an automatic right to have every point answered with a rebuttal or concession).
Is this out of step with conventional thought and practice?
Common courtesy, politeness, and common sense usually cover this easily.
If you make a point and someone rebutts it, it doesn’t forward the debate to simply repost your original point. Unless, as you say the rebuttal needs no reply it is usually both good debating tactics and common courtesy to address the rebuttal.
Finally, if someone asks you a specific question or directs an argument specifically at you, it is generally a reasonable expectation that you will address it.
If one simply ignores rebuttals and points addressed toward one that person is not debating, they’re engaging in monologue.
I think I tend to ignore some “points” in the manner that you describe as well. I would be much more likely to do so on this board, where my opinion is that the general readership will recognize a spurious argument without my observations that it is such. In other areas of discussion, I sometimes stop without further comment when I realize that the opposition in ingenuous in their argument, and have only elicited my response out of petty desire to make me angry. DNFTT, you know.
But, I am always aware that there will be some that accept the absence of a direct reply as proof that no reply can be made. The argument is declared won. High fives are exchanged. Ignorance wins one more round. You get your thrills where you can.
When I am strongly motivated by the subject matter, it is more likely that I will point out that the strawman du jour is not without sufficient company, and I have no intention of wasting my time addressing an audience of scarecrows. Sometimes I will even get sarcastic about it. On a good day, I simply allow that difference of opinion can exist where honest men have different experience.
Or, you can open up a Pit thread about what an unimaginative muck ruminator the poster is, and how likely it is that he wears incontinence pads.
It’s sort of a matter of style, doncha think?
Tris
“Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” ~ Thomas Jefferson ~
I don’t know that not responding or continuing to respond or outright ignoring actually implies anything. It doesn’t to me, anyway.
I remember one thread where stoid was deliberately ignoring yosemitebabe (I think was the poster’s name) for the course of at least two pages. And I mean not even responding to say “I refuse to respond.” Not that I’m a stoid fan, or that anyone is really a fan of anyone but the mods (of whom much endearment is justly given :)), but the pity was that a few posters clamored on sides, some supporting stoid and others supporting yosemitebabe. Sort of shadowed over the debate that was still, in fact, going on.
I think when it comes to a point where it becomes a meta-debate or a one-sided one it should always end up in the pit or in emails, and leave the board to get on with it. Now, if I can only follow my own advice…
If we were talking about some kind of formal debate (like a college debating team match or a scholarly journal), it might be rude or might hurt your case if you decide not to respond to specific points or not at all. However, we seem to be talking about informal debate here in SD and other online forums like Delphi. The mods are only here to make decisions about manners and behavior, not to judge the quality of the debate and to award points or take them away according to how well the participants have supported their sides of the discussion. We don’t have any judges keeping score, granting points for good arguments and taking them away for bad ones. It’s like the difference between a formal debating team match and informal conversation at a party or in a bar. The only real penalty for not responding is that your opponent(s), some of the other posters and some of the lurkers may see you as skulking away from a fight you can’t win. If you can live with that, you haven’t got a problem.
Both in SD and other forums, I’ve often not responded to specific points or disengaged altogether without notice (or perhaps with a quick sarcastic remark).Sometimes I merely get bored with it, sometimes I don’t feel like doing the research necessary to support my side, sometimes I don’t think my opponent is honest and/or open-minded enough to concede a point no matter how well I make it, sometimes I just don’t have the time to deal with it. If others see that as running away–well, then, so be it. Hey! So what? This ain’t brain surgery! Don’t take it so seriously!
It’s perfectly all right to debate merely for the pleasure of debating. But like any other game or sport, it requires some degree of good sportsmanship. Some people obviously are bent on showing how clever they are by tying others up in verbal knots. Some are very good at this; others seem to think they can win just by keeping up some snappy patter even though they’re obviously desperate. In this situation, it’s clearly legitimate to just walk away.
Somehow on seeing your post I suddenly felt like it was “deja vu all over again”, as yogi said. Here’s what a quick search turned up.
scylla and erl, I thought I should mention that my words were not intended as a position on your specific dispute. While I obviously read the thread that I linked to, I did not read the thread in which your original dispute took place, and have no opinion on it.
So far it looks like everyone agrees, if I’m understanding everyone correctly. Therefore, my lack of response to various posts should not be interpereted as ignoring anyone.
I would add explicitly (although it is hinted at by several of the other posters in this thread), that when, be it due to the other’s attitude or one’s own weakness, the temptation is to reply, “You’re a fascist pedophiliac who urinates on quadraplegics, and those are your good points!”, it is time to walk away from the debate.
hey! There’s nothing wrong with being a Stoid fan. I’ve got 'em…
I have 3 kinds of ignore:
The type above, which is my way of dealing with people whom I feel have stepped outside the bounds of acceptable debate-club bahavior, and have lost the right to demand my attention by taking personal potshots at me. Obviously, many people here have no such rules, and that’s their right. But we each have a right to do or not do what we’re comfortable with. And while I can take fairly heated debate, I will only particpate so long as it remains about the subject and what the debaters are saying about the subject. When people start getting ugly and personal with me, they cease to exist for me.
When someone is being so spectacularly stupid that I am not capable of (or interested in) responding in anything other than a rude and dismissive way, I will simply not respond at all. Usually these are posts which are not directed at me personally, so they are easy to skip. There was one Doper that I religiously skipped for exactly that reason, and I’m pleased to note that they don’t seem to be around anymore.
When I think others have responded adequately already.
And of course, there are threads I never return to, so I’m sure there are posts directed at me that I’ve never seen, but there’s only so much time in a day.
As long as two (or 3 or 4) posters are continuing to engage each other on a topic, I think it’s really irritating and rude to ignore points that have been repeatedly made while responding to others, especially when it is pointed out to you.
My quote is consistent with my behavior. Note the phrase “generally reasonable expectation.” Your behavior no longer made it a reasonable expectation.
That was what, 6 months ago? You’re right, it does seem petty. I sure hope that you don’t think it’s a reasonable expectation to revisit that, because it isn’t.
Since I was quoted by IzzyR, I’d like to clarify exactly what I meant by the comment. I was speaking about the not uncommon tactic of simply walking away from a thread after a particularly vehement or lengthy exchange with another poster, despite unanswered points and counterpoints on both sides. In the thread to which Izzy refers, the poster explained his reasons for abandoning an exchange, and offered up further debate on another aspect of the original question. While it may have been preferable had he attempted to conclude the discussion with his opponent by actually answering his opponent’s arguments, he at least acknowledged his abandonment. (And later, erl went back and responsibly answered Scylla’s points. Good job.)
Sometimes RL gets in the way and I am unable to come back to a discussion on a board. Then I feel bad about dropping it. I haven’t visited GD for a while with the board acting the way it did because I couldn’t respond in a timely fashion. Now it’s much better so I am starting to paritcipate here again.
Other times I get mad and count to ten and then count to ten and then (repeat for days) and then I just don’t go back. If the person I am ‘discussing’ a topic with is frustrating me or is basically a big weasel I don’t feel bad about dropping it.
Disengaging without comment is the norm, and it should be.
People go home in the middle of a dicussion, because the discussions run round the clock. It’s like any all-night bull session - only two guys are left at the end.
And to resume the discussion the next time you enter the board is seldom interesting. Some topics (probably most on this forum) will resurface soon enough with a new spin or slant. No need to beat the dead horse when a live one is arriving any minute.
But do you leave bull sessions without saying g’bye or g’night? (“Hey, what happend to ol’ obt; I thought he just went to the bathroom? I was really hoping he’d explain that comment about the Pope playing baseball…”)
What we’re discussing (at least some of us) is the practice of stirring up a good fight and then disappearing in the middle of it. Obviously, people can post comments in a thread and move on without being rude; what’s considered rude is to leave one argument without acknowledging your opponent, only to reappear in other threads the same day.
The forum is “Great Debates,” not “Isolated Commentary.”
I do not think anyone has an obligation to answer my posts. However, if someone fails to respond to a direct discussion of one idea, I am less likely to presume their credibility on other ideas. I think a reasonable assumption for participation in a forum called Great Debates is a willingness to engage in debate.
I also do not think I have an obligation to find the most charitable interpretation for silence. Generally when someone stops responding to my points I conclude that he lacks the reason to support his position and the integrity to admit it. Exceptions exist, of course, and are evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
TheRyan
While I disagree strongly with scylla on the importance of semantic precision, I find his statement quite representative of his characteristic behavior.
Well, obviously I disagree with what is a reasonable expectation, which is of course a natural ocurrence and points to the problem with answering the question in the OP. Such conditions as “if you are engaged in a long running debate with someone, and that person asks you - sincerely - to clarify your position” are not objective criteria. What is “long running”? What is “sincerely”? It is quite common for people to disagree with each other on these points, and “I respond to people when it is reasonable to do so”, while somewhat begging the question, is about as much as anyone can say.
