What you actually wrote was:
Ad hominem.
Not exactly - what Finn is doing is, in effect, arguing that the source is biased and thus can’t be trusted.
The fallacy of “ad hominem” is when someone cites a charactristic of the debater or source that is irrelevant to the argument. For example, “you can’t believe what Malthus says about the value of this company, because Malthus is Canadian. Never trust a Canadian.”
OTOH, impugning the motives/objectivity of a debater or source may be relevant to the argument, and so not a fallacy - though of course, it can be wrong. “You can’t believe what Mathus says about the value of this company, because Malthus secretly invested money in the company, and so is not to be trusted in this”.
Again, being strictly logical, this is a fallacy, as detailed in my previous post. The truth value of that map is completely independent of the bias of the people who made it, from a logical viewpoint.
And yet again, as you are avoiding, the truth value of the map was unknown because the only source for it lacked credibility.
Your claims about “formal logical argument” are nonsense. Whether or not an argument has premises that are invalid is very much a part of formal logic, and attempting to handwave questions as to whether or not we had any basis for determining if they were valid or invalid is not in accord with formal logic, it’s in contradiction with it.
To start with, you know full well that what I ‘actually said’ is what I just pointed out. And that you are misreprese nting what I wrote, in bad faith, so you can make an argument that will not stand if you quote the actual facts.
You know that you have to distort what I actually said even in that first post by cherrypicking something and avoiding the rest. I pointed out that verification was at issue from Word One.
You know full well that the issue was one of verification because their mere say-so was not sufficient proof of any claims. And I elaborated on that at great length.
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Including a gem where you said that I had no proof that the people who I was saying created the map actually did so… when it said right on the map that they had created it.
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Sure, I just made up the words of yours that I quoted where you attempt to smear the map based on who made it, presumably in order to “misreprese” you. Tell me FinnAgain: you now accept that Israel bombed northern Lebanon. How many of the points marking airstrikes on that map need to be independently verified before you actually concede that the map may be, you know, correct? Why don’t you just admit that Israel did in fact launch a significant bombardment not just in the south of Lebanon, but also in the north?
Now you are acting as if you’re confused in order to argue in bad faith. Nice.
I just pointed out “You know full well that what I ‘actually said’ is what I just pointed out. And that you are misrepresenting what I wrote, in bad faith, so you can make an argument that will not stand if you quote the actual facts.
You know that you have to distort what I actually said even in that first post by cherrypicking something and avoiding the rest. I pointed out that verification was at issue from Word One.”
You have ignored all of that in order to claim that instead the issue was whether or not you ‘made up’ words, rather than the fact that you deliberately ignored what I actually said to pick something that made it look like I wasn’t talking about verification from my very first words.
Likewise, this silly bluster about “smearing” something because you point out it doesn’t have verification is more of your bad faith argument.
More bad faith argument. I never denied that some military targets and bridges were hit. I responded to your original claim that the entirety of the country was reduced to rubble, which you now admit were false to facts and wildly exaggerated in order to support your rhetoric, and I pointed out that the north had not been touched by the bombing campaign which actually had reduced some areas in the south to rubble.
I assumed, in good faith, that you were using the word "flattened’ to mean what it means even in connotation “reduced to ruins”. Except you then claimed, in bad faith, that it really only meant “bombstruck”. That you were arguing in bad faith was shown when you then contrasted the south being “completely flattened” with the north which was only partially so. Something cannot be “completely struck by any bombs” or “partially struck by any bombs”. A geographic region has either been bombed or it has not. Then, of course, you slipped up a bit and showed that you were arguing in bad faith and that you actually were using “flattened” to mean totally destroyed; you changed your claim from “the south was totally flattened” to “the south was completely obliterated”, obviously showing that the semantic value of your claims of “totally flattened” and “completely obliterated” were the same.
To say nothing of other of your bad faith arguments, like when I pointed out that news networks had admitted themselves that they’d published fauxtography (like Reuters), and you responded by claiming that I was saying that the only people who had said that were Israeli sources. You also admitted that you didn’t actually believe that, but you were engaging in the same trollish behavior that Damuri also admitted to, whereby you believe you see a behavior that is disruptive and annoying… and you immediately engage in it to try to ‘give it right back!’ to the person you think is using it.
You’re really curious about that?
How many of a set of claims have to be verified before we can certify that all the claims are correct? You don’t know how many of a set of claims have to be investigated and verified before we can claim that they are all accurate?
Yeah, actually you did:
Who is really arguing in bad faith here? Was that a slip, or are you deliberately trying to misguide the neutral reader? Incredibly bad form, trying to backtrack when it’s so easy to check your claims of innocence against what you actually posted.
You do realize, I hope, that this board has an “ignore” feature that you can use if he burdens you so badly.
I agree that he’s a jerk, but not within the meaning of “Don’t be a jerk”. There are jerks, and there are jerks. FinnAgain is just a jerk. 
I’ve never heard them say that, before. I like that, I will have to remember it. Thank you, XT. 
Captain, it’s rather obviously in bad faith, but somewhat predictable, for you to use absurd hyperbole to try to sell your rhetorical point and then when someone responds to that point, you backpedal and claim that they were really responding to your new point.
As pointed out many times, I took you at your word, unfortunately, and believed that you really did mean that the whole of Lebanon had been reduced to ruins. In context, my comments about the fighting were about the kind of fighting that we saw in some areas of the south that really did reduce some parts of some areas to ruins.
But of course, this seems to have been your intention in the original thread; you posted overblown bombast and when someone took the bait you reeled in the troll. You defined the fighting as something that had “flattened” the entire country. Using your own definition (yes yes, you later sorta-changed it before reverting to your original definition and showing that you really meant it, after all), I responded that the kind of fighting that you were discussing had in fact not touched the north. It seems that was the point of your bait in the first place, because once I responded to your claim you could pretend that, really, I was responding to the claim that instead of the fighting constituting something that “flattened” entire regions, you really just meant that it could be something as simple as a single missile strike to a bridge.
Or as I pointed out at the time:
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You mean, like claiming I wasn’t talking about verification when, in order to do so, you had to deliberately excise the first part of a quote that was explicitly talking about verification? And that when it was pointed out that you were deliberately, and in bad faith, ignoring context so as to try to convince someone of a fictional claim, you pretended that instead I’d claimed you invented a quote?
Perhaps like when I pointed out that news organizations during the war in Lebanon had admitted that they’d used false reporting and some others had been shown to be counter-factual, and you pretended that I’d said it was simply Israel that said that?
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After which point you admitted to using the same trollish tactics that Damuri has admitted to. After you had already stated that you thought it was improper and wrong to disregard a source based on who was putting it forward (while, again, arguing in bad faith that it was a question of personality rather than verification and credibility), you engaged in the same exact behavior in order to annoy me.
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Given:
-your admission that you were willing to use tactics which you believed were wrong, as long as you could use them on me
-your continually shifting claims about what you “really” meant with your absurd hyperbole (between making it clear that you didn’t really agree with your own ‘new’ definition since you wouldn’t apply it to Hezbollah,using it in ways that showed you weren’t making accurate claims about what you really meant, and then reverting to the original claim that you alleged you weren’t actually making), all while apparently using your hyperbole as the bait on a hook so that once someone responded to it, you could claim that they were trying to discuss bombings that had rubble the entire country when really the discussion wasn’t about the actual bombing campaigns that really did rubble some areas.
-your willingness to engage in bad faith arguments like claiming I wasn’t talking about verification of facts, while you had to snip the sentence which made it clear that I was talking about the verification of facts and that when caught, you instead pretended that I was accusing you of fabricating my quote
Well, it’s rather clear what the point is behind your allegations that I’m arguing in bad faith. I will keep in mind, however, the risks of responding to you and taking your claims about the nature and extent of military campaigns as if you meant them.
You specifically said that “the north had not been touched”. It doesn’t get any clearer than that I’m afraid. If we’re not to take you at your word, then what? Naturally, I’ll laugh myself to sleep at the thought of you bashing away at your keyboard in deep frustration over my idiomatic usage of “flattened” whilst typing “the north has not been touched” and then attempting to backpedal, claiming well, actually, I have no idea why you’re trying to claim “the north has not been touched” isn’t exactly what you wrote: it’s there, in black and white, plain as day.
IIRC, my main quibble was with you stating a Hezbollah spokesman said something without a supporting citation. You still haven’t produced a citation. I’m still waiting.
Oh, and major lulz at you trying to palm off edited IDF footage as unbiased in the other thread given the shitstorm you initiated over that map. I think we’ve just seen an instance of the “bad faith” debating that many people have accused you of in this thread.
He was probably talking about the North of the West Bank.
This thread has gone meta. Here’s what I’m going to do.
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The staff will not be contributing further to this thread.
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I’ll leave it open for 12 hours, and if the discussion is still going on, or I receive an objection by PM or email, I’ll move it to an appropriate forum (probably the Pit) for posters to continue the discussion.
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If there are unresolved issues about moderation, I’d like them to be raised in a new thread.
Gfactor
Administrator
I had enough of your bad faith baiting in the other thread. I’ve about had enough of your bad faith convenient misunderstandings here. You’ve just deliberately ignored where I pointed out what I said, and the context it was said in. I’m weary of the bad faith nonsense you’re engaging in.
Being that you are now ignoring the context, in bad faith, so you can pretend that the context was something totally different, I’ll just let the record stand.
You are now want me to believe that, in good faith,
Yet another one of your “good faith” errors, captain? I never claimed that it was “unbiased”, but that it was consistent with the facts and an alternative explanation that was offered was ridiculous for the reasons I explained in the other thread. The claim that the footage was “unbiased” is one you’ve invented.
What I actually said was:
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](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12537489&postcount=892)
Indeed we have seen what you and yours mean by my “bad faith” debating. I took a position, argued it on the evidence, and discussed why I believed what I did. You didn’t like it and didn’t agree, so by definition it must be in “bad faith”. And then in good faith you came to this thread and totally failed to accurately describe what I’d actually said. In good faith.
THIS IS THE ANSWER? IGNORE THE JERK?
Fair enough. Who needs Great debates anyway.
Was there ever any doubt?
For what it’s worth I shouldn’t have responded as much as I did. I tried to keep my points to the silly notion that because I honestly disagree with some people, I must be doing so in bad faith. However I’ve rather obviously gotten bogged down in numerous side arguments other than the loopy idea that the moderators should ban me for engaging in the same behavior that the OP and numerous others are allowed to.
Meanwhile, as people are allowed in the Pit to deliberately post things that they know aren’t true with the explicit goal of pissing an individual person off, I’d rather not be trolled quite so heavily there. I prefer the more restrained GD style of trolling that people use when arguing with me. 
I’ll skip the Pit, as the only response I’d have was something I already posted to Damuri’s other thread that he started there.
Wikipedia? WIKIPEDIA?
Wikipedia is about the best source you can point to if your object is to illustrate “really fucking useless and unreliable source”.
“And there was much rejoicing (yaaay!)”
Good call*. Point being, IMHO, that there’s a clear divide here: those who’ll apoligize for “anything Israel” and those who won’t. With, of course, some who’ll approach this topic with an open mind.
Between the first set it’s rather obvious there won’t be any ‘meeting of the minds’ anytime soon (and I count myself, if it wasn’t already obvious, as a harsh Israeli critic). Simply not gonna happen. Period.
Thus a third option I’ve claimed for myself: post what I believe in and let those that are genuinely interested in finding out the “truth” decide for themselves. Biased? Surely, but fact are facts and I am more than willing to ultimately let the reader decide as opposed to getting into endless semantic quibbles with any number of posters from the first block.
*In short, us Token Jews don’t do sophistry.