This is a matter which has gotten some attention in the past, and I don’t recall seeing the Buckner position before. I wonder if perhaps he was not propounding a contradictory rule but merely suggesting (rather than warning) a cooling off period (& if so, what are the implications of this).
But the fact is that many of my debate opponents, confronted with the clear correctness of my positions and the unassailable logic of my arguments, tend to resort to all sorts of distortions and dishonesty. Sad, but true. And so, it can sometimes become necessary to point out this fact. For this reason, I’d like a clearer ruling, if possible, clarifying under what circumstances is calling someone a liar (or similar) prohibited, if any.
You’re not getting a clearer ruling, I’m afraid. The rules aren’t set in stone (well, one is), and everything is a judgement call. If you feel a post is out of line, report it to a moderator (using the appropriate function button) so they can review it.
The more we define the rules, the more debate there will be over the definitions. We reserve the right to apply our common sense, and it seems to work, so far.
Actually, I’m not much interested in pointing out others’ transgressions, sorry. As I said previously, my interest is in conforming to the rules myself - as such, a clearer picture would be helpful.
I can understand if there are circumstances under which clarification will not suffice. Still, in this case it seems as if one moderator is making a blanket statement, and the other is contradicting it in a particular instance. So it might be helpful if the exceptions to the rule were specified, if indeed they exist.
But if you can’t, don’t. Life goes on. Just asking is all …
My suggestion, Izzy, would be: if you’re in doubt about whether your post is a transgression, then change the post.
However, I believe that MEBuckner was not saying that “you’re a bigoted liar” is inappropriate – he was saying that it’s usually not productive. That is, if the goal is to get the bigoted liar to rescind and recant, then calling her a “bigoted liar” is unlikely to be efficacious in reaching that goal.
Of course, the fine line between “bigoted” and “big-hearted” is a minor inflection on the second syllable.
I think that’s generally good advice. If you really think your post is near the line, then why take the risk? Is insulting somebody really worth it? Certainly there has to be a better way of saying, for example, “You’re a fucking idiot” than to actually say it. The people around here respond much better to a clever retort showing that your debating opponent is a fucking idiot than they do to you just stating it outright. And, of course, the moderators do as well.
Well, yeah. But if you could remove the doubt it’s even better.
Well I’m not into the bigot issue, but that’s not the purpose of calling someone a liar. Generally you first point out that your opponent is distorting etc. - after that doesn’t work (if it doesn’t) you declare it more forcefully. By that point you’ve pretty much given up on gentle persuasion, and are merely wrapping up your position regarding your opponent’s posts.
Of course, the readership judges for themselves.
As I understand it (from the Gaudere quote above) your example would actually be forbidden. My understanding is that liar & bigot are examples of descriptions of the posts and positions of the posters, and are treated diferently.
I would kind of disagree with your second sentence here. I don’t see that cleverly phrasing an insult or using elegent wording should make a difference. I’ve seen this type of thing get by, but assumed that this was because such insults don’t stand out as much, and slip by. But hey - I can play that game too - it’s good to know!
I think you missed the point of what I was saying. I didn’ t say that cleverly wording of an insult means it’s not an insult. I said that you can show the rest of the world that the person you’re debating against is an idiot without saying it.
So, for example, if you’re debating against a creationist who cites a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, you don’t say, “You fucking moron, that argument has been destroyed millions of times over.” You merely point out that it has been destroyed and that anybody who is going to debate such a subject should become knowledgeable in it if he expects to be taken seriously.
You are correct. I was specifically giving an example of something that would, indeed, be forbidden. And you are also correct that “liar” and “bigot” are treated differently. While calling somebody a “liar” (if that’s the only thing you do) is not going to get you very far in a debate, it’s not against the rules, either.
Izzy: << But if you could remove the doubt it’s even better. >>
But that’s not going to happen. We’re a moderated message board, and we don’t want to write a law code. I’m not sure that we could, even if we wanted to. What would we have, a list of the 216 forbidden phrases?
Common sense and “don’t be a jerk” pretty much cover it, with perhaps the addition of “attack the post, not the poster” for GD.
David says: << The people around here respond much better to a clever retort showing that your debating opponent is a fucking idiot than they do to you just stating it outright. >>
Winston Churchill was criticized because the British declaration of war on Japan was so politely worded. His comment: “When you’re going to kill someone, it does no harm to be polite first.”
Compare and contrast:
(a) “You’re a fucking liar, Fred.”
(b) “Someday you’ll tell the truth, Fred, and this will astonish most of the board members.”
Izzy, this comment doesn’t belong in a discussion about how the rules apply (or don’t) to allegations of dishonesty or disingenuousness, but I feel compelled to comment, not so much to you as in general on the attitude you express in that quote (because there are others who need the reminder far more than you do).
The key words that are missing in that quote are “to me” – while I often agree with what you have to say after getting a firm grasp on what exactly it is that you are saying, our worldviews and styles of expression are sufficiently different that it takes me some time and effort to grasp your point and how you got there.
With the exception of trolling and the non-condemned counterpart to it where a poster is arguing from an overtly-identified-as-such hypothetical stance, it’s expected and understood that any poster is going to express what he himself feels to be true and valid. The goal is to make your stance so clear and so well supported as to convince others of the rightness of your perspective, changing their minds or at least causing them to rethink their positions in the light of yours.
On another board where I moderate, we have one member (here and there) who has lodged a complaint against another person, a moderator, for wilfully abusing his position. Unfortunately, when boiled down, this amounts to the fact that the moderator argued with him in a thread on which they had come to quite different conclusions based on the evidence at hand, and then was forced to “put on his Mod. hat” to call for a cooling-off period when tempers were raised in that thread. In short, his complaint was that the Mod. didn’t agree with him.
In this world, one will not always get agreement – people’s perspectives and what is important to them will always get in the way. If you see someone doing what you’ve alleged happens above, call in a third party, preferably but not necessarily a Mod., to decide whether it’s a case of willful abuse of you or simply that your differing perspectives have caused an impasse on what you each perceive as “the right answer.”
Classic example of this, from an inordinate number of GD threads, is the creationist-evolutionist argument. If Genesis 1 is the literally-true-as-historical-account Word of God, then obviously anything any natural scientist has concluded from the evidence of the world as we know it is faulty logic in support of an improperly constructed theory. Note that that statement is completely true as it stands – but that it rests on the assumption of the literal truth of Genesis 1, a view not shared by nearly every member of this board. While the circumstances in which you find yourself in the position of abusive disagreement with another are not so clearcut, I suspect that divergent tacit underlying assumptions are going to be the case in nearly every circumstance – granted that occasionally there will be true abuse by the bona fide jerk.
Poly, I was kidding a bit with the language you quote. (So don’t be taking my words out of context or I’ll … )
As for the rest of your post, I’m pretty sure that I can tell the difference between a lying weasel and a sincere but uncomprehending person (though there will obviously be many borderline cases). You will note, for example, that despite your professed difficulty in grasping my points etc., I have never called you a liar.
For whatever reason, I have a strong distaste for whining to mods. And it is not necessary either - I can pretty much take care of myself, and in any event am not going to cry over anything that happens here. But I do like to stay within the rules.
