I believe that all posters in the cause of honesty should declare their interest when making a point.
If an American or Brazilian,whatever for example posted that the British Armed forces were wonderful, the message would come from a degree of impartiality and from a degree of a not so close up viewpoint.
If however the post was made by myself then there would obviously be more then a degree of partiality being a Brit.and coming from a military background.
Many regular posters backgrounds ,whether friend or sparring partner are known to most of us but quite often there are posts on contentious issues that are vague on the posters location,credo etc. where by default we usually believe them to be American .
Is the post condemning the U.S. presence in Iraq from a concerned American or from a Pan Arab?
Is the post villifying Hamas from a European or from an Israeli?
Well thats it really but I do feel very strongly about this personally as part of objective free speech.
Where’s the fun in that? I say let people guess, unless you think it will go bad against you. I can’t walk past an ant’s nest without stirring it either.
I would say just the opposite. It doesn’t matter whether you’re biased or not (except to oneself), what matters is whether your point or argument is good. By giving extra information, if anything you provide more details for people to judge you on rather than your argument.
Put another way, if I see you’re British and so think “Aha! He’s British, and therefore likely to be defensive of the British armed forces”, then i’m acting out of prejudice. If I don’t know that about you, i’m forced to think about your argument more on its merits.
Anywhere in particular you’d like to see this instilled? Should I start prefacing my MPSIMS posts with a screed about my background?
Hypothetical post:
“I’m a white, female, 40s, west coast USA, wait, better be clearer PNW, Washington State. I love dogs, cats, and the color purple. I hate seafood.”
To the OP: Yes, that was a near miss! Lucky you didn’t spill the wine everywhere! I’m sure everyone thought it was funny as hell, but they’ll forget about it tomorrow.
/hyp post
Yeah, I can see how important knowing I have girly bits was to that post!
ETA: I’m just giving you shit…I agree with the Reverant Threshold.
Your lion!
But on a serious point I dont think its relevant to any discussion if you love puppies or not but if you slag off the Democrats and it turns out your a die hard Republican then it is relevant .
In a perfect world we could go with Revenants argument that you should judge the argument entirely on its own merits but all posters are human and as such biased .
The worst offenders I ever saw on a M.B. (U.K.A.O.L.)were Irish Republicans pretending to be Brits.and commenting on various British Government policies ,but they were so laughably ignorant about British History they always gave themselves away.
If your argument stands up to scrutiny then you can only strengthen your case by being honest about the emotional as opposed to the logical building bricks of your beliefs.
I believe that pressure groups that work on your governmental system have to declare their interests so why is it so bad for us ordinary folk to do the same ?
Does this include you? I had forgotten what “Albion” meant (not having encountered the term in over 40 years), and had to search for hints within your post.
I would be a complete and utter hypocrite if I didnt practice what I preach so yes it does apply to me ,in the O.P. Istated that I was a Brit and from a military background and in threads where it has a bearing on my viewpoint whether from a declaration of possible bias (even if Im not consciously aware of being biased )or as a declaration of impartiality I try to make it clear where Im coming from .
That said I wouldnt bother doing that if I was posting about my favourite movies or food,holiday destinations and suchlike.
Unfortunately you have exposed the inherent flaw in my O.P.
But surely the majority of S.D.M.B.posters would be honest and the those who are not if they post fairly regulary are likely to give themselves away.
This is not totally speculative ,Iknow of one regular poster who claims an extensive forces background who gave himself away almost in the very first post of his I read and other posters who genuinlly have armed service experience also picked up on it.
I would expect other Dopers whos experience and expertise lie in other fields would be able to sus out other phonies sooner or later so imho it would at least be worth a try .
I’m not sure how your propsal differs from what we already have with public profiles.
Also people often post their background when they feel it’s relevent to the discussion, and those that try and deceive are gonna be the minority who continue to do so.
You should try a career in politics. Impractical, redundent ideas based on excellent principles can gain a lot of traction there!
No amount of information would be sufficient for exposing bias. I can call myself an American, but I’m also 3/8 Hispanic, a kidney transplant patient with an amputated foot, a multi-instrument musician, and… well, I haven’t come close to describing myself in enough detail to demonstrate why I am not impartial on the subject of Vietnamese food.
Since a message board is a microcosm of real-world social activities, real-world rules of thumb will have to do: if you meet someone at a party who is talking out his ass, you’ll spot his faulty arguments on their own lack of merits.
But how do we know they would be honest? I know that a lot of people have been called on it when they seem to be acting dishonestly in the past, but I’m sure you could get away with saying you’re…I dunno, a Republican from Florida, when you’re not, if you really wanted to. Or saying you’re a woman when you’re a man. Not everyone goes to Dope Fests, after all.
