Actually, they do, in a way. Poorly formed debates led to a lot of complaints since they resulted in poor debate threads. It was one of many things that the folks in GD regularly complained about.
Jonathan_Chance made all of those changes to improve the overall quality of the forum, and most people liked the improvements.
Yes, it makes the forum more rigid, but overall that seems to be a good thing.
We also stopped just automatically moving contentious discussions to GD since those also tended to result in poor debates.
Well, now that the individual formally known as What_Exit, and currently identifying as Brusque, and possible Curt in the future has had their say, I’ll jump in and say I was following the prior thread and felt it was a bit confused as well. It bounced back and forth between what the rules were here and what the rules were in general.
The first, if the OP and title had been more clear, would be a fair topic for ATMB, but we have an answer
Pretty clear, we do not misgender off board members either, although the facts in the Breaking news are being continually updated and very easily can lead to misunderstandings.
Otherwise, yeah, moving the existing thread to IMHO or MPSIMS to discuss what rules -should- be for the rest of the world would make more sense. But I bet it would be heated, and I wouldn’t want to be the mod in charge of it!
I do think W_E was a bit more brusque than usual, but attribute it to the initial assumption that the accidental forum move via Lumpy was at least semi-intentional. But he’s addressed that. And I see no signs that W_E has been getting more hostile, but that he and the other ‘new’ mods are now comfortable enough to act firmly without feeling as much need for consensus. I mean, I’ve seen old threads where senior mods and mods emeritus were a whole lot more aggressive than this one!
This I don’t mind. But sometimes your moderating seems too personal, as if the identity of the poster somehow makes whatever they did worse*. Maybe that’s just another side of being brusque, I don’t know. And I don’t really have an example to give you; I haven’t kept track because I never thought this was something we would be allowed to discuss. And I haven’t been on the receiving end myself. Next time I see it, if I do, I will bring it back to this thread and report it.
*I’m not talking about a poster who has been building up to and is on the brink of flaming out. I’m talking about just regular posters like, say, me.
I agree with this. Maybe ease up and take a break for a bit.
These are examples of getting personal and overtly hostile.
The only difference I can tell from Great Debates is that almost nobody posts there anymore. By splitting off politics to its own forum you took away 90% of debates. It’s pretty much a ghost town now. And to tell the truth, there never have been anything approaching formal debates on this board. Arguing is not debate.
And since you felt the need to point out that someone should know the rules after three years, didn’t I recently have to give you a link to the copyright rules for the board that have been in effect for over 20 years that you were unaware of?
What confused me was that the OP asked what the “rules” were. In society, there are conventions, traditions, politeness, etc., but not too many actual rules. So, that’s why my first post there talked more about the rules on this board, which actually does have rules.
I don’t know that we really need a thread on this question. The answer from most of the board will be “whatever pronouns the person wants you to use”, and then there will be a few arguing against that and maybe getting in trouble for suggestions of mental illness or getting close to misgendering people.
Why not? Do you think @Lumpy actually knew the answer to his question but asked it anyway? It seemed like a good faith question to me. Not everyone is caught up on the latest info. If you don’t know, you should ask rather than taking a wild guess and going with that.
I don’t think we want to start judging which threads are allowed by what some posters think everyone should know.
I was going by your quote that the thread wasn’t needed. It obviously was or it wouldn’t have been started.
Closing down threads containing actual useful information should not be the first option. It wasn’t harming anything by being open. Just let it die a natural death.
I’m going to try and dial back my hostility, even if it isn’t actually hostility but just brusqueness. I also need to offer constructive criticisms rather than vague loaded words like “Mess”. I’ve offended at least 2 and maybe 3 posters with that word.
As to the closure of that thread, I stand by it. Something like it with a clear title and a clear focused OP could work. Also would be far better in IMHO looking for opinions and not debate.
I do not understand your distinction between opinions and debate.
I just posted in the Average US Life Expectancy is Shrinking. thread in GD. Mine was the 32nd response to the OP. And it was the first to contain cites. What could the other posts be than opinions? Of course, mine was an opinion as well, but an opinion backed with facts. Isn’t that what a debate properly is, not mere word management, however good?
Opinions are rampant on this board. Most of the forums contain nothing but opinions, even FQ a disappointing amount of time. If the board wants GD to stand out and be different, then mod it so that it doesn’t look like an exact duplicate of IMHO. Define “debate” first off. Or else kill off GD and put in a “Discussions” forum so we know what to expect inside of it.
GD is set up to not be simply something along the lines of, “What is your opinion on tipping at restaurants?” That is what IMHO is for. Rather, a GD thread should have a specific premise to debate (and opinions should be on topic). For instance, GD might say, “Working for tips leads to situations where people are underpaid when people don’t tip, and if you make tipping mandatory you might as well increase a worker’s salary and charge customers more for meals and eliminate the tips.” Then people can argue back and forth in support or opposition to the premise, whether that is through cited studies, personal opinions, anecdotes, cited articles, statistics on restaurant revenue, etc.
This is a good summation of the Great Debates “problem”. I haven’t been in an actual debate since high school, but I recognize one when I see it and there are no debates in that forum.
I think formalizing the rules will totally kill off what is left of the threads that do get placed there. Maybe a Discussion forum is the way to go and that could split off some of the more serious MPisms threads like the breaking news and illness threads.
Personal opinions are not a part of debates unless you can back them up with facts. Ideally, there would be no need to ask for a cite in GD because the cite would be supplied when the person posted. You would then read their cite and reply with your own cite and commentary. However, it’s never worked that way.
Just a suggestion, but you seem to mod more than all the other mods put together. Maybe cut back on your workload a bit and just enjoy the board like you used to. You have always had an easygoing background on the board so your current actions really stand out. IOW, it’s not just the hostility, it’s that it’s coming from you that makes it stand out.
What you’re describing is nowhere in the rules as written. I linked to them. The OP should be a clear topic for debate, people should be relatively civil and not go off-topic, but otherwise I don’t see anything mandating how you engage in the debate. Certainly nothing that says that personal opinions are not part of it. Clearly they always are.
From what I understand, @What_Exit wasn’t referring to opinions not being welcome in GD, just that a thread shouldn’t be a simple and general solicitation of opinions. Which matches the guidelines I cited.
Yes, that’s why I said the forum contains no debates and never has. Doesn’t matter what you call it, if you don’t follow some kind of debate rules, it’s really just a discussion or an argument. And we already have 4 or 5 forums for that.
I’ve done formal debates (in high school) and from that perspective you’re correct. But it’s not called “Formal Debates”. Don’t forget that there’s more than one definition for what a debate is.
Clearly “Great Debates” is using the first definition here, a “serious discussion of a subject in which many people take part”.
Note that a debate can be a discussion or argument.
a contention by words or arguments
The key to keeping it a debate is not to have “debate rules”, which is not what defines a debate. What makes it a debate is keeping it on topic, and not letting it devolve into a fight, both of which are addressed specifically in the rules for that forum.
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