I believe that all of the different forums on the SDMB are properly separated and named, except for Great Debates.
I feel this way because there is an obvious mindset that one is in when they enter Great Debates, just as in when they enter The Pit, that differs from when participating in an honest Great Debate.
I also feel that Great Debates is not properly named or described because there is actually very little debating that goes on. Most threads in GD start as a quasi poll, as in, “Will Bush Pee On The Seat Today?” and then they just degenerate into sematics. There is just a whole lot of plain old Soapboxing, Taunting, and Grand Standing.
So, my suggestion is to rename Great Debates. The new name should be Church And State. And the description should say, “All topics pertaining to politics and religion.”
You mean, “All topics related to Politics and Religion that aren’t more appropriately covered in General Questions, or aren’t responses to Cecil’s columns or Staff Reports” … ? Kinda long and cumbersome, n’est-ce pas?
And there have been threads in the GD forum on other issues – such as finance, ethics, philosophy, etc. I mean, OK, I guess you can say that those are “politics” but only in the sense that everything is politics.
That’s correct. Church And State would cover all general questions, debates, and opinions of anything relating to politics and/or religion. The current description of, “For long-running discussions of the great questions of our time. This is also the place for religious debates and (if you feel you must) witnessing.” is no shorter than what you propose.
My point is that discussions on politics and religion usually include a good amount of faith and partisanship. That means that no real debating is ocurring, just rhetoric back and forth.
The SDMB has such a wide source of knowledge from our membership, that no one will ever agree on everything, and there will be multiple answers even to a simple fact based question. So, there is really no such thing as a “debate” here, nor is there a “question”.
I’m proposing this suggestion in order to keep the mindsets associated with each forum separate. Under my suggestion, the topics that Biggirl gave above would fit under the General Questions forum.
But, I just realized that using my logic, then General Questions should probably be renamed to General Topics. That would include all questions, debates, and opinions about topics other than religion and politics.
As I said, just a suggestion. My feelings won’t be hurt.
I posted the following, months ago when I had similar feelings (I have edited myself so that I sound smarter):
We should all keep in mind the 3 requirements for a good discussion/argument.
Both parties should care about their point of view
Don’t get into discussions or arguments with people who just take a side for the sake of it.
Both parties should have equal emotional involvement
I hold positions on lots of matters that I will happily share as speculation but would not insult proponents of deeply held beliefs by offering as argument. For instance I am an atheist but I don’t lose sleep over what religous folk believe. So I am not sufficiently informed to argue with true Christians about their beliefs, so I don’t… but dinner party chitchat with the un-commited is fine.
Invoke Karl Popper
The good old Principle of Falsifiability - if the person you are arguing with can’t tell you what proof would destroy his point of view, then he is not arguing he is preaching. If his convictions are so strong that nothing could shake them, he is not arguing a position merely asserting an article of faith. Without agreed standards of evidence even the simplest argument becomes two monologues in favor of different points of view.
I believe another forum would be nice. A twilight zone where non-arguments just go away to die. Start a thread about Bush knew about 9/11, fine. Unable to agree what would dissuade you of this belief… not so fine “whoosh” and you’re gone.
I have no problem with preaching it’s just that it has a place. That place is not a forum where someone thinks he is “fighting ignorance” but is just sandbagged by people who not only don’t listen but don’t want to listen.
Hmmm. Well, I’ll alert the Moderator Collective to your idea, but I suspect it won’t fly.
The main problem is that it tries to organize these boards by topic. Way back when, we decided that wasn’t reasonable. Standard topic organization – Economics, Math, Literature, Geology, Etymology, Entomology, whatever – just don’t suit our style. We get way too many topics that transcend traditional disciplines – I mean, take How many calories are in the average male ejaculation? Do we file that under dieting? cooking? sex? biology? You see the problem.
So, we long ago decided that we wouldn’t concentrate on the topic so much as the format. Questions with specific answers (GQ), Questions without answers (GD), Personal Ramblings (MPSIMS), Statements of Opinion (IMHO), and Insults (Pit.)
The only exception is that we later added Cafe Society, a violation of the principles and one that IS topic-oriented (mostly), because we found that the GQ category was getting lots of movie trivia type of questions, and was too big to handle. Basically, then, Cafe Society was created to handle slop-over from GQ. Since movie trivia wasn’t enough for a forum, all the arts were brought from the other forums to Cafe Society. But that’s the exception, rather than the rule.
It doesn’t mean that we can’t redress our organizational principles. There are certainly still plenty of discussions that fall in the grey area between two categories. But not as many as a topical organization would do.
I’ve never seen GD described as “questions without answers.”* I kind of like the tone of that description.
The GD forum is sometimes intimidating. No. Often intimidating. To a guy like me who doesn’t have a lot of strong opinions and does not “get off” on arguing about a topic, I end up reading but not contributing. In GD I’ve seen comments posted along the lines of “what’s your argument?” or “come back and defend your position” or “this is a debate, so put up or shut up.” :shrug: I don’t have a position. I’m interested in the opinions of others. Yet often, the topic of interest is too deep (e.g. – “Should the CIA and FBI be reorganized into a new intelligence agency?”**) to be placed in IMHO alongside “What should I name my vacuum cleaner?” So the thread sometimes might never get started.
I’m not convinced that GD should be renamed, but there are unintended consequences of whatever name is chosen for a forum – including the choice of “Great Debates”.
I, for one, think all timely political threads belong in the Pit. There’s nothing great debate-y about them. Abstract discussions, historical issues (abortion, for example), ok, maybe even timely events that bring up such abstract issues again, but the bulk of political threads aren’t great debates. They’re condensed newspaper readers.
I guess it ends up in GD because so many people make abstract claims during such threads, but… whatever. People apparently like them. Who am I to say. I wish they’d go the way of game threads, which should be “hell, never to return.”
I’d like to see the mods be far, far more aggressive in moving threads to the pit. Many GD threads have OPs that make it very clear that the person does not wish to engage in anything resembling an intellectual process. Tell the truth, I think posting these in GD is jerkishness.
Sorry, FC, but I think this is a bad idea. It is true that a lot of room in GD is taken up by theological and US-centred political threads, but those are not what I’m interested in. By renaming the forum you are in effect discouraging all the interesting threads from it.
If you want to make changes, make a separate forum called Church and State for those threads. Of course, that means even more work, so just leave things as they are now.
Egad. Falsifiability applies to empiricism, not reason. As a matter of fact, falsifiability is itself not falsifiable. Poor old Popper. Surely he is second only to William of Ockham for misinterpretations of his writings.
I guess I’m confused about why you think the purpose of a debate is to convince the other debater to change her/his mind. I always thought the purpose of a debate was to convince the AUDIENCE, not the other debater.
We have things called Presidential Debates in election years, for instance, and we’d all be pretty shocked if, during such debate, George Bush were to say, “Gosh, Mr. Kerry, I never thought of that, you’re right!” Or vice versa. On t’other hand, that’s probably a poor example, since those things aren’t debates so much as alternate prepared speeches.
I grant you that some political debates sound pretty much like flaming and belong in the Pit forum, but the mods for the GD forum are alert to that. They draw the line where they will. The forum description calls for “long-running” debates of the “great issues of our time” … and long-running usually means there’s not an answer. If there were an answer, there wouldn’t be much to debate, would there? I mean, there isn’t a lot of discussion about 6 X 7 or what you get when you mix red and yellow.
Not at all. I stated a view (I’ll grant “joke” was hyperbole) and have defended it, all while listening to and considering critiques, and responding in a generally intelligent and respectful manner. If you disagree, please feel free to pit me; no one ever has. Of course, that could have something to do with my habit of responding in an intelligent and respectful manner…
I was referring to the many threads with OPs or titles along the lines of “Why do Liberals hate America” or “Exactly how evil is George Bush?”
Not in Great Debates, at least. Discussions of 6*7 would probably go in Cafe Society, and we’ve had a lot of talk recently in Comments on Cecil’s Columns on what you get when you mix red and yellow.
I thought that everything was economics. That’s what I get for listening to my Commie professors, I suppose.