This was triggered by a Pit thread, which was triggered by a Great Debates thread, so feel free to move it, or I can take it to e-mail if you prefer.
Is it acceptable to post “you are a liar” in Great Debates?
My understanding to date is that this is not acceptable, on the grounds that it is attacking the poster and not the post. “That is a lie” followed by some factual refutation is acceptable (in GD), and “you are a liar” followed by some further personal abuse is acceptable in the Pit.
Am I correct? Or is it a judgement call by the mods? Or am I completely off base (all of which are belong to us)?
Regards,
Shodan
I wish I was sure I had never transgressed against the rule as I understand it. I will spare the hamsters, and apologize in advance.
My understanding would be a little stricter than yours.
In Great Debates: “You are a liar” and “That is a lie” are unacceptable. “That is untrue” or “what you said is untrue” would be acceptable. There’s a fine line, to me, between a “lie” and an “untruth”, the former implying a deliberateness and a deception. The moderators of the Great Debates forum tend to have a slightly more lenient standard than I do. I will try to call this to their attention (I’m not at my home computer and not sure I can send email from here.)
In The Pit: Yes, “You are a liar” and other insults are acceptable. “Personal abuse” – well, depends on what you mean. There are lines, even in the Pit.
In GD, “that is a lie” and “you are a liar” will not get a warning if used fairly reasonably, even if it does not exactly thrill me to see it. Sometimes people do lie in an argument and pussyfooting around it didn’t seem much good. Posters have called mods liars, mods have called posters liars, etc. without a warning for years, ever since the GD forum has been around. If someone says “X is a lie” (and therefore “you are a liar”), you can disprove it with facts, same as any other empirical claim.
A person who has said a lie is a liar, while a person who makes a stupid argument is not neccessarily stupid. That is why “that argument is stupid” is not considered to be equivalent to “you are stupid”, but “you are a liar” and “that is a lie” are tolerated.
It doesn’t mean I think it is a good way to foster courteous debate, and if someone gets really obnoixous about calling people liars (particularly on flimy or nonexistent evidence) they can be banned under the “jerk” rule, but it’s been an acceptable phrase in and of itself ever since GD was first created.
I hope you don’t mind my bumping this thread after it’s sat dormant for over six months, but I was first pointed to it just this morning.
Gaudere, I’ve got to say I think your ruling is reasonable, but unnecessarily complicated. Telling a lie does indeed make someone a liar, so it’s OK to call someone a liar in GD, which is an exception to the general rule of attacking the statement rather than the poster. (“The general rule is to attack the other poster’s arguments, rather than the other poster him- or herself.” - MEB)
But then you carve out an exception to the exception: if the accusation that someone is a liar is supported by scanty or nonexistent evidence, the ‘don’t be a jerk’ rule applies, and it becomes a potentially bannable offense.
I think there’s a lot to be said for simplicity, in this case: it’s not like a whole lot will be lost if future GD posters are restricted to saying “that’s a lie” rather than “you’re a liar”. What’s gained is the simplicity of “attack the statement, not the poster,” with no codicils (and codicils to codicils) deeply buried in ATMB where nobody can find them.
Lord knows the rules seem too complicated to many of us already, with too many amendments (that we’re apparently expected to know) found only in mod/admin rulings in threads that many people will never read. Doing away with some of that underground complexity would be doing the SD community a service, I think.
Oh God… saying "this is a lie is not the same as saying “this is untrue” and that means to be “the thin line” between yes or no being “a jerk”.
I don’t even know what “being a jerk” acually means to represent… Really. I have no good understanding about it even after searching online dictionaries and real ones.
Can you people show some compassion for non-English-speakers and make these “thin-line” things less complicated? Thank you.
Aldebaran, those who speak English as their native tongue also have problems understanding sometimes. I still struggle to understand why some types of disparaging stereotyping are considered hate speech and others are not.
In my own opinion, jerks manifest themselves by frequently baiting people, namecalling, making unsubstantiated claims, ridiculing others on sensitive issues, twisting what others have said, labelling and attacking the poster rather than what the poster said.
It’s especially jerkish to establish a pattern of behaving this way.
Aldebaran, what I’m understanding that it’s okay to tell someone in Great Debates, “You are a liar”, as long as you can back it up with cites, as long as you can prove that he’s a liar.
If not–if it’s just rhetoric (“You, sir, are a liar!”)–then it’s a no-no.
I’d disagree that it is an exception, in the sense that it is allowed under the rule. Just because something is true, doesn’t mean that it’s not an ad hominem.
Or do you mean it’s an exception because it’s allowed on GD?
Yes, well. That would be lovely and I think the mods would find it extremely pleasing to write looser and less complicated rules. The problem being, that as soon as that’s done, there’s fifty questions from posters asking about specific examples; in each the poster asks for a concrete and definitive answer. And there’s also the posters who will insist on testing the limits of those rules. I think the GD mods have found a failry reasonable and workable middle-ground that leaves room to for them judge posts based on intent and demeanor,(rather than some zero-tolerance policy) while still being useful to them, easily understood by the members and can be concisely stated.
I’m trying to figure out how this is a response to my post, Unc.
*That would be lovely and I think the mods would find it extremely pleasing to write looser and less complicated rules. *
Me too. So far, so good.
The problem being, that as soon as that’s done, there’s fifty questions from posters asking about specific examples; in each the poster asks for a concrete and definitive answer. And there’s also the posters who will insist on testing the limits of those rules.
It strikes me that, all other things being equal, greater complexity generates more questions. I expect it gives greater opportunity for posters to test the bounds, too; it certainly can’t create less.
*I think the GD mods have found a failry reasonable and workable middle-ground that leaves room to for them judge posts based on intent and demeanor,(rather than some zero-tolerance policy) *I would hope the mods (of GD and all fora) would use their judgment, rather than interpret the rules as automatons, whether the rules are as simple as the Ten Commandments, or as complex as the Internal Revenue Code.
IOW, simplicity v. complexity, and moderator judgment/discretion v. mindless application of rules, are independent of one another.
while still being useful to them, easily understood by the members and can be concisely stated.
The question I’ve raised here is whether enough usefulness has been added to make it worth the reduced conciseness and the increased difficulty of comprehension. I don’t see that there’s much of a gain in usefulness.
