Aardvarking? You sick bastard! 
And the conversation would be more productive if, from the beginning, people had called him on that, not been disingenuous. Something like:
“I don’t see any argument that this is her signature accomplishment, especially in it’s current form [evidence and reasoning] and I feel like framing it that way is an attempt to use the issue as a way to evaluate her candidacy, which doesn’t follow at all”.
JAQing off can certainly be a circle-jerk, and reasonable people just fade away.
I think they were, and that was a bullshit distraction from that thread. It seems to have gotten back on track now, but Tired and Cranky’s, and to a lesser extent KarlGauss’s, behavior was pretty shameful.
Very much disagree. It’s perfectly acceptable to use the tactics of someone back at them if the moderation doesn’t try to stop them.
Sealioning a sealioner is just as fine as trolling a troll. If you can make posting in that way frustrating for them, maybe they’ll learn to stop.
Granted, not everyone should do it. It’s sorta a good cop, bad cop situation. You have some people outlining the good behavior, and you have some people showing how the bad behavior sucks when it is directed towards you.
Demanding one side be pure and righteous while the other side can use bad tactics is a great narrative, but it rarely works. Every MLK needs a Malcolm X.
It will never force them to stop; that’s a pipe dream. I’d rather not have the whole board dragged down to their level. Just like the Dems have had to hold themselves to a higher standard when it comes to sexual misconduct, I’d like to see the good posters keep the high ground. Their behavior in that thread was awful, but Ravenman, Procrustus, and others got it back on track and got HD to admit that it’s not really a bad thing for Warren to have the CFPB in the news. See? Progress.
The issue here is that you mistakenly think sealions care about debate or discussion or even meaning. That’s not the point at all. They don’t want to know you opinion, or why they might be wrong, or to contribute meaningful insight to the discussion in order to reach a more nuanced consensus, they don’t care. They’re not playing the marketplace of ideas game, and they’re not playing it with you.
Their game is called Bad Faith and playing to the crowd.
It works like this : they authoritatively assert something that’s short and pithy and wrong, then you correct them at length, then they either a) ignore everything you said and retort with another pithy and wrong thing that’s almost a complete non-sequitur ; or b) they snatch onto one tiny bit of what you said, deliberately distort it or pretend it means something else and use that out of context bullshit take as the basis for another pithy and wrong assertion. Rinse, repeat until you get tired of having to explain even the most basic of things and leave them to their nonsense - which they then claim as winning since you “couldn’t” retort to their last shovel load of crap.
The end result is that you think you’ve “won” the debate since you’ve consistently proved them wrong rationally speaking (and indeed, people who respect reason and actual conversations are on your side - but they were from the beginning, so what have you gained ?) ; but the bad faith posters know they’re winning the optics game because to the casual observer who’s only tangentially engaged with whatever you’re talking about they’re the ones being decisive, quick to respond, controlling the conversation and, in the end, the ones with the final bit of snark (the casual observer might not even read your tl;dr arguments at all, or merely skim them). Oh, and in the process you’ve given them the opportunity to give their bad takes a lot of exposure.
It’s somewhat distinct but related to the Gish Gallop, but the Gish Gallop doesn’t work in the written form, only with timed speech. On forums you can take the time to conclusively debunk every last bit of a wall of bullshit, prove that their sources don’t say what they claim, etc… ; and before your comprehensive retort they can’t just move on as if the bullshit you didn’t have time to debunk was true. So they play another game, but it’s yet another game where the normal rules of conversation can’t win.
So why play ? And if you do choose to play, why on Earth would you insist on sticking by normal rules of conversation ?
(oh, I forgot the most obvious : of course the sealion’s bad faith arguments might also very likely lead you to rightfully blow a fucking gasket - but that’s again their win, since they can immediately play the “I’m being perfectly civil ; you look unhinged and emotional !” card)
The whole point of sealioning is to try and shut down the conversation. So I disagree you can’t make them stop. You can do exactly what they are doing to you, cutting down their ability to argue, all the while provoking them so they feel the need to go after you. You can frustrate them into expressing anger and breaking rules.
I’m pretty sure that’s what has happened most of the time that Ditka has wound up with Warnings. Posters provoke him, using his own tactics against him. At this point, he doesn’t seem like he’s going to be on this board much longer, given that he’s had, what, two suspensions now?
I think the best way to combat sealioning is to immediately respond with, “No. What are you talking about?” Emphasis on the ‘you’.
It’s ultimately where the conversation is going to go anyway. May as well take the short cut and save everybody some time.
What can I say? I disagree. I think these boards (the debate forums, especially) are a great place to have rigorous, rules-based debates. If both sides shut each other down through bullshit tactics like this, there won’t be conversations.
Sealioning, JAQing off, and other forms of trolling are forbidden in those forums. HD, for example, has already been warned about it. Using him as an example, if posters continue to engage him (I rarely do that), they should engage him in good faith and when he starts engaging in sealion behavior, report him. If others engage him using his tactics, it normalizes those tactics and makes it impossible to moderate. We should all work to upgrade the rhetoric here, requiring cites for claims, and engage honestly. I’m confident the moderators here will clamp down on trolling behavior eventually.
They’re not trolling though. Trolling doesn’t have an agenda, or a narrative. The troll just enjoys making you mad - that’s their only endgame, and they’ll adopt any position or use any tactic that they think will achieve that.
Bad faith arguers actually try to push their ideas. They just do it in awful, dishonest ways because to them the ends justify the means ; and they self-rationalize ways to disregard *your *ideas entirely without ever having to actually engage with them.
A genuine, productive conversation is a cooperative event. All participants must be willing to examine their own positions critically, to try to understand the opposition’s ideas and points as closely as possible, to implicitly accept the notion that they don’t know everything there is to know etc… with an endgoal of either succesfully changing the other person’s mind (and in so doing, by virtue of having to explain and defend one’s own position, better understanding it oneself), having one’s own mind changed (for the better, presumedly), or reaching an impasse and mutual agreement that both positions are equally valid.
If any participant tries to have a *competition *instead, rules don’t matter because the conversation will never be productive. And in any event bad faith specialists tend to be really good at learning and testing the rules, the better to instrumentalize them, skirt them, subvert them.
I’m not saying the only answer to bad faith is more bad faith BTW. I’m just saying, responding to bad faith strategies with good faith conversation is pointless - worse than pointless. It’s counter-productive. Bad faith is *designed *to beat good faith where it matters to the bad faith person. Either don’t engage them at all, get them banned from the forum, or try and find a different tack to shake their shit all up than standard arguments because those. won’t. work. for you.
Yeah, and Zuckerberg will fix Facebook at some point 
Advocating trolling as a diverse group so patterns won’t be obvious and warnings, if any, will be diffuse is a great idea BigT! Advocating that behavior in a public forum so that the behavior is to be watched for is pretty dumb.
And with the amount of warnings you’ve accumulated perhaps you ought to consider how long you have if you get dinged for trolling.
I say, don’t engage if you can’t engage in good faith. So, I rarely engage with several posters because I doubt they will reply in good faith. And, if someone does engage in bad faith with me, I’ll call them on it (as much as possible in GD or Elections): “That post wasn’t very helpful.” “That post seems pretty disingenuous, but here’s a cite that proves you wrong.” “Your cite doesn’t say what you claim it does: [insert relevant part of bad cite].” “I’m asking you what you’re view is. I’m not interested in hearing what you think others’ views are. If you don’t want to answer that, I’ll bow out.”, etc.
I can start a new thread in ATMB I guess about this, but…didn’t one suspension formerly mean that you had best shape up, and that right soon, or one additional warning then means you will be banned?
When did that change? IIRC and all that…
If your point has merit then what you suggest is trivial and obvious. If your point doesn’t have merit than silencing, deplatforming, and engaging in ad hominem attacks using emotional and deceitful language is the tactic to employ.
WTF are you talking about?
I’m saying if you are engaged in a debate it’s obvious that providing cites and a coherent argument is the correct tactic. The intended audience of such advice can’t comprehend that advice or is unwilling to follow it.
And here we have exhibit A, mein gut Ritterman. Notice how he isn’t responding to what you’re saying, but using it as the non-sequitur platform for random accusations ? Thaaaat’s bad faith !
Wrong! It’s a perfectly valid observation on human behavior. It’s like all this whining about don’t feed the trolls. Anyone who needs to be told that cannot follow it. Your behavior, by the way, is an example of ad hominem. Sad!
Go away.