Oh, come ON. You posted the question in GQ rather than GD so that you could hide behind a shield of “I don’t want to debate, just answer the questions!” while arguing your own views; don’t pretend that you were trying to do anything else. I mean, let’s look at some selections from your largest post in the thread in question:
Sounds like you’re preparing to debate to me. Next paragraph:
Yep, expressing opinions, that’s debating. But, since we’re in GQ, you don’t want to hear the opinions of others, am I right? Let’s skip to the final paragraph:
The purpose of this paragraph, as evinced by these statements, was to dismiss perfectly legitimate answers given to the question presented in the OP. A few problems: for one, responding to the opinions of others with your own…is debating! In addition, dismissing the answers on the basis of your own pre-formed opinions strongly implies that you asked the original question with the intent of presenting counter-arguments. That’s not the spirit of GQ, hoss.
You were hiding behind the GQ forum’s purpose to keep yourself and your dimestore arguments from being cut to ribbons, Joey; admit it.
Nope. I was trying to hide behind a shield of “I don’t want this perfectly legitimate question get swamped by miles and miles of irrelevant rhetoric”. It didn’t work though.
As I’ve said before, I was apparently mistaken about the distinction between General Questions and Great Debates. I did not think debating was forbidden in General Questions… based on the fact that it happens there quite a lot. I’m admitting that I was wrong about that. I’m not admitting that I think the discussion belonged in the Great Debates forum along side of topics like:
“The government wants to take your guns”
“Stop killing unborn babies”
“Evolution is a lie”
“Drug testing in the workplace”
I am also admitting that I was debating the fundamental reasons that people were expressing as their objections. Most of the reasons were not related to photo licensing, but rather what OTHER legislation might EVENTUALLY get attached to it. I never saw one single valid reason to object the photo licensing… perhaps that is merely because the topic was thorougly derailed before we got down to the fundamentals.
SPOOFE:
One of us seems to be suffering from selective memory.
This board isn’t run by logical people.
Once you realize and accept that, things aren’t so frustrating.
If you had just waited a week and restarted the same thread in the same forum, you would have gotten a diferent mod response.
They aren’t robots. They aren’t even concerned about appearing evenhanded. They do a lot of things by the mood of the moment. The same as your boss at work. Just accept that.
I just wanted to point out tha then a debate breaks out in a GQ thread the mods are more tolerant if it the original poster is not involved–if someone appears to be looking for an arguement, well, that sort of behavior has to be controled lest it clogs up the boards. When someone comes looking for brief factual information, say “Who invented Coca-Cola”, and then 2 other people get into an arguement about it, it dosn’t seem sporting to close it. Furthermore, experience has shown the mods that these type of mini debates about factual details tend to wear themselves out after 20 posts or so–it is easiest just to let them die. Gun control debates, on the other hand, can linger for weeks.
You have to look at the moderation of this board with a certain amopunt of percpective–over all, they manage to keep the forums pretty much on track, which makes them much more useful and entertaining. Some decisions are in a certain grey area, and their really isnt any way to prevent this.
As a general guideline, I would never post anything in GQ that you think would attract more than 5 posts, or one if Tomndeb got there first.
Don’t give up, just observe the forum designations. Debates belong in GD. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the “uncles and beer” thread you started turned into a pure debate. So I closed it.
Later in that same thread, UncleBeer suggested that maybe I should have tried “In My Humble Opinion” and I responded:
I could see how you might not read that last one as admission of guilt, but the rest are pretty obvious.
Betcha can’t admit you were wrong… can ya sport?
Also, I wrote:
and then you wrote:
Actually, I feel totally vindicated. The thing that I feared most (that the point would be lost in subtopics) has been revealed in spades. It’s even worse, because there’s been this other “wrong forum” undercurrent that has further complicated matters… yeah, yeah, I know that’s mostly my fault for starting the discussion in the wrong thread, but don’t try to tell me that it would be better in GD. I’ve seen how every thread that has something to do with guns turns to muck.
Alphagene:
Again, I was trying to avoid debate. My last post to that thread got squashed as the thread died, but I was trying to keep it on track about the differences in interpretation between UncleBeer and myself. UncleBeer invited me to do that in this forum - since he’s a moderator, I assumed it was OK…
One of my problems with all of this has been that I’ve never really considered this as so much of a gun debate as it is a background check debate. I realize that the distinction is somewhat subtle, but there is a distinction.
Not to worry. I actually thought it was hilarious.
UncleBeer
I’ll consider it. Let me think about it and see if I can come up with a way to express it that doesn’t sound too inviting to the “gun lobbyists”
Well, then. If ya only wanna hear from one side of the camp, don’t fucking bother. That ain’t a debate, it’s a sopabox. And, since I’ve been involved in nearly every gun debate here, I really resent the implication you make with this statement, “I’ve seen how every thread that has something to do with guns turns to muck.” I’ve seen some very well reasoned and effective debates on the topic of gun control.
That’s not what I said. Actually, I only want to hear from one side; yours. However, I don’t want to hear about all the other problems with Gore’s gun proposal or why all states should adopt uniform right-to-carry laws or how the government is conspiring to take away the citizen’s right to own guns or conversely why we’d all be better off if guns were banned… blah, blah, blah. I don’t think those questions can be easily answered and I don’t think they’re relevant to my question. However, so far, even in our little mobile debate the following has bubbled up:
Licensing provides more ways to penalize criminals with guns
Mandatory safety training
All gun laws only affect law abiding citizens
Gores proposal to ban “cheap unsafe handguns”
Carrying guns into church
Government intervention into personal rights
Confiscation agendas by the government
Gun rigistration
Effectiveness of right-to-carry laws
Discrimination against minorities
The ineffectiveness of the Brady bill
Dealing with criminals caught with guns
Dealing with dealers that sell guns to criminals
I think there’s no chance that the topic would be able to remain focused in GD.
Not so. I don’t have an agenda. I’m not trying to sell you on Gore’s policy. As I said before, I don’t personally like the policy for my own reasons… I just don’t understand YOUR reasons for not liking it. I hear what you’ve been saying, but I don’t understand why you think that photo licensing would be any more ineffective or infringe on people’s rights.
For every reasoned debater like yourself, there are three evangelists with distorted facts, conspiracy theories, and serious attitude problems. Now I haven’t read through every gun debate, so I’ll admit that it’s possible that some of them do stay focused, civil, and rational. So far, I’ve only seen one like that, but it wasn’t much of a debate - it was more of a mutual admiration society.
I’ve decided that I’m not going to pursue this any further. I think I have my answer. The main reason that people oppose it is that they are afraid that it’s either a wolf in sheep’s clothing or a sheep in sheep’s clothing. It’s not the most rational reason, but sometimes I have to resign myself to the fact that rational thinking does not always prevail. If you or anyone else wants to open the topic in GD, maybe I’ll pop my head in and see if there’s anything to be learned.