Anyways, the idea behind this is simple: if your views cannot stand up to scrutiny, they are in need of review. They may be outright wrong, you need to review you evidence, or you may need to amend your views to account for new information. Regardless, here they are:
1. Posting a pointless one-liner is not an option
A. For example, if you are debating with a poster and you make a long, well thought out post including foot notes, and citations, and it could be reworked and made into a masters thesis at the local college (although only God knows why you would bother to make a Master's Thesis on a forum), and this poster's response is to find a single line from the post and say something to the effect of 'well, this is worthless trash', he just lost. Now, why do you think you should be allowed to do that? Exactly.
i. However, if the one liner is a response to your thesis statement, and it does adequately respond to the post (such as a poster pointing out a historical example where your thesis was hilariously inaccurate), it would be considered acceptable. However, these cases are, from my experience, few and far between, and this should be approached with extreme caution
B. Pointing out spelling/grammar errors does not even begin to approach being a legitimate counter argument.
i. However, you do need to use basically good English.
C. Posting this (or anything like it) is a pointless one liner.
i. The same is true of this, or anything like it
D. Insulting the other poster (no matter how clever you make it sound) is a pointless one liner. Yes, this is still true if you make the post 5 paragraphs long.
i. This includes calling the other person(s) Nazis, Fascists or Communists when the poster isn't one, "Islamist", terrorist, terrorist sympathizer, Anti-Semite (when they aren't), or anything along these lines.
2. Nazis. There are none on the board. Shut the hell up about it.
A. Further, bringing up some debate which has nothing to do with the topic at hand is also something you need to shut the fuck up about.
i. This includes (but is not limited to) the Israel-Palestine debate, whether or not Obama is a Communist, whether or not America had anything to do with creating AIDS, Zionism, and so forth. Keep that crap where is belongs, which is (in case you didn't know it) not in a debate about which American politician could beat the other in a fist fight.
B. If a topic begins to approach a conspiracy theory, just stop posting about it before you even start.
3. Sources. Post them.
A. If something isn't common knowledge, you need to post a link to a source that says that that is correct. Otherwise, I'll just assume you're blowing smoke.
B. If your source is from wikipedia, go try again.
i. Yes, this is the genetic fallacy, no I don't care. If you got some bit of information from wikipedia, feel free to find the source of that claim, and post that. I probably will accept that.
C. If your source is so biased that it bends facts, go try again. Which means that yes, the history of the site will come into question, unless you have some sort of corroborative evidence.
D. If your source is a person (such as saying to 'go read Stephania Meyer'), try again. Try a specific book. And if you're debating something of minor importance which is rarely ever brought up (like Waco, for instance), try being a decent human being and posting an internet source.
i. In general, internet sources are preferable in internet debates because the person can go verify what you said without having to go buy a book, which could delay a response.
ii. If the topic is one of frequent discussion however, and you usually refer to one book source, then using that book as a source is a good idea. This is more of a matter of manners, instead of something that should just never happen.
E. If you're going to make a claim that is the exact opposite of history, you need to post some pretty well detailed economic models that says that history is wrong.
F. Your personal experience is not a source. Don't even bother to try to post it as a source. I will laugh at you.
G. If you site a source, and it checks out so far, but it turns out the source doesn't agree with your conclusion, expect to have that pointed out to you. Because there is probably a good reason for it.
4. Fallacies, do not use them.
A. Here. You have no excuses.
i. I am aware that I violated my own rule, but the only other source I am aware of that includes details of numerous fallacies is a book, and I'd rather like to avoid citing books as a source on the internet.
5. Trolls. Trolls must die.
A. I shouldn't have to say much else.
No comments:
Post a Comment