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- The peak of any debate performance is knowing enough about the subject to be able to argue both sides competently.
Do you believe that’s accurate? If not, what do you think drives the best quality of a debate?And I’ll throw out another question.
- Are polymaths technically savants over a variety of subjects or are they just jacks of all trades?
For the first question, I’d say that’s largely accurate. Part of effective debate preparation is understanding the strength of both sides’ arguments. If you don’t, you’re probably going to be blindsided by someone who knows their side better than you do. To some degree, it’s about being able to predict your opponent’s arguments, though I don’t think the goal in doing so is to present pre-rebuttal, but rather to have some preparation ready for what you expect is coming and, most importantly, to know where the holes are in your argument so that you’re ready to defend them.
As for the second question, either could be accurate, though I suspect most cases of people considered polymaths are savants across multiple subjects.
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@RationalMadman
@Barney
@oromagi
@Mps1213
Thanks for handling this, Barney, you covered it in more detail than I could manage right now (several nights in a row with less than 4 hours of sleep, a long and early travel day and bringing my wife to the ER this morning certainly contribute to that, so if I'm not super coherent, you'll know why). The main disagreement over whether this is an insult appears to be those last 6 words, but notably, it's still clear that the statements made before them are targeting RM specifically and not just what he has said in the past. Like Barney said, context matters, but that context has to do more than just provide a basis for the insult.
Long story short, I sent Mps a warning via PM about the post. I haven't seen more personal insults like this one when I went through this thread (it's possible I'm missing something, but everything I can see here targets RM's behavior rather than him personally, so it's above board), so for the time being, this is where things will stand. The intention of the change to the enforcement standards is not to suddenly issue a bunch of bans to make people fall in line, but to use warnings whenever possible and only turn to bans for people who are engaging in this kind of behavior on repeat.
If you are being harassed, our aim is to respond as necessary. Our aim, however, is not to make sure everyone plays nice. Others on this site are still allowed to say that a post of yours or an argument you've made is problematic or flawed in any number of ways. We are not here to protect the sanctity of your posts and/or arguments, nor are we going to stop anyone from saying anything negative about your behaviors. This is a debate website, we're not putting kid gloves on everyone and telling you all to play nice, just to focus on what someone says instead of targeting them directly.
I hope that clarifies things, though it may only be clear to my currently addled brain. Happy to do better when I've gotten more sleep and can think good.
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@Critical-Tim
Yes, I would say that it’s always reasonable to allow people the flexibility to attack an opponents’ arguments in the way they deem fit. Wouldn’t be much of a debate site if we removed that.
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@Critical-Tim
I thought I was pretty clear in the portion that you quoted. I have no problem whatsoever with "offering insights into the flaws and logical inconsistencies in others' arguments" - that's why I said "(as distinguished from attacking a given claim or argument)". To elaborate, the problem is with specifically targeting the person behind the argument, not the argument itself. If someone calls an argument stupid or idiotic, that's fine under the existing policy and that won't change with this increased degree of enforcement. If someone calls their opponent stupid or idiotic, that's a personal attack on their intelligence, and actionable under the CoC. That's where this applies.
Let me know if I'm being unclear.
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@zedvictor4
Nonetheless I think that enforcing rules without a complaint being lodged is a tad dictatorial....So I hope that this won't be the case.
As a point of clarification, we are not going to actively seek out every post where someone is insulting. We don’t make a habit of seeking out things to remove and that won’t change - we will still rely on reports as a means of finding posts that either do or don’t warrant removal.
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@RationalMadman
I'm not sure what that has to do with this post, but if I was aware that anyone was multiaccounting, I'd do something about it.
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I'm writing this message to clarify how moderation will enforce existing rules on the site going forward. The rules of the site are clear: personal attacks and harassment, particularly when they done over a prolonged period of time and target specific member(s) of the site, are ban-worthy offenses. We've given some leeway to allow conversations that include these to proceed so long as both sides were taking part in the same behavior to some extent.
That will no longer be the case. Moderation will now take action against cases of personal attacks and harassment even when both parties are participating. In order to ensure that everyone is on the same page with regards to this change in enforcement, we will not begin enforcement until this weekend ends. While past posts may be regarded as evidence of persistent behavior going forward, we will only enforce bans based on posts made after that period unless they are the subject of ongoing discussions within the moderation team. That being said, members will not have free reign to act with impunity - you will still be subject to a warning and ban within this time period if you push it too far.
To clarify, here are a few examples of the behavior that will result in a warning and, should it persist, a ban or restraining order:
- Insulting someone's intelligence (as distinguished from attacking a given claim or argument)
- Posting call-out threads
- Assigning nicknames that are meant to belittle or harass
I'd also like to note that these will be enforced regardless of who acted first, though that may affect the duration of the resulting ban/RO. "But they started it" or "I was just defending myself" will not be a valid excuse for returning the favor. That being said, while the occasional insult may be tolerated with warnings, a pattern of insults and/or harassment will not.
If you have questions about how this will be implemented, this is the place to ask them.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
I'm done with this conversation. Feel free to jab at me as much as you like, I've lost interest.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Well unless you became a moderator yesterday, it appears you haven’t done one bit of moderating your entire time on this site.
See, it's a perspective like this that makes me wonder why I should consider what you're saying at all. If you honestly believe this to be true, then I guess I have nothing to glean from this conversation. Thanks for clarifying that.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
So now you are saying you are all powerful, you can do what you want, and you don’t care if people think you are doing a terrible job. That’s great.
That's an... interesting interpretation. What I'm saying is that working as a mod is a generally thankless job and that I'm going to get hate for it regardless of what I do. If I didn't learn to shrug it off, then I would have left the role a long time ago and never looked back. If your goal as a moderator is to make sure everyone is satisfied with what you're doing, then you're doing it wrong.
I know I could be doing better. That's part of why I'm doing this: to ensure that we have a more consistent form of enforcement. Your response to that is to argue that we should also be enforcing in other places, which doesn't really change the point of my initial post. I think there's room to discuss how moderation could better enforce other existing aspects of the CoC or add to the CoC in ways that are beneficial for the site, but that doesn't really change whether we should allow personal attacks or harassment. We can both recognize that those are a problem and aim to do a better job in other areas while we're at it.
But you're reducing that to saying that I'm just "doing a terrible job." That's not constructive feedback. That's not actionable. If you have a policy in mind for what we should do, present it and argue your position with more people than just me. I'm not the one you have to convince because, despite your claim that I'm "all powerful," I'm not going to implement something just because you tell me it's what I should do, even if I fully agree with you. Shocker, I know.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
So since it’s ok to attack groups on this site, the way people attack transgender people, and you’re fine with that, it must be ok to attack moderators as a group.If I said moderators are all a bunch of losers who have nothing better to do with their lives and they are thrilled to have this little pathetic power to enforce rules for some teeny tiny chat room and that makes them feel important, that would be fine, right? Because that’s not a personal attack, directly or indirectly, right?
If it makes you feel better to say it, sure. Not the worst thing I've heard said about me or the mod team.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
I can’t believe I have to explain I would not be calling them a dummy directly.
If that's not obvious to you, fine, you can disagree with me. Just don't do it.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Then you are demonstrating you don’t have the judgment to be a moderator
*shrug* I'm not looking for your endorsement.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Oh, so I can say that’s a stupid argument or that’s an argument only a dummy would make and it would be a problem, is that correct?You are setting yourself up to fail. You will get hundreds of flagged comments. You will respond to some and not to others making your enforcement inconsistent and then you’ll say DART doesn’t have the resources to have consistent enforcement.
Saying it's a stupid argument is fine. Saying it's "an argument only a dummy would make" is a personal attack because it's saying that the person making it is, and I can't believe I'm having to explain this, a dummy.
I hear your concerns. I'm going to do it anyway.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Are you serious? It absolutely is calling for killing and claiming a higher authority for the killing. And It it’s a lie and misinformation.
I disagree with it being a call for anything, or claiming that anyone is justified in engaging in killing. As for it being "a lie and misinformation," that, again, is something we do not enforce.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
So people can post here that transgender people are grooming children and are all pedophiles but calling someone dumb for saying that is over the line.You are beautiful
And you can still respond to those people by pointing out the flaws in their views.
I really don't care if you feel that there's a better target for moderation to hit. The policy regarding personal attacks and harassment has been around for a long time and I still think it's more than appropriate to enforce it. If you think we should have policies against other types of speech, then I don't know why you're arguing it with me. That's a site-wide issue, and one I'm not going to change unilaterally.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Bullshit, I flagged BestKorea not long ago for saying gays or transgender people should be killed. You did nothing.
He did not call for their deaths, no. He claimed that it's established in the Bible that they should be killed. That's not calling for killing.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
The only way to respond to these kind of conspiracy theorists is with derision. You CANNOT reason with them. You have to show them this is not welcome here so move on to some other place or go back in your hole. Look how Trump made it ok for racists to raise their heads again. The nut jobs felt empowered again and it ended with an insurrection.
...yeah, that's not how moderation is going to respond. You can be derisive of their arguments, but that doesn't require personal attacks.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
If you want to argue for a change in existing policy as regards hate speech, be my guest. I have a number of issues with how certain topics are generally presented and argued on this site, but I'm not going to use my position to take down arguments I disagree with, even if part of the reason I disagree is that I think they're points that do otherize and harm the mental well-being of others. People are still allowed to express their opinions on these issues so long as they don't push it into territory that encourages violence. If you think that point comes sooner than the existing policy addresses, make your case that the policy should be changed, but don't expect that moderation will just up and change the policy independently.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Yes, and Twitter and Facebook hire a lot of people to do that work. You have a small set of volunteer moderators. We're not going to peruse every post to see whether it's presenting misinformation. For that matter, part of the point of a debate site is to allow the members to debate issues like this and establish what is misinformation. We aren't Twitter or Facebook, and claiming that a small website like this somehow undermines "our democracy" seems more than a little melodramatic.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
My goal is to improve our consistency and the idea would not be to go through past posts and find all the people who have violated rules before. The goal would be to enforce it going forward.
Our goal as moderators is not to police what people post as regards information/misinformation, so no, you won't be seeing us remove posts because we've got problems with whether or not we think they are lying. That's never been the way moderation has functioned on this site.
As for hate speech, I think there's room for discussion on what constitutes hate speech and how we should enforce it. If someone is actively calling to cause harm to a given population, then yes, I think those posts warrant removal, the poster should receive a warning, and further posts of that kind should result in a ban. If you've got examples of those, send them to me and I'll go over them. What I've seen from your reports are not calls for violence. In general, I haven't seen many posts that incite violence, even if they are posts I find problematic. We're not just going to remove posts because people express opinions that are otherizing.
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@RationalMadman
@Sir.Lancelot
I'll make a general post about it later today, but since a lot of the activity over it is happening here, I'll give you the short version.
There are a number of people whose personal attacks against others have been a problem for a while now, IWRA included. And part of the reason we haven't acted against it is that there's been a lot of reciprocal behavior. We've let it drag on too long, so some people have felt the need to defend themselves or lash out in response.
So, this will serve as a general first warning. If you have a history of engaging in this type of behavior, whether that involves insulting someone's intelligence, posting call-out threads, nicknaming them in ways clearly intended to harass, and you keep it up, you will receive a personal second warning. If we see it again, we'll start handing out bans and ROs as needed.
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@RationalMadman
@IwantRooseveltagain
I'll make a general post about it later today, but since a lot of the activity over it is happening here, I'll give you the short version.
There are a number of people whose personal attacks against others have been a problem for a while now, IWRA included. And part of the reason we haven't acted against it is that there's been a lot of reciprocal behavior. We've let it drag on too long, so some people have felt the need to defend themselves or lash out in response.
So, this will serve as a general first warning. If you have a history of engaging in this type of behavior, whether that involves insulting someone's intelligence, posting call-out threads, nicknaming them in ways clearly intended to harass, and you keep it up, you will receive a personal second warning. If we see it again, we'll start handing out bans and ROs as needed.
The above post from IWRA will serve as an example. While IWRA is welcome to say anything he wants about what RM says, calling him a "nut job" is clearly a personal insult. Similar name-calling is an insult. Making a mockery of someone's line of work is an insult. Continuing to do so will no longer be tolerated from any party.
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@Sir.Lancelot
I don't think it does any good to engage with RM on this. If you find that he's derailing the thread, then responding to him on that derailment is only going to put more focus on what he's saying. It's up to Nyx to decide whether to engage with him, and if she'd rather not, then she doesn't have to respond at all and RM eventually goes away.
As for calling him out on it, I don't think that requires engaging in personal attacks. If you want to call out what he's doing, be my guest, though I don't think it's valuable to add insults, even if you feel he's being insulting. I'm not defending his choices either.
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@Sir.Lancelot
Though I’m sure it doesn’t help that me and RM have beef, my concern isn’t with RM specifically, him debating Nyx, or the separate viewpoints.My main concern at the moment was the thread devolving into people dogpiling Nyx because of her gender. If people agree with Public and want to discuss it with Nyx, I’m okay with that.But pages 1-2 are just TWS and Rational targeting Nyx specifically. It hasn’t gotten so bad that the mods have to intervene, but that’s primarily what my frustration was focused on at the time of the post.
That's fine, but I would prefer you not enhance existing personal beef between you two in the process. It's not helping anything.
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@Sir.Lancelot
Rational is derailing the thread and threatened me openly.Can you tell him to stop bullying me and Public? He’s hurting my feelings. 😢He’s gaslighting and harassing me!
I know this is meant to be sarcastic, but can we just quit it with the back-and-forth here? I get that you want to focus on the debate being proposed by Public-Choice and Nyx, but RM is allowed to suggest a debate with him as well, so just let it be at that. Whether someone decides to take him up on it or not, there's no reason to engage with him like this.
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@Nyxified
@Public-Choice
I’m happy to join as a judge.
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@badger
I think we have some general agreement going on here. I think you guys could start with deleting all those ugly threads in the Society board.
Similar to Barney, I'm not fond of the direction this site has gone, but there's a limit to how we can (or should) intervene based on the existing rules of the site. Deleting all those threads requires a basis that either exists in the current rules of the site or would be added to those rules. I agree, I've got problems with a lot of those threads, and I suspect that yes, they are having some effect on people considering joining the site and/or staying here. I've got my issues with certain users as well. That doesn't mean I'm going to start removing those threads or banning those people.
As they exist, I don't think the rules disallow the kind of posts that are being made, and I'd like to be sure that if we choose to expand those rules, we do so carefully.
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@Tejretics
@blamonkey
Happy to help out. Congrats to all the participants, and to Blamonkey in particular for his win!
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@Sir.Lancelot
I'm not particularly fond of posts like this, though I don't think it's positive for the site. It's not against the rules as they stand, so much as I have my personal problems with it, I probably would have just sent BK an informal message to cool it with statements like this.
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I second the idea of either returning to Spelling and Grammar or changing to Readability. I think the voting standards are clear about when this point can be awarded, but any lack of clarity in the terminology used here should be rectified.
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Happy to help out with this. Also, /spectate.
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@Vader
Not much to say except you're obviously keeping busy and I wish you well in all that you're doing. We'll stay in touch, so keep me posted.
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@Mharman
Good luck! Also, I guess I can stand in as your backup.
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@AustinL0926
I don't think I'm particularly good, but even setting that aside, I just don't have the time to dedicate to it.
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@RationalMadman
I debated whether to respond to this post, and I suspect if you're still here to read this, you care little if I do. You've made no secret of your frustrations and disdain for me, so I wouldn't need another post to understand how you view me at this stage. I guess I appreciate that I'm now lumped into "irrelevance" instead, though given how personally you've taken some of what I've said (and haven't said) to you, I suspect that your views are a bit more pointed. That's fine. I'm not seeking clarification of any kind. I don't claim absolute innocence, either, though you've attributed a degree of malice to some of my actions that I have consistently found baffling.
As for my perspective, I'll admit, I'm disappointed to see you leave. We've had our differences, which have gotten worse since the election. I'm not going to spend this space airing those or other grievances. Still, believe it or not, I've respected much of what you did over the years, especially when it was constructive. I voted for you in the election because I felt you had genuinely good ideas for improving the site, and just stepping up and trying to do something is worth a lot in my book. You charted your own course in debates and, though it wasn't always to your advantage, your wide variety of tactics always made your debates among the most investing of reads. I don't think you agreed with more than 1 of my votes against you, but that's fine, too - I've disagreed with plenty of voters' decisions here and elsewhere. I hope wherever you go that you continue to improve your debating and keep innovating.
More importantly, I hope wherever you go you're happy. It became clear to me over the last few months that you've been very unhappy here, and honestly, I don't know what made you want to stay in a place that frustrated you so much. I hope you'll take the time to destress and find something that is genuinely fulfilling for you.
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@DebateArt.com
@Sir.Lancelot
@Savant
First time I'm hearing of it. Sounds like an error in the coding. Tagging the admin to make sure he sees this.
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Hey everyone!
Those in the know may recall that we've been involved in an inter-website mafia championship in previous years, and it looks like another one is just around the corner. The link for it is given below, and the tournament is supposed to start on April 22nd. We've participated before and I hope someone will step up to the challenge and join the competition this year. Note that the Google Doc details some of the requirements, including a good amount of activity in a forum mafia game on a daily basis. Let me know if you have any questions and I can relay them.
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@RationalMadman
Dude, don’t play dumb about this. You know the difference between touting an action as something that everyone should actively engage in and saying that I, personally, am choosing to engage in something that actively benefits me. If you want to pretend that the latter is an active endorsement, be my guest, but that’s not how endorsements work.
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@RationalMadman
If you’d like to report those posts, you’re welcome to do so. If you want to make it about this post, which I assumed was your aim when you tagged me, then that requires better justification than this. Your reason for reporting this was that he was actively encouraging others to commit criminal acts. The section you bolded doesn’t contain any effort on his part to encourage others to commit criminal acts. It’s an admission of what he’s doing, not an endorsement of that decision.
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@RationalMadman
…so now it’s illegal to refuse to plead guilty? I can’t tell if you’re honestly just conflating evading arrest with knowledge of active warrants and “evading” a guilty plea, but his decision not to submit himself for jail time when he has warrants out for him doesn’t scream “everyone do what I’m doing.”
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@RationalMadman
President of the website is a criminal encouraging people to follow and see it as okay behaviour. This is a permanent ban (as he is a serial offender) for encouraging criminal behaviour but let us see how you twist your CoC to avoid it.You have disallowed me to flag posts, thus I must @ you as a good user who wishes to report.
He's admitting that he has previously committed criminal behavior and that there are apparently warrants for his arrest. He pointed out that some people are falsely convicted. I don't see him actively encouraging any kind of criminal behavior.
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@AustinL0926
Done. Thanks.
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@PREZ-HILTON
I’ll vote yay.
I think it’s worth overhauling moderation policy in some ways and I’ve seen a lot of progress and community interaction with these potential changes. As for whether this gives moderation more power or access, honestly, I don’t see how that’s the case. Mod discretion has always been integral to the existing policy, and if the goal here is to restrict how we can act in meaningful ways, then changes can be made if they get enough support. This is a good start that can yield other changes.
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@WeaverofFate
Could try the_viper, hey-yo, best.korea, and Decisively_Conservatist. They all seem decently active.
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@Greyparrot
I really appreciate that, GP. It's been a big help to be able to turn to this community at a time like this and find so much support.
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@Undefeatable
The short answer is Facebook. The long answer would require me to provide more info publicly than I'd like.
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