Problems with the Debate section: Have requirements for posts

[BronyPony 575]

Clearly, the debate section has been inflamed with "war" and people seem to make conclusions without even reading the posts, or arguments, people present. For example, every time I present an argument people just make an assumption based on my point of view and immediately attack it without even reading the points I presented. Whenever I address this, they say something along the lines of "Your wrong! Your wrong!"

 

Come on people, if you want a proper debate why not present the counter-arguments for the points the person makes? To make this easier, why not add a standard for the Debate section? It seems to me people clearly don't know how to debate in a proper debate and would rather go to raging and calling others names. 

 

This especially applies to the philosophical debates, especially religious ones. People who don't believe in a god, or God, seem to just point at people who are religious and call them delusional without even taking the point of the person and analyzing it. The same applies to ourselves, but I see more of the first kind of amateur behavior.

 

How about we debate like we don't know if they are religious or not and either say "Oh, this is a good point" and/or say "But, maybe here is a flaw in the argument."

 

As some people I know would say; "There is truth to both sides." Don't just treat the other side as the evil ones. I thought we were civilized human beings not raging monkeys.

 

I just suggest that we have a standard now for the debate section. For example, maybe start deleting posts and giving warnings for posts that don't contribute to the topic at hand. What does everyone think?

Edited November 11, 2013 by BronyPony

[SCS 7,537]

There is already a global rule against posts that do not contribute to the topic at hand:

 

Make quality posts. Posts - and threads - that lack contributing content are not allowed and may be deleted without notice. Repeatedly creating posts and/or threads that are off-topic, spammy, or otherwise pointless will result in your posting capabilities becoming restricted. There is a minor character minimum in most of the site's sections that aids moderators in trying to uphold content quality - do not attempt to bypass it.

 

You can read the rest of the global rules here.

 

Due to the nature of debates, there will often be something your fellow debater says that annoys you. I do not feel that we can force people to debate well or fairly, but any posts that simply do not contribute to the thread or contain abusive content should be reported for moderator review. I don't know for sure where the line is drawn between debating/arguing and abuse in that section - I'm sure a moderator could give you more information about that - but if you see anything in that section, or anywhere on the site that you feel is abusive, you should never hesitate to report it.

[AegisReflector 886]

What annoys me about the Debate Pit is that there are topics that are just downright stupid to look at for a board that identifies itself with serious political, philosophical, and social topics.

 

"Do you like Canadians?" is one of these topics that I feel need to be moved to the General Board. It's not so much "passionate debating" as it is just asking a stupid question.

[NavelColt 22,881]

What annoys me about the Debate Pit is that there are topics that are just downright stupid to look at for a board that identifies itself with serious political, philosophical, and social topics.

 

"Do you like Canadians?" is one of these topics that I feel need to be moved to the General Board. It's not so much "passionate debating" as it is just asking a stupid question.

 

Feel free to report things that you don't feel fit somewhere :3 One staff or members' choice to have something located somewhere may not be a universal agreement. That doesn't sound like it'd need to be in there necessarily to me, either.

 

As for the OP, you need 40 posts to use the section, there's a pinned topic and an individually set-up list of rules for that section whenever someone makes a new topic as is. I don't know what else can really be added onto those, asides from the Global Rules which obviously already apply.

[Shanks 10,816]

I too often get annoyed when people dismiss what I say without even bothering to even read what I actually say but unless someone is actually being abusive or off topic I don't really see what the moderators can do about it. All these people really accomplish is to themselves look ignorant and stupid.

[Harmonic Revelations 8,835]

Bard, I see where you're coming from. Sadly, there isn't much to be done about it, as heated topics like religion are bound to have people with very strong convictions to their beliefs. Such debates never end well. We do what we can to remove posts that violate the Global Rules, and that's pretty much all we can do.

 

The purpose of the Report feature is so that posts that do not contribute to the topic/are abusive/violate our rules can be removed. There are already rules against posts that are pointless/offensive, so if you see such a post you should report it so that it can be removed. 

 

As ~CD~ has said, you need at least forty posts to even access the Debate Pit, which is good for keeping out alts/spam/etc.

 

Another thing to note is that unlike the rest of the forum subsections, the Debate Pit still has a higher character limit as an added measure to encourage serious discussion there. 

 

In the end, there is only so much that can be done to keep things in check. 

 

I too often get annoyed when people dismiss what I say without even bothering to even read what I actually say but unless someone is actually being abusive or off topic I don't really see what the moderators can do about it. All these people really accomplish is to themselves look ignorant and stupid.

You have a point. While there are rules against people being abusive and such, there is really no rules against being misinformed. If somebody is posting something that's just generally ignorant, there's really nothing we can do about it unless it violates rules. After all, if we removed posts based on somebody being misinformed, that could be interpreted as bias and moderation is supposed to be as impartial as possible.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Harmonic Revelations