StarDestroyer.Net BBS

NomAnor15 wrote:Based on this thread in N&P, perhaps a pro/con debate on human genetic modification?

I like this idea, and if no one else is interested, I'd take this one. My view on human genetic modification is basically very cautious optimism, so I could argue either side. However, if any one else wants to they should, since I have no doubt their are people here more informed on the science involved than I am.

Also, while I know we have a lot of ideas out their already, we could have some really good sci-fi debates. Based on recent threads, two that come to mind are Captain Janeway's alledged crimes/incompetance, and the old "is the Empire evil?" debate.

I'm a little busy at the moment, so I don't have time to go through the entire thread, hence my question:

how many debates there are going to be and in what order? I do believe that the Jedi debate between me and Darth Hoth was originally scheduled to begin after Christmas or at the latest after New Year's Eve; what other debates are up-coming and when?

Tiriol wrote:I'm a little busy at the moment, so I don't have time to go through the entire thread, hence my question:

how many debates there are going to be and in what order? I do believe that the Jedi debate between me and Darth Hoth was originally scheduled to begin after Christmas or at the latest after New Year's Eve; what other debates are up-coming and when?

Once I have some time tomorrow I intend to set up a schedule, a field trip(Business) has prevented me from spending the few hours I need to craft a form-letter for the forum.

On another note, this afternoon I intend to make a post to the Coliseum which will contain a Form Letter so you can PM and will contains the rules and regs of the Coliseum.

The basic thing to keep in mind is that in the forum only super special people can post there. And unless your a Moderator, you are insufficiently special to post. So during debates you send your post in PM form to a Mod/Super-Mod/or Admin(Preferably me unless I say I'm going to be away) at which time I take your post and through the magic of the internet I place a post in the Coliseum and it looks like you posted there.

This is of course to emphasis the formal nature of Coliseum discussion and to prevent interference.
There will be from here on in a dedicated comment thread somewhere(Still not decided in which forum, suggestions welcome) that will be posted At the end of the debate.
Any comment threads before that will of course be deleted. This is a one on one face-off, treat it like that.

The ethics of vegetarianism is a subject I'd quite like to argue, and it's one where it's pretty easy to find a contrary view.

Third ever Coliseum debate is up and kicking. As always no comment threads till after or I break your face.

Hear Hear!

Should set up a panel of rational judges by the way? People with a known knowledge in regards to military matters?

^Ray, I for one would just appreciate it if you could just take a step back and relax. Knowledgeable people will weigh in afterwards in the commentary thread.

Mr Bean wrote:Third ever Coliseum debate is up and kicking. As always no comment threads till after or I break your face.

I think this is dumb. It's not a real time debate. It's not like you are interrupting people while they are talking. If people want to start a discussion thread on it that should be fine. It isn't going to change Thanas's or Duchess's views or what they are going to say. If they chose to carry out debate in the discussion thread as well, then that is their choice, just as it was Voluntaryist's choice. I mean, no discussion about a featured debate on a discussion board seems kinda fucking stupid don't you think?

^I would tend to agree, but it really is not my call to make.

Hey Hav, maybe you should read this thread for a while, and I suggest you pay particular attention to what Red (posting from beyond the ban) had to say about it:

Red Imper-- I mean, X-Ray Blues wrote:

Darth Yoshi wrote:If he's ignoring the thread, though, can it really be called dogpiling?

Yes, it can. A bunch of people are jumping on his arguments; they're just doing it in a different thread, hence "dogpiling-by-proxy". It's no different from a thread where two people are arguing, and then five or six other people jump in on one side. If he responds, he gets bogged down, if he doesn't, those other people score cheap hits with no fear of retaliation. That's without his opponent taking arguments from the commentary thread; if he is, then it's even more unfair and totally violates the spirit of the Coliseum. In fact, if (more likely, "when") I end up in a Coliseum match, I won't want a commentary thread, because if my arguments start sounding like arguments being made in the commentary thread, it's going to look like I'm copying them, even if it's just a coincidence.

Bottom line, the way I see it, there shouldn't be commentary threads unless both sides agree. It taints the debate, it adds very little, and frankly, I fucking hate the idea of Me-Toos sitting around scoring "points" against someone who can't fight back. If they wanted to be in the debate so badly, they should have volunteered for the Coliseum in the first place.

Underlining added by me. It doesn't matter if it changes either debaters views, its a betrayal of the concept; harmful to meaningful debate at worst, spam at best.

To take the analogy to a face-to-face debate, its as if you were to go out into the lobby with your friend and (LOUDLY) start up your own debate, keeping your ears open to the auditorium at all times. People didn't come to listen to you, asshole, they want to hear the scheduled debate. Don't complain when the security guards throw your ass out, their just doing their job.

Formless wrote:Hey Hav, maybe you should read this thread for a while, and I suggest you pay particular attention to what Red (posting from beyond the ban) had to say about it:

Red Imper-- I mean, X-Ray Blues wrote:

Darth Yoshi wrote:If he's ignoring the thread, though, can it really be called dogpiling?

Yes, it can. A bunch of people are jumping on his arguments; they're just doing it in a different thread, hence "dogpiling-by-proxy". It's no different from a thread where two people are arguing, and then five or six other people jump in on one side. If he responds, he gets bogged down, if he doesn't, those other people score cheap hits with no fear of retaliation. That's without his opponent taking arguments from the commentary thread; if he is, then it's even more unfair and totally violates the spirit of the Coliseum. In fact, if (more likely, "when") I end up in a Coliseum match, I won't want a commentary thread, because if my arguments start sounding like arguments being made in the commentary thread, it's going to look like I'm copying them, even if it's just a coincidence.

Bottom line, the way I see it, there shouldn't be commentary threads unless both sides agree. It taints the debate, it adds very little, and frankly, I fucking hate the idea of Me-Toos sitting around scoring "points" against someone who can't fight back. If they wanted to be in the debate so badly, they should have volunteered for the Coliseum in the first place.

Underlining added by me. It doesn't matter if it changes either debaters views, its a betrayal of the concept; harmful to meaningful debate at worst, spam at best.

To take the analogy to a face-to-face debate, its as if you were to go out into the lobby with your friend and (LOUDLY) start up your own debate, keeping your ears open to the auditorium at all times. People didn't come to listen to you, asshole, they want to hear the scheduled debate. Don't complain when the security guards throw your ass out, their just doing their job.

Look asshat. Do you not know the difference between discussion and dogpiling? Apparently not, since I didn't say that not having a dogpile thread is stupid.
A discussion thread is fine, and if it starts turning into a dogpile then *GASP* a moderator can do their job and steer it back to actual discussion. Saying no discussion about a discussion until it is done on a BBS is, as I said, dumb, because it is NOT the same as talking during an actual debate or even out in the lobby, because you would have to actively seek it out and read it, not just accidentally or unavoidably over hear it.

And WHAAAAAAA people are commenting on my debate and saying the same thing I want to say. Boo fucking hoo. Don't want it public then do it over PMs. The point of the Coliseum is to keep other people from interfering with the actual debate and throwing it off and to keep the participants going with actual rules that they must adhere to. You and Red are just being whiners.

Thanas wrote:^I would tend to agree, but it really is not my call to make.

Actually, I think it would be explicitly your, and Zeon's, call to make, since you are the current participants.

On a note unrelated to the current discussion, if anyone's interested, I'm up for debating some economics issues from a soft libertarian (Friedman-esque) perspective, or I could debate whether unions should be allowed to exist.

havokeff wrote:Look asshat. Do you not know the difference between discussion and dogpiling? Apparently not, since I didn't say that not having a dogpile thread is stupid.
A discussion thread is fine, and if it starts turning into a dogpile then *GASP* a moderator can do their job and steer it back to actual discussion. Saying no discussion about a discussion until it is done on a BBS is, as I said, dumb, because it is NOT the same as talking during an actual debate or even out in the lobby, because you would have to actively seek it out and read it, not just accidentally or unavoidably over hear it.

And WHAAAAAAA people are commenting on my debate and saying the same thing I want to say. Boo fucking hoo. Don't want it public then do it over PMs. The point of the Coliseum is to keep other people from interfering with the actual debate and throwing it off and to keep the participants going with actual rules that they must adhere to. You and Red are just being whiners.

Even a discussion thread taints the process. It provide a location for the person to gain support and use someones argument. Real life debates are structured in an environment that precludes this possibility. For the coliseum to work as such, commentary threads should be heavily restricted.

Restricted fine. Forbidden? No.

GE: And again, it only taints if some reads it. Besides, so what if someone gets a good idea from a discussion thread. Are they expected to know EVERY single piece of information and EVERY SINGLE angle for an argument? It's not like you can't use outside resources in this debate format anyway.

Hav, "heavily restricted" is exactly what a POST debate discussion thread is. It has none of the dangers of a concurrent thread, and all of the fun. You just need to have a little patience, and you will get your discussion thread. No one said they would be banned outright, twit.

I just thought of something else (more then ten minutes later, sorry). How are you supposed to know when the debaters are reading the discussion thread? You can't, really. You could try to look for when their arguments start looking like the one's in the discussion thread, but as Red pointed out, great minds think alike, and the debater could very easily just think of the same argument as someone in the discussion thread on his own, creating a false positive. As mentioned, this sours the debate by making an honest debater look like they are just stealing someone else's genius. All you have to say that someone is NOT reading the discussion thread is the debater's word, and how reliable is that? Hence why a public Coliseum discussion thread is a very bad idea.

Of course, if you and a few other people still want to talk about it before the debate is over, you can still "take it outside" so to speak by using the chat, mass PMs, other forums, etc. None of those methods have the same issues as a public thread, I think.

havokeff wrote: I think this is dumb. It's not a real time debate. It's not like you are interrupting people while they are talking. If people want to start a discussion thread on it that should be fine. It isn't going to change Thanas's or Duchess's views or what they are going to say. If they chose to carry out debate in the discussion thread as well, then that is their choice, just as it was Voluntaryist's choice. I mean, no discussion about a featured debate on a discussion board seems kinda fucking stupid don't you think?

Do you remember the Voly comment thread? I do, it was a godamn dogpile is what. Worse Voly keep spending time in the comment thread responding to all the people dogpiling him instead of responding to the Debate thread.

No comment threads during the ongoing debate. I can't stop you PM insightful suggestions to one side or the other or to those members who know each other in the "gasp" Real world, can't stop that. But I can stop the influence of the comment thread and-da I can stop that mid-debate dogpiling. That is handed down from above. Sure a comment thread can have a good old fashion pile-on after the fact, no way to stop that. But during? Heck no.


And Havokeff if you would like I can refer you to Imperial Rule Three for any further clarficiation. Comment threads after the debate not during. This is the Coliseum, the rules are different here. But if you really want a comment thread here's an idea. Write down you comments on a piece of paper, and stick it on your monitor. When the debate ends(January 7th on this one) feel free to call me an ass and then transcribe your comments onto the Intertubes.


*Edit
I wanted to point this out

Formless wrote: I just thought of something else (more then ten minutes later, sorry). How are you supposed to know when the debaters are reading the discussion thread? You can't, really.

There is a way to check a users activity in phpbb if you install the right extensions, we don't have them installed both because the text output block is massive and because we don't care what all of you do and how many times you read the same threads over and over again or how many times you hit refresh. Just wanted to point that out.

Mr Bean wrote:

havokeff wrote: I think this is dumb. It's not a real time debate. It's not like you are interrupting people while they are talking. If people want to start a discussion thread on it that should be fine. It isn't going to change Thanas's or Duchess's views or what they are going to say. If they chose to carry out debate in the discussion thread as well, then that is their choice, just as it was Voluntaryist's choice. I mean, no discussion about a featured debate on a discussion board seems kinda fucking stupid don't you think?

Do you remember the Voly comment thread? I do, it was a godamn dogpile is what. Worse Voly keep spending time in the comment thread responding to all the people dogpiling him instead of responding to the Debate thread.

Yeah... and?
It was Voly's choice to participate in that thread. He didn't have to, he wanted to. Not our problem. And if dogpiling ensued, then MODERATORS are supposed to intervene. That is the job description is it not.

No comment threads during the ongoing debate. I can't stop you PM insightful suggestions to one side or the other or to those members who know each other in the "gasp" Real world, can't stop that. But I can stop the influence of the comment thread and-da I can stop that mid-debate dogpiling. That is handed down from above. Sure a comment thread can have a good old fashion pile-on after the fact, no way to stop that. But during? Heck no.

Well why not just stop it then too. What the hell is the difference, aside from the supposed influence on the said debate? The same topic is under discussion, the same people can be attacked, the same points nitpicked, the same dogpile can ensue. So nothing is any different, except for the time frame of when the comments are made, except for the supposed influence, which you already said, you can't actually stop. So this is just a rule to be a rule because you say so and knee jerked to the Voly debate. That's fine with me. Just say so and stop acting like it is going to make some difference.

And Havokeff if you would like I can refer you to Imperial Rule Three for any further clarficiation. Comment threads after the debate not during. This is the Coliseum, the rules are different here. But if you really want a comment thread here's an idea. Write down you comments on a piece of paper, and stick it on your monitor. When the debate ends(January 7th on this one) feel free to call me an ass and then transcribe your comments onto the Intertubes.

I'll call you an ass now and then. I'm familiar with Rule Three, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to say this "rule" is dumb and cease arguing against it. This isn't about my desire to comment on the current debate or any other. I find the coliseum debates bland and uninteresting, if informative. This is just me saying; "No discussion about a public, featured, debate on a bbs, that is not a real time event until a week or a month later, is fucking lame." for the reasons I have stated.

Havokeff wrote:Yeah... and?
It was Voly's choice to participate in that thread. He didn't have to, he wanted to. Not our problem. And if dogpiling ensued, then MODERATORS are supposed to intervene. That is the job description is it not.

Hav, if you were Volly, what do you think the price of NOT responding would be? What do you think it would do to your already low popularity? It was lose-lose for him, and he chose to cut his losses in a way that dragged out the debate. This kind of thread is a de facto dogpile if your position is unpopular, which is going to happen, and is going to affect who people think is wining the thread. The mods shouldn't have to add more to their workload when they can simply put off these threads until after the debate has a clear winner.

havokeff, Coliseum debates are supposed to be impartial and the process is supposed to be clean. Commentary threads absolutely destroy that. Get it through your thick skull. The Coliseum doesn't exist for you to post running commentary on the forum. Its about structured debates. Dogpiles are bad. Giving information to the preferential side is bad. Everything about what you want is absolutely bad in a structured debate.

If you want commentary, post a thread afterwards.

Formless wrote:

Havokeff wrote:Yeah... and?
It was Voly's choice to participate in that thread. He didn't have to, he wanted to. Not our problem. And if dogpiling ensued, then MODERATORS are supposed to intervene. That is the job description is it not.

Hav, if you were Volly, what do you think the price of NOT responding would be? What do you think it would do to your already low popularity? It was lose-lose for him, and he chose to cut his losses in a way that dragged out the debate.

If I was Voly? I would have done the debate and ignored the discussion thread. I know that may be difficult for you to comprehend, since you probably have no will power, and pander to what people think of you constantly, but that is what I would have done. Who gives a fuck what people think about you? They either like you or they don't. This whiny bullshit you are using in your argument makes me sick. WHAAAAAA no one likes me.

This kind of thread is a de facto dogpile if your position is unpopular, which is going to happen, and is going to affect who people think is wining the thread. The mods shouldn't have to add more to their workload when they can simply put off these threads until after the debate has a clear winner.

Well, I am of a mind that a DISCUSSION is not automatically going to be a dogpile, based on an opinion that is not popular if that opinion is being supported competently. Is this something that has all of a sudden changed?
And again, dogpile, during or after, it is still a Mods job to break it up. It is the work load they asked for so don't give me this too much work bullshit. If they can't do it, then they need to step down. And in either case, during or after, they still have to do it so, again, why not just ban the commentary thread all together? Obviously no one can have a discussion about a debate without it turning into a dogpile.

Alyeska wrote:havokeff, Coliseum debates are supposed to be impartial and the process is supposed to be clean.

Agreed, which is why they are carried out away from the normal forums.

Commentary threads absolutely destroy that.

Bullshit. Commentary/discussion threads are just that. They aren't tainting the process unless you are assuming that the debators are completely dishonest pricks that have no original thoughts.

Get it through your thick skull. The Coliseum doesn't exist for you to post running commentary on the forum. Its about structured debates. Dogpiles are bad.

Again, why is everyone assuming that I am advocating dogpiles? I said DISCUSSION. Is this board and it's members all of a sudden incapable of having a discussion on a debate? Seriously? Because this seems to be the basis of all the arguments I'm hearing.

Giving information to the preferential side is bad. Everything about what you want is absolutely bad in a structured debate.

OK, except this isn't A REALTIME debate. The debtors aren't on stage facing a moderator and a 2 hour time limit. This is an internet debate, on a BBS. Look at Thanas's first post. Think he knew all those citations of the top of his head? Hell no. He took the time to look them up to make his argument, so don't make it seem like the debaters aren't using sources to make their argument. If it is a book, or google or another poster, what the fuck is the difference? NOTHING. And what if there is information for the un-preferential side? SO WHAT. It is the same story.

If you want commentary, post a thread afterwards.

Again, what is the difference? You automatically assume dogpile, so it is going to happen during or after right? Mods still have to clean it up or keep it on track, the same people are being "attacked" for the same exact points. The only difference is the SUPPOSED influence on the debate, which of course is great to say, since you can't prove it.