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Elite Pwnage wrote:SDN has made me a better debater and a bit smarter.

I like this topic, and cannot see my almighty delete button killing it.

Off you go little topic....I'll spin the wheel of glory to see where.

See, this is the thing about trying to mandate a "welcoming" environment, where nobody will ever be afraid to express an opinion for fear of being blasted. It's a lame-ass game, but it's also really easy to play. I'd just rather not do it if I have the choice.

Feil wrote:But if there were no flames, what would power the steam-turbines that run SDN?

Maybe we could run the turbines on the Power of Love and Happiness?

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:

Elite Pwnage wrote:SDN has made me a better debater and a bit smarter.

At the risk of making myself look like an idiot.

Elite Pwnage wrote:

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:

Elite Pwnage wrote:SDN has made me a better debater and a bit smarter.

*pic snip*

At the risk of making myself look like an idiot.

It's a Victory, E.P.

You, being a bit smarter and a better debator is a victory; get it now?

I'm really only trying to explain myself, where in truth, I really should have just followed my brother's example. There's nothing to be won in this, especially when people are getting their shits straw-manning because they disagree with my perspective, even though I wasn't even coming into this with the intent to debate, only to clarify. Blah, blah, blah.

Uraniun, Ford Prefect, Noble Ire, Psycho Smiley, Spanky, Alan Bolte, Bounty, Dooey, and everyone else I'm just accidentally forgetting, it was nice. Please feel free to stop by my spot-o-the-Internet any time.

I think there's a time and a place to be a hostile nobhead, and that's usually on spacebattles.

As for SDN being the cause of my contemptuous bile attitude, while it's probably contributed, it more just sort of made something I want to do seem more acceptable. Anyone that doesn't want to be harsh can still carry on as they like, anyone that starts out harsh and then gets caught in bullshit and doesn't want to lose face can ignore the thread and hope it goes away and may change their mind while nobody's paying attention. On the other hand, it can be a good harvesting ground for rhetoric and worthwhile views, even at the cost of really horribly irrelevant pissing matches over nothing.

Besides; I have bigger balls, I listen to heavier music and I have nicer hair, and those facts will always sustain me on my journey through the interwebs.

Pick wrote:I'm really only trying to explain myself, where in truth, I really should have just followed my brother's example. There's nothing to be won in this, especially when people are getting their shits straw-manning because they disagree with my perspective, even though I wasn't even coming into this with the intent to debate, only to clarify. Blah, blah, blah.

Uraniun, Ford Prefect, Noble Ire, Psycho Smiley, Spanky, Alan Bolte, Bounty, Dooey, and everyone else I'm just accidentally forgetting, it was nice. Please feel free to stop by my spot-o-the-Internet any time.

You're leaving? Sheesh...it was just a little debate.

Oh, and if we stopped flaming, SDN would be kept alive by our Shep/Elfdart reactors....Permanently. So, like, don't worry about it if you see fuck being thrown about a little less frequently. It's only because we don't have to anymore.

It's a sad piece of irony that the people with the strongest feelings on this are those who'd rather leave than discuss it. I'm a pretty mechanical guy: I'm ready to accept that the never-give-an-inch, Mike-emulating rutting behaviour might not always be helping discussions. But nothing can be done if the problem can't be defined.

This issue isn't a biggee for me, as I'm not one of the SDNers who can't live in the real world. And I guess if all the people that don't like it leave, there really isn't a problem. Nevertheless...

I'm neither aggressive nor argumentive, but if I come across as being a little bitchy at times it's because my parents didn't buy me a pony when I was a little girl.

Pick wrote:I'm really only trying to explain myself, where in truth, I really should have just followed my brother's example. There's nothing to be won in this, especially when people are getting their shits straw-manning because they disagree with my perspective, even though I wasn't even coming into this with the intent to debate, only to clarify. Blah, blah, blah.

Uraniun, Ford Prefect, Noble Ire, Psycho Smiley, Spanky, Alan Bolte, Bounty, Dooey, and everyone else I'm just accidentally forgetting, it was nice. Please feel free to stop by my spot-o-the-Internet any time.

OK, so I was making fun of you; boo hoo. Are you really this thin-skinned?

This is why I don't bother trying to make everyone happy. It's not worth my while to walk on eggshells. Can't even make a damned joke at someone's expense without somebody pitching a fit.

This place is seven flavors of crazy and a pinche circus/loony bin all in one. Might as well clean this mess up before them company arrive.

Oh, forgot one little thing last time: Darth Raptor, you're on my list . Sorry about leaving you off, dude.

To DW: It's not about being offended or being hurt. If it were that, I'd have left in a wash of tears and drama (as we females tend to do, especially at my age.) What I'm saying is that the atmosphere is not cohesive to actual intellectual development, so it's not worthwhile to spend my time here. The return on investment just isn't meaningful. If anything, it's my general lack of emotional investment which makes it easy to walk off if I don't think I'm getting my time's worth. That's really all it takes.

Pick wrote:Oh, forgot one little thing last time: Darth Raptor, you're on my list . Sorry about leaving you off, dude.

To DW: It's not about being offended or being hurt. If it were that, I'd have left in a wash of tears and drama (as we females tend to do, especially at my age.) What I'm saying is that the atmosphere is not cohesive to actual intellectual development, so it's not worthwhile to spend my time here. The return on investment just isn't meaningful. If anything, it's my general lack of emotional investment which makes it easy to walk off if I don't think I'm getting my time's worth. That's really all it takes.

Wow...no tears but a bunch of Self-righteous Self-aggrandizing misanthropy....

I can be argumentative, depending on the subject, but I'm one of the fortunate few that realize when I have no friggen clue what I'm talking about, so I pick my battles, even here. This place hasn't really done anything to augment that facet of my personality anymore than the rest of the internet itself has, where it seems that 99% of people, because of the annonymous status granted by being online, choose to be absolute pricks.

That doesn't bother me here though, because at least people know what the hell they are talking about (usually). It's the baseless asshole-ness and sniping that can piss me off, and that gets beaten down here real quick.

Pick wrote:PS. Surlethe-- think about whether that ideal is actually being expressed, and further then if the same thing couldn't be done with a more exploratory atmosphere just as easily, if not more easily. If nothing else, we wouldn't need to wait for these "consecutive debates tending toward truth," since it would be perfectly acceptable to hone ideas without blatant one-on-one bitchfights while in the same sphere. If anything, these defensive and offensive tactics skewer the real benefit to exploring the initial inquiry: an improvement in one's vantage. It's not that I think everyone's perspective is equally valid, it's that the way SDnet goes about finding the truth is much more long, obfuscated, and unpleasant than it needs to be, to the point where people with actual input (such as Bounty or Dooey) don't even want to get involved. Then everyone misses out, just for the sake of the aggressive atmosphere.

Oh, you're absolutely right in that it doesn't go about it as efficiently as possible. But if you're willing to look past the pissing matches and not take it personally, it's a veritable harvest ground of good ideas and arguments. And as far as I know, for all the inefficiencies it's the best place on the internet to go about debating ideas (or synthesizing, or whatever you want to call it).

Also, cute for you to pass it off on me with your passive-aggressive bullshit in your final comment, asshole.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Don't read into my comments meaning that's not there; if I thought you were a wuss, I'd say as much. But yeah, way to take an encouraging comment and assume I'm being an asshole, bitch.

Ford Prefect wrote:Adrian, unless I'm totally insane, I'm fairly sure you just replied to yourself. Unintentionally.

You are insane, batshit in fact, because I replied to myself intentionally.
I wanted to expand upon an earlier point.

Stark wrote:It's a sad piece of irony that the people with the strongest feelings on this are those who'd rather leave than discuss it. I'm a pretty mechanical guy: I'm ready to accept that the never-give-an-inch, Mike-emulating rutting behaviour might not always be helping discussions. But nothing can be done if the problem can't be defined.

This issue isn't a biggee for me, as I'm not one of the SDNers who can't live in the real world. And I guess if all the people that don't like it leave, there really isn't a problem. Nevertheless...

That's just it. I'm not about to pitch a hissy fit and storm out like Pick, but there are definitely a few people who try to turn every discussion into an Imperial Smackdown (tm) whether it's warranted or not, and it can really ruin a potentially interesting debate.

Pick wrote:I never claimed that people should be flowers-n-kittens nice to one another. If anything, I think that also distracts from the validity of the information being presented, as well as discussions that arise from it. My ideal is neutrality when dealing with issues and trying to make opinions from collections of information.

The ideal world does not exist, it's about as real as the great sky pixie or the invisible purple unicorn. Once people are involved, shit happens, and that's the way it is. When there's conflicting ideas and a group of humans the shit will fly and eventually you'll either settle things or agree that the issue just ain't gonna be solved. Some people here can get a bit carried away at times, but I find the mods are usually on the ball and keep things from getting too out of hand. Nothing's perfect. Shit happens. That's life.

SDnet has made me so frank I have to think before I speak.

SDN has definitely made me more likely to call out bullshit. I discovered the site (a while before the forums came around) when I was still a teenager and it helped turn me into the curmudgeon I now am. I wouldn't have it any other way.

DPDarkPrimus wrote:SDnet has made me so frank I have to think before I speak.

No, I'm Frank.

Darth Wong wrote:See, this is the thing about trying to mandate a "welcoming" environment, where nobody will ever be afraid to express an opinion for fear of being blasted. It's a lame-ass game, but it's also really easy to play. I'd just rather not do it if I have the choice.

I don't think that was quite Pick's point, though. She seems to be complaining about two things in particular. The first is an order of operations complaint:

Pick wrote:Instead, it seems everyone comes into every scene with their ideas already firmly in play, long before all the information has been analyzed.
...
However, it seems that data only really comes to light when people are already bickering. Think of how many pointless posts we'd have been saved if people just posted their resources first, and then everyone read over them before the fights began.

Which kinda misses the point of the forum, IMO. That's why I earlier said that SDN is what it is.

The second complaint is close to what you're criticizing:

Pick wrote:...the board's extreme culture of never admitting that one could possibly be incorrect, even when there really shouldn't be any shame involved in saying "Sorry I didn't word that better, here's what I meant, can we move on from this point that better clarifies my earlier statement?" or even flat out, "You know, I've thought about this, and even though I still don't completely agree with you, I do know why you feel the way you do. Nevertheless, your information has not given me enough reason to sway in my perspective, because we have a fundamental disparity of personal values" etc.

This is more less an issue of trying to avoid hurting people's feelings than one accepting honest mistakes or differences of opinion arising from having different value systems. I think she'd like for the debate to be more... academic perhaps? The problem is, as I tried to express earlier, part of the history of this place. Perhaps less so about the differences between hard science debates and liberal arts, but more to do with the horde of idiots it has had to deal with. Unlike in a an certain settings where everyone is reasonably intelligent and usually honest, in an internet forum all sorts of people can, and have, participated.

Saw that one coming a mile away.

Adrian Laguna wrote:I think she'd like for the debate to be more... academic perhaps? The problem is, as I tried to express earlier, part of the history of this place. Perhaps less so about the differences between hard science debates and liberal arts, but more to do with the horde of idiots it has had to deal with. Unlike in a an certain settings where everyone is reasonably intelligent and usually honest, in an internet forum all sorts of people can, and have, participated.

I am unsure about this part. Without a doubt the open registration nature of the forums has led to the need of "crowd control" in the heavy debate threads, but what I seem to get out of her general statement was that everyone already had a side before debating and were therefore not looking at the whole picture. Interestingly, if we were to not have any side and just discussed the ideas as she seems to want... well, there wouldn't be any debates. Debates have two (or more) sides which contest points in an effort to determine who has the better supported position. If the board were to have a big hug-a-thon every thread then we would all be discussing things forever and never even progressing towards resolving them. "I see your point about the Earth being flat but it just doesn't convince me, so we'll have to agree to disagree." just does not cut it. You have to discard the bad ideas and refine the correct ones if you want to build upon the foundation you are making. This being the internet, sometimes that means calling someone a fucking idiot and flaming them.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) what Surlethe was trying to imply is that the debates here are in some ways like scientific peer review. Eventually all the dross gets burned away by the flamethrowers and we are left with the ideas that are tempered by that heat. Sure we'll still get the occasonal creationist or whatnot, but the atmosphere of debate encouraged here allows us to slowly move towards the most supported positions. How would, "Everyone's view is welcome, let's discuss it and not stomp on anyone's toes when they don't admit it's less supported." be anywhere close to the same level of review and refinement that the "harsh" debate methods already in place are?

I also think it ties in to the fact that discussing something is not on the same level of rigour as reviewing it for correctness. If memory serves, this train has been wrecked before. Several times.