Apparently, ARS Open forums have some "high horse" attitude about what you post. Some of you may think this is good, and some may not. I've read some of their forums, and they are boring to say the least.
IMHO it is pointless to restrict posting this way, and if somebody is merely "trolling" then just delete them.
But to say that posting should follow a certain format is stupid. First of all, anybody can post. Who knows who they are, or how old they are. The ARS mods dead thread just about everything and anything that is not up to their standards.
I like the MES forums, because the modz at least give a thread a chance. Sometimes a bit of useful info comes out of it.
O.k., o.k. My contention? ARS is lame, MES is not.
Here's the type of post, I'm talking about:
quote:
I've been giving some thought to the structure and flow of arguments here, and I thought I'd do my piece to help improve the quality of debate around here.
It seems that many disagreements in the BF stem from the lack of structured debate and unskilled participants. Lately, we have seen an increase in trolling, and many, many more posts that, while somewhat on-topic, are little more than invective. This has been extremely frustrating for many of the more moderate BF members, and has indeed caused many to leave the BF, which IMO is a great loss to the BF community. My post here today is to try to address the problem with debating here, and try to bring to light what I believe are the elements and structure of a good debate.
Structure
Debate needs a form and structure, else people will try to sidetrack topics. I am not saying this is the only way to structure a BF discussion, but simply one way. So, without further ado, I will present what I believe is a good methodology for debate.
It begins with claims, or a statement, backed with some supporting evidence. The first question that must be asked is "Is this a BF topic?". This contains subquestions like "Where is the contention?" or "is this truly a cross-platform topic?". The jist of this determines whether the topic should be posted at all.
The next element is clarification. All sides should ask questions, and clarify definitions (e.g. "What do you mean by marketshare?", "Over what period did this occur?") such that there can be no ambiguity of meaning. Also define the scope of debate so that it is easier to remain on topic, and posts that deviate from the scope of discussion can be easily identified and ignored.
Now, we must state our assumptions. Our debates are often hypothetical in nature, so we must state the assumptions that will be taken as fact. For example, in the TCPA discussion, we assumed that there were both secure and insecure parts of a computer system. Without stated assumptions, there is a tendency to use one's own assumptions, which can very quicky become non-constructive (e.g. RMS saying that to him, proprietary software is fundamentally wrong precludes any debate on the merits of proprietary software with him). That is to say that arguments become circular upon themselves (e.g. creation is fact because it says so in the bible - if we have not agreed that the bible is fact, this argument is non-constructive and self-circular).
The previous points establish the axioms upon which the discussion can be based. The mean reason these are necessary is so that there is a clear view of the topic. Once the sides can agree on the topic, the discussion can move forward.
The claimant side's evidence must be examined now. This evidence must be argued as to its validity. Evidence must also be impartial in nature. MOSR is not a good source of Mac facts. Slashdot is not a valid source for Linux of MS facts. Random personal websites are not a good source for anything (Sekrit APIs, TCPA). Evidence need not be presented all at one, but some must be presented to even begin. However, to refute points, evidence need not be presented. The evidence in question must stand up to the question, else additional supporting evidence must be presented. Remember that the burden of proof is upon the claimant, and you cannot attempt to force the other side to prove the opposite ("Prove that God didn't create the earth and heavens").
All of the above elements form the preamble and the start of the actual discussion. At this point, we can analyze the topic in our usual, excruciating detail.
We should examine the causes and effects, and refine the problem space, and express our diverse points of view. All of these arguments should rest upon the solid foundation we have created in the preamble, allowing us to explore every detail of the area, and attempt to find common ground.
Ultimately, the goal is to come to a resolution. We sometimes determine that the initial claim has no merit, and sometimes arrive at a course of action. This rarely happens, however, as one side tends to lose interest in the topic, and the thread dies. Alternately, one of the various trolls, thread craps until the post has to be locked.
Discussion Pitfalls
I have seen many, many discussions get sidetracked for no reason other than lack of debating experience, and I'd like to address some of the various argumentative pitfalls I've seen. I'm sure there are a ton of others, but here are a few.
Analogies
Analogies should be avoided except in very specific cases. When analogies are made, one has to question the validity of the analogy (Mac 
C :: BMW:Ford). Unless there is an absolute 1:1 relationship between the pairs, the argument will drift into arguing the correctness of the analogy, and much time and energy will be wasted. If there are holes in the analogy, there will be an artifical and offtopic debate that detracts from the main thread.
Rules of evidence
The chief rule of evidence is that if you make a claim, you must provide evidence. Links, excerpts, and book references are all good examples of evidence. If articles are long, don't expect people to read the whole thing (DOJ stuff, for example), so provide excerpts. However, do not highlight/embolden sections, and do not selectively quote. Provide enough context and information to be useful to the debate. This will prevent useless posts that start "did you even read the article you quoted?"
The second rule of evidence is that evidence must be based on fact or statistics. Now, both fact and statistics are inherently "gappy", that is to say that they are not all encompassing, but merely serve to provide some empirical backup to an argument. They are not self containing arguments however. Additionally, this means that evidence must be impartial, and not be opinion or conjecture. Too much editorializing happens today in the media, so one must be careful about selecting sources of evidence, and the methodology and assumptions that underlie the evidence being presented.
Fallacies
Many members of the community here employ a great number of logical and argumentative fallacies. The best site I've found that exposes these fallacies is Stephen's Logical Fallacy page. I'll illuminate upon a few of the more popular ones here.
The most common fallacy used here at Ars is the ad hominem, which basically means attacking the person, instead of the argument. The most egregious examples of this take the form "Soandso is a Corpware employee and only presents marketing BS here", or "Soandso gets paid to post here, everything he says should be disregarded". This type of attack adds nothing to the debate except invective, and is bannable. Please don't do it. Even marketing "evidence" needs to be refuted. And if it is truly BS, then it should be easy to dismiss. But attack the argument, destroy the evidence. Don't make it personal.
Another very popular fallacious is the argumentum ad populum which is the appeal to popularity. This takes forms like "Everyone knows that the Mac UI is better than the Windows UI", or "90% of people don't know what Linux is". Unless you can truly show that those blanket statements are true, you've committed a logical transgression, and your argument is null and void.
The slippery slope argument is popular in a lot of the hypothetical threads. This is where you take one statement or fact, and extend it to an illogical conclusion. An example of this is "Apple gained .1% marketshare this quarter, soon it will dominate the PC industry". The conclusion, while possible, is extremely unlikely.
There are a host of other fallacies in common use, and I try my best to point them out when they are used. They are most often used to support a weak position, so if you find yourself using fallacies to back your argument, step back, and rethink your position a little. From there, you should be able to make your argument, and force your detractors to attack the merits of your argument, instead of the structure of your argument.
Conclusion
So why did I write this? I am one of the people that has become very annoyed and frustrated by the tone discussions have taken in the recent past. I am committed to improving the quality of debate here, as I have shown in my posts on various topics, often attacking the style of an argument when it is lacking in something. My hope is that members of the extremist camps (*lots, the ABM moron brigade, the NBM stonewallers, etc.) learn to make points and argue coherently. In the end we can all benefit, and have much less of the BS, IBTL crap, and most of all, keep a more professional and thoughtful environment here in the BF.
Nobody's going to convince anybody of anything online anyway, regardless of how well formatted it is. :rolleyes:
[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: RudeCat7 ]
