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Debate is an exercise in logic, rhetoric and persuasion. The purpose of this debate forum is to debate on topics that are debatable. Debates come many forms, such as formal debates between debating teams, presidential debates, and casual debates between friends.

Arguments make up the body of a debate. An argument consists of one or more premises, and a conclusion. Deductive arguments are such that the premise provides complete support for the conclusion. Inductive arguments are such that the premise provides some form of support for the conclusion. A premise that provides a higher degree of support generally makes the argument a good one. These are the kinds of arguments that generally prevail in a debate forum in an internet community such as this one.

Here are some guidelines to temper the debates in this forum in a reasonable manner to keep some debatable harmony on Board77.org.

1. Each debater has the right to state (with clarity) his or her opinion. Opinions shall not be stifled by debate moderators or other debaters.

2. It is the sole responsibility of the debater to defend any claims made by that debater. Although, nothing prevents another from stepping in to defend the claim as well. If I make a factual claim about science, the burden of proving my claim is my own.

3. While the general goal of debate is to come to a conclusion, every debater must recognize that this is not always the case (especially on internet message boards). If a debate gets out of hand, it is the responsibility of the debaters to agree to disagree. Disagreement does not signal a failed debate.

4. Disagreement does not correlate with not understanding. Reasonable debaters can disagree while understanding each other's position.

5. Logical fallacies are a part of debate. The authority of these fallacies is debatable itself, even the experts debate the soundness of these fallacies, and their uses. No fallacy should be taken as gospel, but should be applied with logical care.

6. Committing a fallacy does not make a debater bad, or wrong in and of himself or herself. If a debater notices a fallacious argument being made, it is his or her responsibility to correct this argument using references to the fallacy (which may be debatable). The debater committing the fallacy then has a responsibility to correct his or her argument.

There is no debate judge in this debate forum. Each, and every member participating in the debate is both a debater, and a debate judge.

Here are some websites littered with logical fallacies, their definitions, and suggested uses. I implore any debater who thinks that a fallacy is committed to research the use of the fallacy to find his or her own way to rebuff it.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skep ... ments.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fallacy.htm
http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/toc.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/

Please use these resources, but note the difference in which fallacies each site offers explanations towards.

It's a good start, TED, but I don't think it's any different than what we have now so far.

Except it's actaully written down and referenced. I found it enlightening.

How do you want it to be different? Debate is debate is debate is debate. There are eight sites that support my guidelines. Perhaps you can post some suggestions.

I'm glad you found it enlightening, River.

I think this is an excellent guide as well. I'd even be happy to sticky it so that people can reference it, if there is enough agreement that these are good rules of debate--and I doubt you'd find anyone who would disagree with them. That way, if you have a complaint about the way someone is engaging in debate, you can look to this guide and point out where they are going wrong. Or, you can look to this guide and find out where YOU are wrong. (I am using "you" here in a general sense, for the annoying lack of non-specific pronouns that apply solely to humans in the English language).

If no one has any issues with this thread, can it be pinned? If it isn't kept at the top, then it was an waste of my time. Thank you.

If you think this is the finalized version, then I can incorporate this into a post and sticky that minus the discussion. I would like to point out that this may apply to debate in this forum, but there are threads and people who prefer discussion and I can't see this applying to that so I would want to make that clear in the post..

I guess I can sticky it temporarily anyway even if there is more discussion.

Do you think I am unclear that these guidelines are for debate, holby? I didn't use the word discussion once, but if you like I can put "Warning: Only use these guidelines in debate" or something like that if people think it isn't clear enough. Thanks for pinning it for now at least.

No I am clear as to what this is for, I just didn't want anyone to get the wrong impression. Once we are sure the discussion of this is over, I can make a solitary post in a new thread and then lock it before I sticky it to the top. That will just keep it free of spammy posts etc.

My only issue is what weight this has with anyone.

I mean, if people pay attention to it, and live by it, it's great. But if people ignore it, and continue to abuse poor debate tactics, and frustrate others with intellectually dishonest debate tactics... what happens then?

Do we want to have any actionable situations?

I haven't seen too many people express interest in taking action, hal. I personally do not. I think it works best as a guideline while posting. I don't want to police anyone over this and I don't think others really do, either.

Well, then there really isn't any point to this whole discussion. People that already generally follow these guidelines, don't need to know about them, and the people that DON'T already do this, will still have no reason to.

Perhaps there are people who aren't aware of them and perhaps those that have ignored them will start using them.

perhaps

These guidelines make people aware of them. So, for example, if I did not know what a strawman argument is, and I am consistently accused of making one, now I can look at eight different websites to further my understanding. If I entered into debates, and my opponents consistently accused me of confusing a premise and a conclusion, now I have a helpful guide to inform me.

I'm not sure how any of this can be actionable. No one fallacy is worse than another. I suppose you could give and take points, like in Whose Line Is It Anyway, but other than that, the only way to change the actions is to make charter amendments.

More importantly, hal, you started all this because you wanted sf to stop using crappy debated tactics and he has explicitly said he doesn't care about whether he's using fallacies.

which is why it should be actionable at some point. By discussing and dismissing it, we basically give people license to harass people who they disagree with by using every dirty trick in the book, frustrating others to no end.

Why do fallacies have to be actionable? You would want to warn or ban a person for committing a strawman, or an argument from authority, or an ad hominem? We'll have to argue for pages whether the person did so inadvertently or not and then someone won't be happy at the end of it all. Logical fallacies are not dirty tactics. They may not make for good debates, but it shouldn't be actionable for not having adequate debate skills.

Instead, this guide should be read and used for people to hone their own skills, not pick at someone else's.

Don't play with people you don't like. Seriously. You have a foe list. Use it.