Staredit Network

I've decided to enact a specific set of rules applying only to Serious Discussion and would like your input before they are officially implemented.

---

In order to raise the standards of acceptable posting in Staredit Network's Serious Discussion forum, the following rules are in place. Violations will be subject to both normal moderatory actions and possibly a ban of the member from the Serious Discussion forum.

• No l33t sp34k.
• plz dun talk lyk dis, especially in srs discusion!!!!!!
• When making claims where there are reasonable doubts to credibility or claims you think that people might generally consider outrageous, be sure to include sources.
• While debate is encouraged, expect topics to be locked if debate becomes circular with no new information entering. If there is a breakdown of discussion, it will be closed.
• This is not a place for slander. Feel free to attack ideas, but not people. Labels used as a form of abuse or irrelevant to the topic are not acceptable.

That sounds like a good set of rules. I thought we already had them, but when I look through here every once in a while I notice that not many are being obeyed. Very good; I'm glad to see that you'll be cracking down on people who can't be bothered to be serious.

We didn't "have" them. They were pretty much implied, and enforced at moderators' discretion (also known as "not very often").

A moderator can warn a member if he feels that the member being intolerant, without providing any definition for the word "tolerance" and comparing and blah-blah-blah.

Moderator's maturity and wisdom > rules written in a book.

This would be helpful because as of right now there is no real difference between the Serious Discussion topics and the Lite Discussion topics except for that they tend to be more involved with the world.

1 and 2 are really already enforced, but I like this.

I hope future topics like this one will remember to argue appropriately.
http://www.staredit.net/index.php?showtopic=35874&st=100

I remember a global warming thread earlier this year....some crazy flaming went down there....

I had a good time though

I don't like the sources one. If a person is skeptical, they should search for it. If they can't find it, they can PM the person who said it and ask them for it.

I also feel that the SEN should gain its own definition on "flaming" and "spamming". It doesn't have one right now, and rules without definitions of such things are pointless and will be taken to most people "unagreeable".

Without sources, it maybe hard to believe something he stated "factual". Or may not even be of relevence.

Sources can lie or be incorrect. Someone will than say 'I know that's not true! Find another source! That's impossible!'.

This is exactly what SEN needs and this is a good start. Strict rules
Nice rule Mini

I like it. It gets my stamp of approval.

It does... it just happens to be lost somewhere in my backup of the v5 database. I really should have keep text backups of all the FAQs... I'll do that once I get it up (aka when the control panel decides to work).

4\/\/, j()() $|>()||_ 3\/3|2`/7|-|||\|9.

More seriously, makes sense.

but i lyk 2 tak lyk taht!!1

More seriously, I understand some people can't avoid talking like that, but otherwise okay.

Atlantis! Illuminati! Flying saucers! Bermuda Triangle! Area 51!

More seriously, I don't know how much sense this makes. It's possible to cite online sources for just about any opinion under the Sun, and some others as well. In the meantime, there are perfectly logical and valid arguments which simply aren't very common on the Internet and might be hard to find.

God has to exist, with 100% certainty, because the Bible is a better source than things like our own senses! I'm going to believe this for the rest of my life and you must believe it too or else you'll go to Hell!

More seriously, I don't know how useful this is. If nobody's bringing up anything new, fine. But simply on the basis that someone is never going to change their beliefs, that I disagree with. The whole point of debate is to find out who's right and who's wrong, so anyone who's never going to change their beliefs no matter how much evidence is against them doesn't have a place in debates.

All communists and liberals and anti-lifers and evolutionists are wrong and bad and should go kill themselves!

More seriously, in most cases I agree with this. It's viewpoints that can be right or wrong, people are only right or wrong depending on what viewpoints they hold. Basically the only time I turn to outright insults is when it's clear the person presenting the opposing argument has completely abandoned logic and is therefore unconvincible, and so rather than winning them over the point turns to winning over other people who might be watching the argument. Sorry if this isn't very clear, but it's not an easy concept to sum up in one sentence.

What about the cases where nobody is right or wrong and things just are? That's more what this rule was geared for. Let me rewrite that one.

Well, there can be cases where both people are wrong. A few times there can be cases where both people are right and are just misunderstanding each other. But I'm not so sure about things 'just being'. What kind of case are you thinking of?

I support this fully

I agree with the first two rules, I'm a bit "iffy" on the third considering that people can go find the source themselves if they really want to test the credibility of a statement, but the last two rules seem to go against what will inevitably happen.

Yes, we don't want anything personal, but as we seen for example, S.T.A.R.S-Chris and (especially) Kashmir often make remarks about each person in a way to put down their overall credibility, such as the whole not being a "real" Christian or psychotic conspiracy theorist thing goes. Reguardless if there are rules or not, it's inevitable to happen. If somebody does resort to this, just try to control it to PMs and delete posts that attack other members. Nothing against the members I mentioned, but they have often shown that this is true in the past.

Also, I'm sure that the majority of all the serious discussion topics will conflict with the idea of a topic closing if nobody sees the reasoning since by nature, the majority of the people on this site are stubborn, not to mention if a person doesn't care for another that there's no chance that the person will choose to see the other's perspective. I suppose what would be better is to just lock topics that have drifted off onto other topics with minimal relevance.

I'm probably looking too deep into these rules though, overall I do agree that we should change what is implied to rules since many members do seem to forget what is implied (like I have a couple times).

I hope that this Serious Discussions rule include VALUE discussions and POLICY discussions.
Value, discussing on beliefs while Policy, what we should do.
Also avoiding to place ourselves in to make it look a person knows better about it.

Good rules. I hope they're enforced. Also, ROFL @ the people who don't like the third rule. You're exactly the reason that rule exists. When you include a source, it's a lot easier for someone to take the source for what it is (instead of the way the 'fact' is presented without the source, which is as an absolute truth). Demanding someone look up proof for your argument (especially in a debate) is actually the silliest thing I've ever heard.

Cheers,

I agree with this. When you come to a debate, it is your perogative to bring your own sources. Without sources you will be laughed out of any debate. The burden of proof lies on the accuser.

People shouldn't be punished for that if thats what you're implying. If they choose not to source their data then they can deal with it themselves when no one believes them.

As for 1337 speak, I'd hate to see someone get warned for this as well as any of the new rules without at least a couple warnings.



Since when was anyone 'demanding' anything? If someone doesn't want to source their information, then everyone will overlook it, big deal. If you want people to take your side or take what you say into consideration, then it's your own responsibility to source your information, having a rule enforcing it is just ludacris.

Well, only after someone explicitly asks for a source and you fail to provide one. If no one's asked, I don't see that it's necessary. Might be a good idea, but considering the amount of time it can take and number of wrong 'sources' there are, and the fact that some statements can be logically true without needing sources, this rule doesn't seem as useful to me as it might at first look.

That at least is true, the burden of proof is a basic logical tool and we can't ignore it.