I think that a good point to make here is that Water Cooler Talk is for casual discussion. And as Nai said, the big difference between casual discussion and something greater than that is the amount of effort one is putting into said discussion. If at any point people's posts are requiring any significant deal of analysis and research to be responded to, that's where it needs to be considered debate.
I don't get this obsession with keeping debate out of WCT. It seems like the reason for this is more on principle of the rules than for any good reason. Who cares if it turns into a debate? Is someone being harmed?
I don't get this obsession with keeping debate out of WCT. It seems like the reason for this is more on principle of the rules than for any good reason. Who cares if it turns into a debate? Is someone being harmed?
It kind of makes the Debate subforum redundant if WCT allows threads that fulfill Debate's role. It'd be like if WCT started allowing fanfiction or artwork or threads about entertainment media. There are existing subforums for all those things, so threads about them should go in the appropriate place. The same principle applies to debates.
I don't get this obsession with keeping debate out of WCT. It seems like the reason for this is more on principle of the rules than for any good reason. Who cares if it turns into a debate? Is someone being harmed?
There are a lot of people who honestly don't want to deal with debate-y things in WCT; that's why they post in WCT, and not Debate. Besides, the reason Debate has more rules than WCT is because those rules are necessary for debate-y conversations to go fluently; we don't have those rules in WCT, we don't want them, and so when there's a conversation that might need those rules it makes most sense to ship it off.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
At this point I'm rather confused as to what "Debate's point" is... which is why I'm rather nonplussed that my earlier request for their input wasn't deemed worthy of answer; perhaps an admin or other high ranking official could weigh in?
At this point I'm rather confused as to what "Debate's point" is... which is why I'm rather nonplussed that my earlier request for their input wasn't deemed worthy of answer; perhaps an admin or other high ranking official could weigh in?
I doubt they're actively following this thread; I'll send them a PM.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
So we want a clearer demarcation between WCT and Debate? Is that what I'm supposed to comment on?
To be honest, I've been pondering that question myself, since lately we've had a crop of threads in Debate that I consider kind of WCT-y. There was a brief conversation about them on my helpdesk between bLatch, LogicX, and myself. (I'm going to make references to it below, so please check it out to see where I'm coming from.) Now, the interesting thing is that all these threads are political, and reading the comments here I'm picking up a definite "no politics in WCT" sentiment. So it looks like the place of politics is something we need to have a conversation about.
That said, I maintain what I said on my helpdesk: I don't see content overlap between WCT and Debate as a big deal. There is enough stuff that's obviously Debate-not-WCT material, and vice versa, for the two forums to maintain separate identities, even if some stuff does fall in the grey area between them. So if a Debate thread is in that grey area, I generally err on the side of not moving it*.
I mean, I could start a crackdown to make Debate a forum of strict formal rigor, putting some real teeth into that "mature and informed discussion only" line. But that would make a lot of people really sore, and because I'd basically be infracting them for being ignorant, I can't say I'd blame them. On a related note, enforcement would necessarily be very subjective, which I actually do try to avoid. It would also inappropriate for the informal and relaxed environment of a hobby gaming forum, where people of all levels of education and formal argumentative training come to talk. And, worst of all, it would mean more work for me. So since I'm obviously not going to do that, there's always going to be a certain "chattiness" to MTGS Debate, which means it's always going to have some overlap with WCT.
That doesn't mean there's nothing I can do to tighten things up a bit. And like I said, I've been thinking about this lately. I've got a couple ideas for new rules, but they should probably go in a thread of their own, which I suppose I might as well write up a proposal for once I'm done with this post (EDIT: here they are). In this thread, though, I really would like to hear opinions on how to handle political topics between Debate and WCT, so I can get a better idea of whether and how to implement a new "Link and Discuss Thread" or "Official Partisan Bickering Thread" (name not finalized).
*Oh, and on the topic of moving threads: Maybe I'm a little weird about this, but I'm of the school of thought that it's almost always better to just start a new thread in the right place than to transplant a big thread full of one forum's regular's regulars and culture to another forum. (After all, the Debaters are notorious hooligans and scoundrels to a man - who'd want that? :p) In the past, when the question of moving threads from WCT to Debate has come up, I've recommended to the WCT mods that they use this approach unless the thread in question is just on its first couple of pages. Close the thread, or use modtext to close one conversation if the thread as a whole doesn't need to be closed, and tell people to start a new one in Debate.
At this point I'm rather confused as to what "Debate's point" is... which is why I'm rather nonplussed that my earlier request for their input wasn't deemed worthy of answer; perhaps an admin or other high ranking official could weigh in?
I left it alone since you asked specifically for r_0 or Blinking Spirit.
Consider the difference between a casual conversation with a friend and a (if you're from the USA) Presidential Debate. The former is, as the name implies, casual. You don't have to do much. You just chitchat. The latter requires research, you respond to each others' points, and there is meant to be a clear 'winner' of the thing.
That's the difference between WCT and Debate.
The Debate forum isn't for the discussion on a subject. It's there for an actual 'this is my position, that's yours, let's see who's right'. It may be something as hard to figure out as, say, subjective vs objective morality. Or it may be something grounded like the death penalty. But people don't go into Debate with a casual conversation in mind. They go in, facts in hand and with girded loins. "I sense that someone is wrong on the internet!"
There's room for both subforums on this website. But people need to be able to have that casual conversation without it turning into debate, thus pushing out the people that wanted the casual conversation. And people who want to actually settle down and figure out who's RIGHT need to have a spot too.
*Oh, and on the topic of moving threads: Maybe I'm a little weird about this, but I'm of the school of thought that it's almost always better to just start a new thread in the right place than to transplant a big thread full of one forum's regular's regulars and culture to another forum. (After all, the Debaters are notorious hooligans and scoundrels to a man - who'd want that? :p) In the past, when the question of moving threads from WCT to Debate has come up, I've recommended to the WCT mods that they use this approach unless the thread in question is just on its first couple of pages. Close the thread, or use modtext to close one conversation if the thread as a whole doesn't need to be closed, and tell people to start a new one in Debate.
Keep in mind that a mod can prune select posts from a thread and use them to form a thread elsewhere. Whenever I had a thread become a debate, I'd simply cut the 'offending' posts, use them to make a new thread, and move that thread to Debate with a modtext note in the first post explaining the background situation and linking back to the original thread if relevant. That way the original thread can continue as intended and the debate tangent is preserved in its entirety for those interested in that.
Closing the first thread and directing people to the other forum technically works, but the original thread gets shut down and the new thread elsewhere then lacks the starting context. If utilized early enough, a prune & shunt yields a tangent thread usually no more than a page or two and allows the initial conversation to get back on track. It's more steps for the mods, but the result is two fruitful threads instead of just one, and I think that's worth it.
Whether or not a post rebuts another post point by point is a poor litmus test for shutting down discussion.
I'd love to hear if you have a better one.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Whether or not a post rebuts another post point by point is a poor litmus test for shutting down discussion.
It's as reasonable a line as I can think of for drawing the line between disagreement in WCT and full-on debate. When one systematically goes through another's post point by point, it's reasonable to say that debating the issue rather than discussing the issue is the primary goal of that discourse, which would logically place it in Debate rather than WCT.
As Senori said, we're always open to suggestions if you have any ideas for different lines to draw.
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It kind of makes the Debate subforum redundant if WCT allows threads that fulfill Debate's role. It'd be like if WCT started allowing fanfiction or artwork or threads about entertainment media. There are existing subforums for all those things, so threads about them should go in the appropriate place. The same principle applies to debates.
There are a lot of people who honestly don't want to deal with debate-y things in WCT; that's why they post in WCT, and not Debate. Besides, the reason Debate has more rules than WCT is because those rules are necessary for debate-y conversations to go fluently; we don't have those rules in WCT, we don't want them, and so when there's a conversation that might need those rules it makes most sense to ship it off.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
No it doesn't, and to the extent that it does; so?
I doubt they're actively following this thread; I'll send them a PM.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
To be honest, I've been pondering that question myself, since lately we've had a crop of threads in Debate that I consider kind of WCT-y. There was a brief conversation about them on my helpdesk between bLatch, LogicX, and myself. (I'm going to make references to it below, so please check it out to see where I'm coming from.) Now, the interesting thing is that all these threads are political, and reading the comments here I'm picking up a definite "no politics in WCT" sentiment. So it looks like the place of politics is something we need to have a conversation about.
That said, I maintain what I said on my helpdesk: I don't see content overlap between WCT and Debate as a big deal. There is enough stuff that's obviously Debate-not-WCT material, and vice versa, for the two forums to maintain separate identities, even if some stuff does fall in the grey area between them. So if a Debate thread is in that grey area, I generally err on the side of not moving it*.
I mean, I could start a crackdown to make Debate a forum of strict formal rigor, putting some real teeth into that "mature and informed discussion only" line. But that would make a lot of people really sore, and because I'd basically be infracting them for being ignorant, I can't say I'd blame them. On a related note, enforcement would necessarily be very subjective, which I actually do try to avoid. It would also inappropriate for the informal and relaxed environment of a hobby gaming forum, where people of all levels of education and formal argumentative training come to talk. And, worst of all, it would mean more work for me. So since I'm obviously not going to do that, there's always going to be a certain "chattiness" to MTGS Debate, which means it's always going to have some overlap with WCT.
That doesn't mean there's nothing I can do to tighten things up a bit. And like I said, I've been thinking about this lately. I've got a couple ideas for new rules, but they should probably go in a thread of their own, which I suppose I might as well write up a proposal for once I'm done with this post (EDIT: here they are). In this thread, though, I really would like to hear opinions on how to handle political topics between Debate and WCT, so I can get a better idea of whether and how to implement a new "Link and Discuss Thread" or "Official Partisan Bickering Thread" (name not finalized).
*Oh, and on the topic of moving threads: Maybe I'm a little weird about this, but I'm of the school of thought that it's almost always better to just start a new thread in the right place than to transplant a big thread full of one forum's regular's regulars and culture to another forum. (After all, the Debaters are notorious hooligans and scoundrels to a man - who'd want that? :p) In the past, when the question of moving threads from WCT to Debate has come up, I've recommended to the WCT mods that they use this approach unless the thread in question is just on its first couple of pages. Close the thread, or use modtext to close one conversation if the thread as a whole doesn't need to be closed, and tell people to start a new one in Debate.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I left it alone since you asked specifically for r_0 or Blinking Spirit.
Consider the difference between a casual conversation with a friend and a (if you're from the USA) Presidential Debate. The former is, as the name implies, casual. You don't have to do much. You just chitchat. The latter requires research, you respond to each others' points, and there is meant to be a clear 'winner' of the thing.
That's the difference between WCT and Debate.
The Debate forum isn't for the discussion on a subject. It's there for an actual 'this is my position, that's yours, let's see who's right'. It may be something as hard to figure out as, say, subjective vs objective morality. Or it may be something grounded like the death penalty. But people don't go into Debate with a casual conversation in mind. They go in, facts in hand and with girded loins. "I sense that someone is wrong on the internet!"
There's room for both subforums on this website. But people need to be able to have that casual conversation without it turning into debate, thus pushing out the people that wanted the casual conversation. And people who want to actually settle down and figure out who's RIGHT need to have a spot too.
My helpdesk should you need me.
Keep in mind that a mod can prune select posts from a thread and use them to form a thread elsewhere. Whenever I had a thread become a debate, I'd simply cut the 'offending' posts, use them to make a new thread, and move that thread to Debate with a modtext note in the first post explaining the background situation and linking back to the original thread if relevant. That way the original thread can continue as intended and the debate tangent is preserved in its entirety for those interested in that.
Closing the first thread and directing people to the other forum technically works, but the original thread gets shut down and the new thread elsewhere then lacks the starting context. If utilized early enough, a prune & shunt yields a tangent thread usually no more than a page or two and allows the initial conversation to get back on track. It's more steps for the mods, but the result is two fruitful threads instead of just one, and I think that's worth it.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
I'd love to hear if you have a better one.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
It's as reasonable a line as I can think of for drawing the line between disagreement in WCT and full-on debate. When one systematically goes through another's post point by point, it's reasonable to say that debating the issue rather than discussing the issue is the primary goal of that discourse, which would logically place it in Debate rather than WCT.
As Senori said, we're always open to suggestions if you have any ideas for different lines to draw.