[Debate] Debate threads

[Player-X]

since __ksdjfiii sugested this in another thread I will start one
Do you think debate threads are good for the forums or bad.
For some former members like Boltzman debate threads are likely the main reason they come here and since the mod and admins started closing them he left, they might be the only thing keeping most members around. They also help members know each other and learn from each other
On the other hand you might end up with n00bs using PMs to harass people and "omg u r ***!11!111!11oneoneeleven" posts.
What is your view on this

BTW.I suggest adding [Debate] to indicate you want your threads to turn into debates

[darth sephiroth]

I like the [Debate] thing, and instead of closing debates getting out of hand i have another idea:
banning the people getting out of hand from that thread (if it repeats ban them from all threads with [Debate] in their name).

[CKemu]

To quote myself from the mod forum:

I can skim neatly over the 'why' part I think as we are all well aware of the insults, flaming and lack of ability by a vast % of the forum to discuss such topics in an informed and sensible manner.

Thus I have a proposal, and would appreciate everyones input on this:

New Specilist Forum: Mature Discussions
People over the age of 2# (haven't made up in my mind the exact age), may only post in this forum.

Forum can hold all topical discussions on Religion, Politics, Ethics, Morals and other subjects that take a 'mature' person to discuss.

Such subjects are banned and auto locked (with warning) in any other forum.

Now I know age isn't the basis for maturity, however age plays a part in it and is the most enforcable guideline we have within 'easy to maintain' powers.

Such 'debates' turn into nothing more than flame fests and highly immature and badly informed arguements often sparked by stupid and 'young member' remarks. Thus I propose such a new forum, and an update to the rules.

However such a forum would take 'specilist', 'open minded' and 'neutral' moderation, thus it would be ill-advised for a mod / admin to join in with such debates, or close due to a personal opinion on the subject, and can we truly offer that 'fair' service to such a new forum?

Comments, and feedback needed.


As an addition I would like to add that I disagree that such 'debate' threads are the only reason people stick around, I think such threads are only 'key' to a minority of people around here. I would like to suggest that none of the threads have lasted much beyond the first page before turning into a farce, debating works well in a real time form, such as speech or realtime text chat, and rarely works well in such a static medium.

[__Xzyx987X]

I think I already made my position on debate threads pretty clear in this post (http://forums.ngemu.com/967074-post14.html).

I think Player-X's idea of a special tag for debate threads is great idea. Giving mods the ability of explicitly banning people from threads with that tag should solve most of the problems the debate threads have been causing. But then it boils down to whether anyone can be arsed to do the backend work to implement it.

[D.D.]

might i also suggest having a special section for debate threads. there we can freely express disagreements on religion, sexual orientation, etc without being banned/warnned ,etc.

[Player-X]

If we have a debate section maybe we could tags like [politics] [current] [news] and so forth

[__Xzyx987X]

Uh... why?

might i also suggest having a special section for debate threads. there we can freely express disagreements on religion, sexual orientation, etc without being banned/warnned ,etc.

Yea, a debate/current events section sounds like a good idea too. It should be much easier to implement section specific banning than tag specific banning.

[Betamax]

might i also suggest having a special section for debate threads. there we can freely express disagreements on religion, sexual orientation, etc without being banned/warnned ,etc.



f we have a debate section maybe we could tags like [politics] [current] [news] and so forth


Sorry to have to bring everyone back to the real world.... however:

1. No-one said that anything would be changed.
2. This is an emualtion site not a debating society. So I wouldn't count on any fancy features.
3. Tag or no tag, if you spam, we ban.

[Razor Blade]

Banning people for what they belioeve in isn't rioght. I think at one point or another if someone's dissing what you believe in you could get out of hand as well. The Open Discussion section is good enough IMHO. If we are going to make a specific section for everything, things won't get more organized, but the opposite will happen. There will be so manby choices people won't know where to post meaning threads will have to be moved all the time etc ...

I think the tag idea is good, but again will people do it? Maybe a sticky at the top of the forum will be a good idea.

Debate threads can be fun. But many (most) of them just turn out bad after a few pages like CK mentioned. Especially war, politics, consoles (fanboys...), religion etc ... So basically anything worth debating about :p

[MT]

Debates are discussions, aren't they? It's normal to have some flaming. Plus we're free to express our thoughts, aren't we?

To close a debate thread is not the best way for these issues IMO. Why not PMing those who went out of topic/exceeded on flame? As Razor said, debate threads can be fun. But they won't if someone closes it only after one page.

[Proto]

In any case, separating the open discussion area into mature and trivial topics seems like a good idea to me. Many other forums have taken that approach (right now Minitokyo comes to my mind) with good results.

Personally many times I thought about participating (for example) in the latest sex orientation discussion, however the level many of the posts had downgraded into prevented me from doing so... so I'm all for the idea if it means that the people who arent' really interested will refrain from participating, and those who will be those who want more serious discussion.

Especially war, politics, consoles (fanboys...), religion etc ... So basically anything worth debating about

Well there are many religion/AI/delicate matters debates we have hold in the past that managed to stay quite decent for the majority of its pages... we even have some that peacefully died ater we reached some kind of conclusion :p

PS: The heck... Betamax is back! We have had quite a number of zombies as of late :)

[CKemu]

Closing a thread is a perfectly good way to deal with the issue. Even if you strip the thread of the stupid posts, and warn the variety of trouble makers, the thread will eventually get re-hijacked, or those that where having the discussion will feel and act somewhat 'bitter'.

This is why the proposal of a sub forum, however this can cause clutter and may hold only a temporary solution to the issue.

The truth is that this forum is full of people below a certain level of maturity and age, or believe anything they do on the internet has no consiquence. Thus the following is under consideration:

The admins and mods agree to a sub forum, in which age is limited to 2#+
You acknowledge, that given the general population of the forum and the results these threads cause you find an appropriate forum to discuss such 'topical issues'.
Moderation continues as ever, and eventually these threads will get closed, due to the resulting idiots attracted. - remaining in this situation
You stop making such threads knowing what they will turn into.

I don't consider 'game' debates as such an issue, these rarely 'offend', or cause people dis-comfort, and often are more likely to settle out.

[Proto]

Well... it sounds quite reasonable. We are not proposing a spam forum here after all :p

[__Xzyx987X]

Closing a thread is a perfectly good way to deal with the issue.No it isn't. It's not fair to those who were discussing the topic in a civil matter and had nothing to do with the reason it was closed.

The truth is that this forum is full of people below a certain level of maturity and age, or believe anything they do on the internet has no consiquence. Thus the following is under consideration:

The admins and mods agree to a sub forum, in which age is limited to 2#+I'm not a fan of that idea. There are plenty of people under 20 years old who are capable of participating in a civil discussion, and there are plenty of people over 20 who aren't. Age discrimination won't solve anything, it will only unfairly limit people's ability to participate. Plus, people could just lie about their age when they sign up... I say just make it so when people repetedly flame in the debate section, they get banned from it. It's simple and effective.

[_E_]

Stop debating and get a life ya suckers ;o

Yours,
-E

[Lord Budweiser]

You stop making such threads knowing what they will turn into.
[/list]


But be aware that people recreate topics because they really want to discuss about it, not because they are spammers or something like that.
That's okay that this is an emulation forums, but we must not act like we were not part of society, not part of the world just because of that.

About the discomfort: that's life, truth hurts (it doesn't if you don't want to accept it), but we indeed look for it. It is this quest who lead us to make such threads, afterall we never know where true will pop out from. BTW: who enters a thread only to persuade really deserves this "discomfort".

Sorry if what I said is pure crap or something like the great and mystic saga though Cafundor wastelands, in search for the magic and unreacheble temple of knowledge to protect the crystal of true from the Red Unholy Hell Dragon, but... I felt like posting it. :toilet:

[__Xzyx987X]

Stop debating and get a life ya suckers ;oSure, just as soon as you quit making irrelevant one line posts. ;p

Sorry if what I said is pure crap or something like the great and mystic saga though Cafundor wastelands, in search for the magic and unreacheble temple of knowledge to protect the crystal of true from the Red Unholy Hell Dragon, but... I felt like posting it. :toilet:Huh?

[darth sephiroth]

Banning people for what they belioeve in isn't rioght.


Tag or no tag, if you spam, we ban.

'nuff said really, Betamax said "if you spam, we ban" and not "if you disagree, we ban"

i do hope you're not limiting to spam though, i hope you bann people for flaming others for their opinions...

[ChankastRules]

Hey if we have a mature thread can we post naked..... nevermind.

I think it's a good suggestion. I guess the emulation related debates can get rather messy too.

[Betamax]

Closing a thread is a perfectly good way to deal with the issue.


No it isn't. It's not fair to those who were discussing the topic in a civil matter and had nothing to do with the reason it was closed.


I agree with CK on this point. There's no use trying to close pandora's box once it's been opened. The damage has been done and folks emotions are running too high. Sooner or later it'll just flare up just as bad.

I'll admit that it is not nice that one moron can ruin everything for others but that's life for ya.


I'm not a fan of that idea. There are plenty of people under 20 years old who are capable of participating in a civil discussion, and there are plenty of people over 20 who aren't. Age discrimination won't solve anything, it will only unfairly limit people's ability to participate. Plus, people could just lie about their age when they sign up... I say just make it so when people repetedly flame in the debate section, they get banned from it. It's simple and effective.


Been sneeking a peek at my comments in the mod forum eh ;).

I agree with you entirely, age is not the way to go about this. Plus it's harder to implement on the cp.

'nuff said really, Betamax said "if you spam, we ban" and not "if you disagree, we ban"

i do hope you're not limiting to spam though, i hope you bann people for flaming others for their opinions...

Don't worry, flamers are included ;)

[Kaiser Sigma]

Stop debating and get a life ya suckers ;o

There is great wisdom in the phrase: "You need to get laid"...just don't stick after that...experience value, a girlfriend is like a debate forum that works 24/7... =\

[Cid Highwind]

There is great wisdom in the phrase: "You need to get laid"...just don't stick after that...experience value, a girlfriend is like a debate forum that works 24/7... =\
:lol:

Welcome back :rotflmao:

We need debate threads... I feel sorry for getting abducted by Neverwinter Nights (playing it online... I'm doomed) I missed out on the homosexuality "debate". In that thread I've seen enough bull**** to make Sahara turn into a rainforest.

However, it's the educated here that need to teach the 14 something about the world. Debates are a great source of knowledge, it just highly depends on the people who take part in it.

[Kraelis]

Depends... often, the deeper debates grapple with logic, philosophy, science and whatnots so hard that it's almost incomprehensible to the common lay person. So I doubt its instructional value for the uninitiated.

But debates must exist. In the 1st place, what constitutes a debate? Is it not, as has been stated, a form of discussion? Do we draw the line only when they fall upon certain hot topics? Or is it even possible to draw a black and white line to begin with? Plus, the educational value... perhaps not easily minable as conventional ones. And human nature too I suppose.

Anyway, I like the tags, but I'm not counting on it being implemented.

And oh... you can avoid debate threads at will, but avoiding a girlfriend presents a much more complicated affair, with repercussions and the like. :lol:

[Keith]

I believe some of the recent thread closures were premature and jumping the gun. It comes off as lazy moderation when closing a thread is the only option rather then moderating the posts/posters and keeping it going in the right direction. A closure to a thread should only be done when rules are being broken by the opening post in my opinion. All other posts can easily be moderated. Until debates become against the rules we shouldn't be discouraged from having them and closing them right off the bat doesn't help anyone.

[Samor]

I think thread closure actually happens too fast in general atm.

[Player-X]

I would agree, it's more like the the discussion has opinions that are diffrent from the mods opinion
*looks at who's been mostly prematurely closing threads*

[ShadowDancer]

I'm part of two other forums and they have a Religion/Politics etc section all to itself where members can go there and let it all out. Granted those other forums I go to have members averaging around 20+ years in age unlike this forum where it seems everyone here is around their teens but it's actually not really modded that much because the members there don't go ballistic like younger people would and respect each other opinions without flaming.

One of those forums in specific has 5,000 members and 1,000,000 posts so it's not like it doesn't have activity and members to raise those few people who misbehave.

I don't understand though why not just try it out and see what happens. If it works, great. If it doesn't, just delete teh whole thing

Oh yeah these sites are SPORTS sites. You could say religion and politics shouldn't have a place there but it's part of human nature to have debates whether they're at a sports site or an emulation site.

[CKemu]

Lazy moderation? No I consider it definative action, it boils down to the following:

Warning the poster and removing posts from the person causing trouble, seems reasonable huh, with one or two people sure, but with on-mass trouble causers in a thread thats one hell of alot of bonus work. They also maybe perfectly good members of the forums, besides such 'threads'.
Warning poster and removing the posts that are replies or a direct result of the trouble makers post.
Containing the 'emotional' response and ill feeling caused after those posts occur,
Repeat and rinse
There are other side issues caused by these 'debate' threads, where people take insult over personal opinion and points of view, and result to PM'ing insults etc.

The point is, sometimes warning a person or even temp banning them could be somewhat unfair, teenagers tend to over-react to such sensitive issues, and maybe a fine member of the community, until such a thread is viewed by them.

Thus the suggestion of a sub-forum, where open minded and mature people can discuss these issues, viewable by all but only X members can take part, thus it can still be educational to the younger members.

Ultimately I also consider such debate threads pointless (for the most part), most of the people here have formed opinions based on ethnic, moral, religious backgrounds, and such debates are unlikely to change opinion or broaden their minds, normally these threads are statements of a personal opinion, followed by a round of "quote, see my opinion makes yours seem so flawed", "quote, but wait thats silly see my opinion is correct".

Hardly a debate, mearly a set of statements attempting to disprove someones opinion with their own,..resulting in an endless loop, where the subject never gets relsolved, or a point is never taken/made.

Player-X I will assume that you are refering to me, with your last post, thus I can state for the last two threads I closed, yes like any human I have an opinion, but that is not and I can't stress this enough, not the reason for closure, nor will I be dragged into a debate on those subjects.

[Keith]

If people are flaming within the thread or in private messaging then do the job of a moderator and deal with the people breaking the rules. Everyone in the discussion shouldn't be punished by having the discussion closed because of a few people that just need to be warned. To me closing the thread instead of dealing with the people is the lazy way out. So yeah to me it's lazy moderation. Like I said before if the subject and content of the opening post doesn't break any rules then the thread should not be closed. Debate discussions are not against the rules so why are they always getting closed? If there is problems within the thread then deal with those posters causing the problems.

A lot of time it's the same people causing the problems so when you just close the thread rather then dealing with them nothing gets solved. Then the problem comes back again in another thread. Giving temp bans to me is a good solution and would show others that flaming is not tolerated. You have a rule about flaming yet its hardly ever inforced. Instead the thread just gets closed and the flamer is free to do it again and ruin another discussion.

[Player-X]

The point is, sometimes warning a person or even temp banning them could be somewhat unfair, teenagers tend to over-react to such sensitive issues, and maybe a fine member of the community, until such a thread is viewed by them.
Just because they are young shoudn't mean that they are exmpt from the rules, besides some might be enlightened by such threads
Thus the suggestion of a sub-forum, where open minded and mature people can discuss these issues, viewable by all but only X members can take part, thus it can still be educational to the younger members.
In my opinion that would work very well as it will filter out the junk and only contain mostly information
Ultimately I also consider such debate threads pointless (for the most part), most of the people here have formed opinions based on ethnic, moral, religious backgrounds, and such debates are unlikely to change opinion or broaden their minds, normally these threads are statements of a personal opinion, followed by a round of "quote, see my opinion makes yours seem so flawed", "quote, but wait thats silly see my opinion is correct".
I tought that's how debates worked
Player-X I will assume that you are refering to me, with your last post, thus I can state for the last two threads I closed, yes like any human I have an opinion, but that is not and I can't stress this enough, not the reason for closure, nor will I be dragged into a debate on those subjects.
Actuaily...no, It was prural

[Silenus]

I, most of the time, don't post in debate threads but that's when I don't know so much of the topic.
I hope you guys can get a solution to that 'cause debate threads can be very informative.

[Sklasko]

Debate threads only work if people are mature about it and there is absolutely no e-peen involved (There is alot of that here btw). That's the way I see it and it's as simple as that.

[Coolsvilleman]

Very few people are mature, just look at parliment/government. I believe debates are crusial to a forums survival and many bring meaningful information and lead to unique discoveries. It's just that some people fancy themselves above others and that they dont need to obey the rules. Spammers will always spam there is no way around it. They spam cause its who they are. Many forums have implemented the ranking system so that people can give eachother points for good posting or bad posts for spamming to alert admins. It would definitely help in the fight of spammers/flammers.

On a slightly different note I find some of the longer threads slightly annoying trying to read all the posts. I dont have any examples offhand but I dont have an half an hour to waste reading a 10-20 page thread. It would be very nice if we could somehow summarize longer threads to keep people up to date so they dont say the same thing twice.

[Cid Highwind]

Debate threads only work if people are mature about it and there is absolutely no e-peen involved (There is alot of that here btw). That's the way I see it and it's as simple as that.
Oh come on, just take a look at the huge amount of immature posts that were made in the homosexuality debate, complete uninformed BS.

Most of them should take heed of Silenus' words.

Or as we would say: If ye don't have anything useful to say, just don't say anything at all.

[MT]

I hope you guys can get a solution to that 'cause debate threads can be very informative.
Indeed, I learn a lot reading them. :)

[JanusX]

I really miss the debates, especially when Boltz and Proto were around..

[Syed Fawad]

There is nothing wrong with debate threads, as long as all the participants respect each other's POV. No flaming, no aggression, no anger and its cool. I'd say yes.....SPECIALLY to console wars :evil:

[Player-X]

I wonder if Boltz and Proto was around how big a percent of this thread would be filled with thier posts

[Proto]

Well... personally I would be delighted to participate more in this thread, but most of what needed to be say has been said already :p Now it's up to do admins to decide what to do...

[Player-X]

It's amusing to see a debate based on the virtues of having debates, I would say starting this thread was totally worth it