The few discussions/debates/threads I've participated in on the OT forum of Dakka have been pretty friendly and I don't feel like anything was very mean spirited. In fact, the discussions here can serve to keep your tools sharp when it comes to debating. What have been your experiences?
The debates are good, however certain posters tend to try and turn the thread in a particular direction if they made a previously incorrect statement in an attempt to cover it up.
Many of the debates quickly become completely bonkers, and end up as impossibly complicated arguments and counter arguments.
Debates vary in terms of intellectual stimulation and entertainment.
Of the debators, there are several who are highly intelligent and logical thinkers. Debating them is not advised as they can quickly turn over your position with numerous fallacies you commit and cause people not accustomed to their levels of knowledge and logic to get frustrated and upset.
There are a few debators who do not actually debate but rather ruin the thought process of the argument by adding in inane arguments, statements, and pictures that undermine the integrity of the thread and ruin what could of been a really good debate.
Then you have a few with heads up their butts who only like their point of view and do not brook any dissent that their position is wrong and will go to great lengths to debate how they are right and everyone else is wrong.
The majority however fall inbetween the extremes and can hold stimulating debates and sometimes goof off inbetween. These make a thread fun and interesting and informative to read.
As for why I do not mention names: you decide who is who and what is what for it is not my realm to decide. It is opinion true, but I am keep my thoughts to myself on this matter save for what I have said already.
DarkAngelHopeful wrote:The few discussions/debates/threads I've participated in on the OT forum of Dakka have been pretty friendly and I don't feel like anything was very mean spirited. In fact, the discussions here can serve to keep your tools sharp when it comes to debating. What have been your experiences?
I would like to direct you to have a browse through some of the locked threads! Things can get pretty heated round these parts.
dogma wrote:My suspicion is that your willingness to read a thread will correlate negatively with the degree to which you will disparage it.
Literature threads, and those about film can get quite volatile.
The most volatile forum on the site is 'You Make Da Call' - it's ridiculous. People just flat-out insulting each other over their interpretations of 40k rules.
ShumaGorath wrote:It would be better if we had more active resident mods, or at least if they didn't drag topics into trolldom themselves so often.
That actually brings up a very interesting point, as there are some mods who treat the OT forum as a joke.
No seriously, here comes criticism of moderators.
The standard for what can and cannot be acceptable in the OT forum is low. So long as you are nice and stay on topic, things are okay.
However, you may get a WHOLE page where moderators derail the whole topic BY THEMSELVES. Wouldn't it be prudent not to engage in such behavior if you have to close threads because others behave that way?
Of course Dakka has some fine moderators and they are overall very nice people. I just don't like it when they have to intervene in a situation when they do the same thing as those who offended to close a thread.
ShumaGorath wrote:It would be better if we had more active resident mods, or at least if they didn't drag topics into trolldom themselves so often.
Pft! You're like the kid who blames his parents for going away for the weekend because all he ate was Cheetos the whole time and now he feels sick.
There's food in the fridge, Shuma! Your parents being away is just an excuse! You just ate those Cheetos because they tasted good, didn't you? ADMIT IT!
WarOne wrote:
Hey, you don't get to lower yourself to our level Dogma! Your like a Harvard gradjuate or sumthin'.
*forgets to duck*
You got that from Vickers. Work in Essex County, page 421? Yeah, I read that too.
The sad thing about a guy like you is that in about 50 years you might start doin' some thinkin' on your own and by then you'll realize there are only two certainties in life:
1) Don't do that.
2) You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda' picked up for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.
ShumaGorath wrote:It would be better if we had more active resident mods, or at least if they didn't drag topics into trolldom themselves so often.
Pft! You're like the kid who blames his parents for going away for the weekend because all he ate was Cheetos the whole time and now he feels sick.
There's food in the fridge, Shuma! Your parents being away is just an excuse! You just ate those Cheetos because they tasted good, didn't you? ADMIT IT!
No, I'm blaming the parents for getting hammered and trashing the house, then acting surprised or disappointed when their kids do the same. Also I like Doritoes, not Cheetos.
ShumaGorath wrote:It would be better if we had more active resident mods, or at least if they didn't drag topics into trolldom themselves so often.
Pft! You're like the kid who blames his parents for going away for the weekend because all he ate was Cheetos the whole time and now he feels sick.
There's food in the fridge, Shuma! Your parents being away is just an excuse! You just ate those Cheetos because they tasted good, didn't you? ADMIT IT!
No, I'm blaming the parents for getting hammered and trashing the house, then acting surprised or disappointed when their kids do the same. Also I like Doritoes, not Cheetos.
Yeah, I prefer Doritos. With a lovely bit of hoummous.
You got that from Vickers. Work in Essex County, page 421? Yeah, I read that too.
The sad thing about a guy like you is that in about 50 years you might start doin' some thinkin' on your own and by then you'll realize there are only two certainties in life:
1) Don't do that.
2) You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda' picked up for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.
WarOne wrote:
Hey, you don't get to lower yourself to our level Dogma! Your like a Harvard gradjuate or sumthin'.
*forgets to duck*
You got that from Vickers. Work in Essex County, page 421? Yeah, I read that too.
The sad thing about a guy like you is that in about 50 years you might start doin' some thinkin' on your own and by then you'll realize there are only two certainties in life:
1) Don't do that.
2) You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda' picked up for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.
I do plenty of thinking on my own, thank you. I've already come to two conclusions that didn't take 50 years :
1) Don't debate dogma.
2) if you do enter a debate and correct me, just accept it and move on since it is not worth the time to correct you since you are probably right and I am wrong.
WarOne wrote:
I do plenty of thinking on my own, thank you. I've already come to two conclusions that didn't take 50 years :
1) Don't debate dogma.
2) if you do enter a debate and correct me, just accept it and move on since it is not worth the time to correct you since you are probably right and I am wrong.
I don't often know whether or not people pick up on my pop-culture references, so I'll just be clear so that it doesn't seem like I was being mocking.
Eh OT is ok. I couldn't be bothered with half of the topics.
Mostly because they only matter to the Americans or British. Once in a awhile I come in to talk about the finer things in life aside from Warhammer 40k.
Shadowbrand wrote:Eh OT is ok. I couldn't be bothered with half of the topics.
Mostly because they only matter to the Americans or British. Once in a awhile I come in to talk about the finer things in life aside from Warhammer 40k.
America kinda matters to us since it's decline will drag us down. As long as they keep screwing up and doing stupid things then we'll be hurt by it.
I used to post a lot in the OT, but I seldom do any more. Part of it was my general Dakka Exile (some of which was due to banning, but most of which was spite), but I think that most of it is simply not seeing any point to it. There are people more knowledgeable than me in nearly any area, and those less knowledgeable as a general rule have little interest in actually learning or changing their mind.
My suggestion is that you refrain from visiting the OT if it really bothers you that much, Darth Bob. It isn't all that hard to do.
I enjoy the OT, but I should take more time to find interesting threads in other forums. At some point I will get back into modeling so I can start or renew one of my older blog threads. At any rate, I find that this is a good forum for general what-not, even if I could probably find dedicated forums for each of the topics covered here. I'd rather not, as I quite like most of the regulars throughout most of Dakka.
Darth Bob wrote:The Dakka OT forum is a cesspool of know-it-alls, know-nothings, and I Can Haz Cheesburger pictures.
^^THIS x 1,000,000,000,000
I'm a total know-nothing and you had me at know-it-alls. In celebration, I will go off on a I Can Haz Cheesburger derivative tangent and post the song that goes through my head when I read certain posts...
The offtopic forum is like most of the internet, you're talking about stuff with people you don't really know, and that frees people up from some of the rules of real life conversation. But the OT forums here tends to be pretty good natured, so while there are plenty of arguments you don't often see people carrying those arguments into other threads, most users seem to have a pretty good approach to the forum.
Polonius wrote:I used to post a lot in the OT, but I seldom do any more. Part of it was my general Dakka Exile (some of which was due to banning, but most of which was spite), but I think that most of it is simply not seeing any point to it. There are people more knowledgeable than me in nearly any area, and those less knowledgeable as a general rule have little interest in actually learning or changing their mind.
For what it's worth, I always liked your contributions.
WarOne wrote:
There are a few debators who do not actually debate but rather ruin the thought process of the argument by adding in inane arguments, statements, and pictures that undermine the integrity of the thread and ruin what could of been a really good debate.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
WarOne wrote:
ShumaGorath wrote:It would be better if we had more active resident mods, or at least if they didn't drag topics into trolldom themselves so often.
That actually brings up a very interesting point, as there are some mods who treat the OT forum as a joke.
No seriously, here comes criticism of moderators.
The standard for what can and cannot be acceptable in the OT forum is low. So long as you are nice and stay on topic, things are okay.
However, you may get a WHOLE page where moderators derail the whole topic BY THEMSELVES. Wouldn't it be prudent not to engage in such behavior if you have to close threads because others behave that way?
Of course Dakka has some fine moderators and they are overall very nice people. I just don't like it when they have to intervene in a situation when they do the same thing as those who offended to close a thread.
*does not duck on purpose*
Many of the Moderators would rather eliminate the OT Zone as it generates reports not attendant to playing of toy soldiers.
Other Moderators post here regularly as they were posters before they were moderators.
Some Mods correctly view this as the OT Zone, which is not necessarily the place for heavy and scathing attacks. After all, the latest religion sucks thread is generally right above the I have an itch thread. The OT is viewed as flypaper to keep some of you crazies away from the good folk of the other directories. OT the smelly biker bar at the end of the street that keeps the bikers away from the rest of the citizenry. Killkrazy just wants to bend the OT to his nefarious sweater wearing purposes.
In my experience most people will list most environments in which they find arguments to be politically, socially, or culturally 'opposite' of themselves. The thing is, its often pretty difficult to tell how people identify, unless they're like Frazzled and some others that wear their core beliefs on their sleeve.
Henners91 wrote:Dakka lists sharply to the right I find.
The difference between Dakka and other sites that I've seen is that it's not openly hostile to Conservative ideology, so that might be throwing you off. Other than the occasional troublemaker I think that all viewpoints are allowed to represented which makes for pretty decent discussion every now and then.
There is a good mix of views in the OT. The only mod that regularly polices the OT is pretty sharply right wing with a penchant for emotional reactions to issues. The ramifications of that are left as an exercise to the reader.
Polonius wrote:There is a good mix of views in the OT. The only mod that regularly polices the OT is pretty sharply right wing with a penchant for emotional reactions to issues. The ramifications of that are left as an exercise to the reader.
Still, I don't feel like he "moderates" according to his beliefs. As long as you're behaving you can say whatever you want.
As someone left of centre, I do feel somewhat a minority in the political discussions from time to time. Perhaps it's just some of the right wingers being fairly outspoken and not polite, decent, socially compassionate and patient folks like myself.
Polonius, you got banned?! Woah, when?
(Perhaps you'd rather not post about it, but that suprised me!)
I always enjoyed your contributions too. I like reading the OT as long as it doesn't devolve into quote fest arguments. I like well structured posts with good english (I'm not great at it, myself, but I know it when I see it ) and you get a fair bit of that here. A lot of posters put effort into their posts too, and that's cool. And you get a wide spectrum of opinion, that can make you think.
On the attacks side of things, it used to be a lot worse, mainly due to a couple of personalities clashing with each other. It seems mellow these days.
There are a few threads that have made me use the ol' noggin, and I find that conversations here are often more intelligent (or at least more polite) than forums dedicated to actual intelligent stuff. Not that wargaming isn't intelligent.
For example the Blood Dolphins thread was a great well mannered and invigorating debate until it sorta went off track and devolved into "My logic beats your logic." "No it doesn't!" "You're stupid!"
rubiksnoob wrote:There are a few threads that have made me use the ol' noggin, and I find that conversations here are often more intelligent (or at least more polite) than forums dedicated to actual intelligent stuff. Not that wargaming isn't intelligent.
For example the Blood Dolphins thread was a great well mannered and invigorating debate until it sorta went off track and devolved into "My logic beats your logic." "No it doesn't!" "You're stupid!"
Da Boss wrote:Polonius, you got banned?! Woah, when?
(Perhaps you'd rather not post about it, but that suprised me!)
I always enjoyed your contributions too. I like reading the OT as long as it doesn't devolve into quote fest arguments. I like well structured posts with good english (I'm not great at it, myself, but I know it when I see it ) and you get a fair bit of that here. A lot of posters put effort into their posts too, and that's cool. And you get a wide spectrum of opinion, that can make you think.
On the attacks side of things, it used to be a lot worse, mainly due to a couple of personalities clashing with each other. It seems mellow these days.
I was chided via PM for a post that I felt wasn't out of line. I informed the mod that I wasn't going to listen to him in an obscene manner, which bought me a week in the box. I appealed to yak, because while immature what I said was via PM and I've seen some pretty rough stuff get posted in the open forum. Yak, as is his wont, gave the traditional long winded, well meaning response which when boiled down to it's essence read "I don't care about you enough to do anything."
So I spent a few months wandering around, and realized that there really aren't any better forums out there, so I came back, fully realizing that quality posting is of no value to the mods or admins.
Well in his defense Odin the Allfather is busy with many requests. Watching the fate of the world from his golden throne requires great concentration. Odin, er Yakface, quickly affirmed you were neither giant nor dwarf nor troll and therefor had to move on.
Frazzled wrote:Well in his defense Odin the Allfather is busy with many requests. Watching the fate of the world from his golden throne requires great concentration. Odin, er Yakface, quickly affirmed you were neither giant nor dwarf nor troll and therefor had to move on.
And you didn't have the name of a James Bond villian slapped on you somewhere or a gimmick that would identify you as such. Also, not a hot chick with a suggestive name either.
rubiksnoob wrote:There are a few threads that have made me use the ol' noggin, and I find that conversations here are often more intelligent (or at least more polite) than forums dedicated to actual intelligent stuff. Not that wargaming isn't intelligent.
For example the Blood Dolphins thread was a great well mannered and invigorating debate until it sorta went off track and devolved into "My logic beats your logic." "No it doesn't!" "You're stupid!"
I miss him too.
I was wondering where gailbraithe went. Is he coming back?
Orkeosaurus wrote:Gailbraithe has left our capitalistic civilization, to be one with his brothers, the wolves. But he will always be with us in our hearts.
I just figured maybe his girlfriend left him and he started drinking, as he had been on board for awhile and then it was like, Blam!, double barreled gak machine gun. I thought he was just letting off some steam. I enjoyed the spectacle.
If he's lurking, god luck with your writing and painting service.
Although as to why he posted links to them in a thread about politics. . .
If you were as deep as he is you would understand.
Khornholio wrote:If he's lurking, god luck with your writing and painting service.
Quoted for Truth.
I never did understand why he was so angry. I mean gak, Albatross hasn't a clue about what he's talking about half the time and I don't feel the need to flame him about it.
Polonius wrote:So I spent a few months wandering around, and realized that there really aren't any better forums out there, so I came back, fully realizing that quality posting is of no value to the mods or admins.
True.
Edit: I figure I might add that the Off-Topic forum can be best characterized as what comes out of the hind end of a bull. It's irrelevant to intelligent discourse, but has to go somewhere.
Well, it is done. Please stop by the "We miss you Gailbraithe" thread and pay your respects to dakka's prodigal son. Someday he will return to us and all shall rejoice.
Khornholio wrote:If he's lurking, god luck with your writing and painting service.
Quoted for Truth.
I never did understand why he was so angry. I mean gak, Albatross hasn't a clue about what he's talking about half the time and I don't feel the need to flame him about it.
/ducks
You're fething dead.
I'm gonna spend your lunch-money on crack, and I'm gonna smoke it with your mother.
Monster Rain wrote:I think there should be a Frazzled alert button.
Some things require his specific attention.
All you have to do is turn on the weiner dog spot light on top of City Hall.
Top Ten Reasons We Miss Galbreathe? Galby's gone? What day is Wednesday again?
MeanGreenStompa wrote:As someone left of centre, I do feel somewhat a minority in the political discussions from time to time. Perhaps it's just some of the right wingers being fairly outspoken and not polite, decent, socially compassionate and patient folks like myself.
MeanGreenStompa wrote:As someone left of centre, I do feel somewhat a minority in the political discussions from time to time. Perhaps it's just some of the right wingers being fairly outspoken and not polite, decent, socially compassionate and patient folks like myself.
I've seen flatter. There was this chick who used to cosplay Misty at Pokemon tournaments who would always hit on me when I was younger. She had the flattest chest ever.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I've seen flatter. There was this chick who used to cosplay Misty at Pokemon tournaments who would always hit on me when I was younger. She had the flattest chest ever.
Wait wait wait...
Did you really just complain about a girl hitting on you?!?!?
Ugh. Been through this already. I got standards, boy, and I hope you have some too, unless you like really needy fat chicks. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that.
Edit: I had a girlfriend at the time of that thread. How odd Seems like it was much longer ago.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Ugh. Been through this already. I got standards, boy, and I hope you have some too, unless you like really needy fat chicks. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that.
Edit: I had a girlfriend at the time of that thread. How odd Seems like it was much longer ago.
Heh, opportunity to make inappropriate joke is inappropriate. >.>
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Ugh. Been through this already. I got standards, boy, and I hope you have some too, unless you like really needy fat chicks. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that.
Edit: I had a girlfriend at the time of that thread. How odd Seems like it was much longer ago.
See Alby...that's how it starts,this thread will now inevitably turn ugly.....good job 
:
.
) and you get a fair bit of that here. A lot of posters put effort into their posts too, and that's cool. And you get a wide spectrum of opinion, that can make you think.
it Frazzled, your starting to rub off on me!
I got standards, boy, and I hope you have some too, unless you like really needy fat chicks. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that.