The Debate Thread 2.0

[Eagle4]

Please post serious posts only.

O.K, first of all, a huge thanks to mattj for persuading me to create this thread again in a more suitable, mature manner. For those who disagree with the concept of this thread, please do not post telling me that you don't like it. It helps no one.

I decided to create this thread because many people actually thought the previous debate thread was a good idea. All it needed was a little tweaking, and reasoning behind the thread. Well, here's the reason: I wanted a more serious thread where we can discuss certain topics with robust, solid points which are for or against the topic chosen (Feel free to PM me if you want to suggest a new topic).

I didn't want the generic type of thread where there's only one topic and the discussion is lacking some more refined arguments. By use of polls, we can actually come to an agreement on the topic/statement in question, and so arguments aren't scattered, but agreed upon.

I also don't want my reputation to hinder the chances of this thread becoming active; don't think "Oh, this is that numpty Eagle4, so this is a troll thread and we should lock it". Of course I want to change, I want to become a prominent yet respected member of the community, so my journey to that goal starts here.

Hopefully this thread is a common feature in the forum, and is posted on regularly as to keep the argument going. For that reason, each debate has a period of only one week. This is to not let the debate die down. If I feel that a longer time period needs to be added, that will be added.

Once the debate has finished, a poll will go up for a period of one week also. That poll will be titled with the statement/question which is the topic for the debate, followed by the options "Yes", "No", or "Undecided". If the Yes and No options have only 5 votes between them, then the topic is undecided. I suggest reading through the arguments before voting; strong points from members of the community could alter your decision.

Without further ado, the topic which will be debated on is:

How can we have a Debate Thread/Section on Smogon?

Deadline: 17th November 11:00

Sources:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3473016

In this instance, there will be a poll with different options such as "We can't", "It has to be moderated", and "Create a new forum".
This topic is just to get the debate thread going so it is serious enough for proper discussion.

Discuss.

 

[zorbees]

Change of plans:

The new topic is: Who would win in a fight to the death, Ron Paul or Bill O'Reilly?

 

[Eagle4]

Change of plans:

The new topic is: Who would win in a fight to the death, Ron Paul or Bill O'Reilly?

I know you're just trying to be funny, but I want this thread to be a little more serious than the common forum thread.

 

[billymills]

My two problems with this type of thread: You chose all the topics, and you want to make 1 thread for all types of debates.

I have no problem with debate threads and I would certainly post in most of them, but they should be separated or at least extremely well organised (link in the opening post where each debate ends and begins, set strict time deadlines, etc.) and moderated to ensure discussions do not go overtime. Chances are, when one topic ends, people will still want to debate it.

The problem I have with you selecting the topic is that it you've stated it in the same way I would expect a high school essay to be stated. No one here wants to do your homework. If you want to introduce a topic yourself, introduce it. Give us an article to look at, give us a story, give us a fake story. Otherwise provide some sort of method for the community to decide each topic to debate.

 

[Eagle4]

My two problems with this type of thread: You chose all the topics, and you want to make 1 thread for all types of debates.

I have no problem with debate threads and I would certainly post in most of them, but they should be separated or at least extremely well organised (link in the opening post where each debate ends and begins, set strict time deadlines, etc.) and moderated to ensure discussions do not go overtime. Chances are, when one topic ends, people will still want to debate it.

The problem I have with you selecting the topic is that it you've stated it in the same way I would expect a high school essay to be stated. No one here wants to do your homework. If you want to introduce a topic yourself, introduce it. Give us an article to look at, give us a story, give us a fake story. Otherwise provide some sort of method for the community to decide each topic to debate.

Hmm, I understand what you're saying, but I disagree with some of your points. The reason this thread isn't seperated is because I wanted to provide a unique form of debating which isn't the generic, unlimited-time thread. If you disagree with my choice in debate thread style, as will many other people, then don't post. From the last debate thread, I understand that some people did agree with this thread method.

Yes, many people could want to still debate the topic after the deadline. That could be a problem, but I feel you're not giving this thread a chance. I people do decide to debate overtime, then I'll add comments on my opening post, tellig people to ignore those particular posts.

I'm not sure if you were joking or not, but this topic isn't for homework. I myself love debating (usually as a strong Atheist) and see debating as a form of enjoyment. I have already stated that I'll listen to PMs, giving suggestions for future topics.

Nevertheless, thanks for your feedback/constructive criticism. I will add a strict deadline to the date of which the topic finishes, and some sources for inspiration.

 

[zorbees]

I know you're just trying to be funny, but I want this thread to be a little more serious than the common forum thread.

maybe we should start with this then:

Debate: Should this thread be more serious than the common forum thread?

 

[BattleStar]

I am all for civil, educated debate threads. Eagle4 I see is a good poster and I thinks it's his intention for us to have a debate thread( not saying some thinks he is not). Though I agree with billymills here. The key to success is organization. I also agree with the choice of topic, perhaps some how a topic should be reached by mutual community agreement.

I actually have a suggestion and a prediction of of this debate thread.

Hide

We should debate in how to have a debate thread/section on smogon.

 

[Eagle4]

BattleStar, thank you for your suggestion. I feel it's perfect and I was blind not to see it in the first place. I'm adding it now.

 

[DM]

“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.” - Robert Frost

Mr. Frost sums up my opinions on this topic quite succinctly. I am 100% for assisted suicide, and I feel that Dr. Kevorkian was doing good work that was helping people.

I almost just said "with the proper safeguards in place, assisted suicide could become a widely accepted practice," but I realized I don't even believe that. There should be no blockage. If I wanted to right now, I could get in my car and drive down the street into oncoming traffic at 80mph, and there's little anyone could do to stop me. Or, I could drive up to the Skyway, get out of my car and jump off to my death. Or, if I'm patient, I could borrow a gun from a friend (I know plenty of hunters) and shoot myself.

My point here is that if someone is going to kill themselves, there is absolutely nothing anyone else can do about it once they've made that decision. If a grown adult (okay, one safeguard: don't allow minors this right) wants to end their own life, I say we must respect that decision. Rather than forcing them to do it in a manner that A. is violent toward their body, B. is extremely traumatic to their loved ones, and C. creates work for others (firemen, policemen, paramedics), they should be allowed to end their own life in a controlled environment according to their own wishes.

In the health care proxy that I recently executed, I have a living will stating that should I be in a situation where I am beyond saving (according to two doctors) and am only kept alive with feeding tubes or artificial breathing, I wish to be taken off those life-preserving measures so that I may die. How is assisted suicide any different for someone who is dying of a disease that makes every waking second for them a painful, agonizing eternity? The compassionate resolution would be to let them end their own suffering, however they wish.

Suicide is a very touchy subject. Please do not read this post and think I am taking a flippant attitude when it comes to people killing themselves. I have know multiple people who have killed themselves, and numerous others that have tried. But I have formed these views over the years of watching the world, and I do not come to these conclusions lightly.

 

[xenu]

what happened to "treat serious threads the way they deserve to be treated"?

anyway the real reason we can't have debates in this forum is because of this whole system of opportunist clusterfuckery that rears its ugly head every time a serious/debate/non-"hey look at this tumblr i found" thread comes up; veteran and upstart users alike participate in some sort of inane ritual that involves posting shitty puns/one-liners/photoshops that dilutes the overall quality of the thread and more often than not, derails it. i really don't know why most smogoners are taken in by low-effort humor, especially when most of them (a forumers especially) put on this whole effete "keen sense" of user quality; users branded "bad" are made scapegoats for the apparent nosedive in post quality that has been afflicting this forum, even though the culprit is usually the shitty posts of their prosecutors.

don't get me wrong, though. i'm all for witticisms, puns and sarcasm but they have their time and place. just because a few derailed threads have ended up better than their original intents doesn't mean the users responsible for said derails should be given the carte blanche to treat every other thread in the same manner, because then a forum becomes nothing more than a bigger circlejerk than it already is.

tl;dr the reward system here is totally fucked up but "oh well".

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I know this has been brought up a thousand and one times, but it seems rather apparent that smogon should have a debate forum. People want to have a legitament discussion, but it just ends up turning into a stupid cesspool of witty remarks and terrible puns because it takes place in the same forum of just random shit, it is really tempting to do this in such a forum, I admit I have done it myself a few times. A forum put to the side would put a little bit of a firewall between these people and those threads, that one extra click can really stop casual trolling from happening. Its the same reason there is an off the side sports forum, or an entirely separated section for rate my teams and making analyses for this such purpose.

I do realize there have been issues with such forums in the past, due to what I can gather was moderation problems. This was clearly much before my time, so it would be appreciated if someone can maybe tell us why the past debate forums haven't worked and why. Maybe we can learn from these mistakes, just because something fails doesn't mean you give it up forever.

That's just my take on debates on forums if you want to do it right, I don't really see how else it could be done without serious moderation.

 

[popemobile]

we should call it the fire debot forum

 

[Vintage Books]

i am not sure how you can put a poll with just yes/no/undecided for this topic. It isn't really a proper debate topic, which is generally an opinion where people debate in agreement or disagreement of said topic.

How can we have a Debate Thread/Section on Smogon?

I agree/disagree doesn't really make much sense here.

if you want this thread to work try picking a debate topic that will actually spark interest among users.

 

[Minwu]

Is it okay to be gay?

 

[DM]

Why are we debating if we can debate? I think I just made a great post going to the original Assisted Suicide topic, but rather than talk about that subject, you'd all rather talk about whether we can talk about that subject?

If you want serious threads, start serious threads. If there are shitty/non-serious posts, they will be taken care of, and if they're not, PM someone to take care of it. This isn't rocket science.

 

[billymills]

Assisted suicide is ok in some situations but there needs to be safeguards in place to ensure it doesn't get abused. Whether or not the safeguards are possible or sufficient seems to be the primary debate.

I don't think any of us is in a position to argue the actual legal, medical and psychological specifics required to implement assisted suicide safely. I think an unfocused debate on the topic will get us nowhere.

That said, I think the new topic that was decided upon is far more interesting. I'll probably see a few other opinions before posting about it though.

 

[faint]

Why are we debating if we can debate? I think I just made a great post going to the original Assisted Suicide topic, but rather than talk about that subject, you'd all rather talk about whether we can talk about that subject?

If you want serious threads, start serious threads. If there are shitty/non-serious posts, they will be taken care of, and if they're not, PM someone to take care of it. This isn't rocket science.

DM, I believe the OP requested that we chose the topic each week. Apparently, until the 17th, the topic is "How can we have a Debate Thread/Section on Smogon?" I believe the posts you're referring to are actually on topic and that you may have misunderstood. If we all just post opinions on touchy subjects this thread will turn to shit. There will be no way to know when a debate is over, when we can start a new debate, etc. If we are going by OP's rules then we could always use your assisted suicide topic for next week.

what happened to "treat serious threads the way they deserve to be treated"?

anyway the real reason we can't have debates in this forum is because of this whole system of opportunist clusterfuckery that rears its ugly head every time a serious/debate/non-"hey look at this tumblr i found" thread comes up; veteran and upstart users alike participate in some sort of inane ritual that involves posting shitty puns/one-liners/photoshops that dilutes the overall quality of the thread and more often than not, derails it. i really don't know why most smogoners are taken in by low-effort humor, especially when most of them (a forumers especially) put on this whole effete "keen sense" of user quality; users branded "bad" are made scapegoats for the apparent nosedive in post quality that has been afflicting this forum, even though the culprit is usually the shitty posts of their prosecutors.

don't get me wrong, though. i'm all for witticisms, puns and sarcasm but they have their time and place. just because a few derailed threads have ended up better than their original intents doesn't mean the users responsible for said derails should be given the carte blanche to treat every other thread in the same manner, because then a forum becomes nothing more than a bigger circlejerk than it already is.

tl;dr the reward system here is totally fucked up but "oh well".

Yes, your post sums up this forum. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not one of those posters because I am. The problem is that many of us (including myself) are accustomed to this forum consisting of fun, light topics.

Yes, there is a rule that claims treat serious threads the way they deserve to be trated, but sometimes you can't tell. Look at the religion thread made by Mysterious Tamer. Just looking at it I assumed it was a troll. I believe a poster even pointed out my exact thoughts, "i came into this thread expecting a spambot." When we do have serious threads, we generally expect them to be by somewhat educated and respected members. I recently made a thread titled "The Personal Hygiene Thread." If you didn't know about my history as a poster, you would think it's real. But if you know me, you would know it was a joke. Still some people actually made some legitimate posts in that thread, regardless of if they knew it was a joke or not.

Regarding branding posters as "bad," yeah that's common. Without listing names I can mention people who I thought were pretty bad posters and I'm glad some of them are gone. But at the same time many may feel that way about me. Personally I think it comes back to what I expect from this forum. If you remember firebot, it's subtitle used to recommend lurking more before posting here. I remember when I joined this forum I never went to firebot. I felt I needed a decent amount of posts and recognition before I could get my post taken seriously (lol) in a thread. Maybe I expect the same thing from new posters posting here. Yes, we don't have a mention of "lurk moar" and what not, but at the same time I don't expect new users to go right to this forum when most people join smogon for pokemon related business.

Many mods and admins I've talked to already weighed this opinion in on this issue, but I'm all for bringing back cong and firebot. It allowed us to know the difference between a serious thread and a joke thread. That doesn't mean trolling was "allowed" in firebot, but you can easily get away with posting a 1-liner, gif, or w/e unrelated post you had relating to the op and walk away. Cong had relaxed rules in a way too, but generally the threads there were far more serious. If you wanted info on something, you would go there. If you wanted to start a discussion about a similar interest, you would go there. The problem is that when the two merged, and became a forum, it's much harder to tell the difference between these kinds of threads. Some are obvious, yes, but others like I said are not.

Since this post can be seen as somewhat off-topic, consider my answer to this weeks question to be "bring back cong/firebot, or some type of sub forum." I always thought the creation of a separate sub forum for gaming / tv and the like would be a good idea, and could work similarly to how internet renaissance once did. It would clean up this forum by taking any gaming, tv, anime etc related threads out and giving them a place where only people that are interested in them would go. Pretty much a sports subforum for those kinds of subjects. The problem with the hybrid system that we have now is that it needs to be highly moderated in order for it to work. People are still going to joke around in serious threads because they know they can, and unless the OP makes it clear that he wants the thread to be taken seriously, there's no reason why they shouldn't do as they please.

Regardless, Xenu, I think you made a great post.

 

[DM]

DM, I believe the OP requested that we chose the topic each week. Apparently, until the 17th, the topic is "How can we have a Debate Thread/Section on Smogon?" I believe the posts you're referring to are actually on topic and that you may have misunderstood. If we all just post opinions on touchy subjects this thread will turn to shit. There will be no way to know when a debate is over, when we can start a new debate, etc. If we are going by OP's rules then we could always use your assisted suicide topic for next week.

Ahh, my mistake. The OP has been edited a few times, I guess I got confused because it used to say assisted suicide was the topic.

EDIT: The rest of your post is fantastic too, I couldn't agree more. I was against the merge when it happened, and continue to be to this day.