Making the Clean Debate Zone a section, with separate Forums

[Dogmaphobe]

Given your chosen avatar... I can absolutely understand your confusion on those two things.

To be perfectly fair, it really isn't just those two things.

It is every other conceivable thing as well.

 

[flacaltenn]

I've suggested this before, and how it's been done in another site, but apparently my thread was deleted for linking to the other site. So no links this time, but hoping that we could have more forums in the Clean Debate Zone. So for instance, a "Current Events" forum exclusively for the CD Zone.

The idea is to have discussions that don't have so much acrimony in them.

Most ANY topic is welcome in the CDZ with some exceptions. But the general vibe is that it has to avoid "retail politics" and "current events" where there is nothing solid or true to discuss.. Topics in CDZ should be proposed as a simple debate with MORE EFFORT in laying out the Opening Posts to frame that debate.

Current Events is problematic for CDZ.. Because "breaking news" is a victim of poor journalism practices now killing ALL debate in this country.. And SPECULATION and BAD or extremely partisan reporting ruins any chance of civil debate surviving the 1st page of replies..

Not saying you cant do "hot topics" like politics or religion or race there.. Just sayin' the PREFACE for the discussion has to meatier and RESEARCHABLE.. And ANY stuff from the current news cycle just is NOT that way..

Clever people can frame CDZ discussions around the "broader implications" of current events and daily political outrages...

Can you point to a CDZ thread that you think has done this preface properly? It's easy to give vague ideas as to how threads should be done, harder to point to a specific example where one thinks it has actually been done.

I'm finding what's working for me is to try to remind people that the CD Zone is meant to have cleaner debates and am also trying to point out that attacking each other detracts from focusing on the evidence.

I think what I said is pretty clear... Its not a RULE per se, but our policy for CDZ after seeing what works for "clean debate" and what never will..

Same way topics are chosen for competitive debate. To encourage research and know both sides of the issue... NONE of that available with the basis being a current news cycle story.. MAYBE 25 years ago, you'd get definitive who,what,where,why,evidence reporting with minimum spin and mutilation of truth and facts -- but no more of that..

ANECDOTAL stories are not CDZ material, because debates are NEVER WON on anecdotes -- for instance... You got to build a case and know BOTH sides of issue to HAVE a civil debate..

Guess they haven't taught any of this in 30 years or so...

 

[phoenyx]

I've suggested this before, and how it's been done in another site, but apparently my thread was deleted for linking to the other site. So no links this time, but hoping that we could have more forums in the Clean Debate Zone. So for instance, a "Current Events" forum exclusively for the CD Zone.

The idea is to have discussions that don't have so much acrimony in them.

Most ANY topic is welcome in the CDZ with some exceptions. But the general vibe is that it has to avoid "retail politics" and "current events" where there is nothing solid or true to discuss.. Topics in CDZ should be proposed as a simple debate with MORE EFFORT in laying out the Opening Posts to frame that debate.

Current Events is problematic for CDZ.. Because "breaking news" is a victim of poor journalism practices now killing ALL debate in this country.. And SPECULATION and BAD or extremely partisan reporting ruins any chance of civil debate surviving the 1st page of replies..

Not saying you cant do "hot topics" like politics or religion or race there.. Just sayin' the PREFACE for the discussion has to meatier and RESEARCHABLE.. And ANY stuff from the current news cycle just is NOT that way..

Clever people can frame CDZ discussions around the "broader implications" of current events and daily political outrages...

Can you point to a CDZ thread that you think has done this preface properly? It's easy to give vague ideas as to how threads should be done, harder to point to a specific example where one thinks it has actually been done.

I'm finding what's working for me is to try to remind people that the CD Zone is meant to have cleaner debates and am also trying to point out that attacking each other detracts from focusing on the evidence.

I think what I said is pretty clear... Its not a RULE per se, but our policy for CDZ after seeing what works for "clean debate" and what never will..

Same way topics are chosen for competitive debate. To encourage research and know both sides of the issue... NONE of that available with the basis being a current news cycle story.. MAYBE 25 years ago, you'd get definitive who,what,where,why,evidence reporting with minimum spin and mutilation of truth and facts -- but no more of that..

ANECDOTAL stories are not CDZ material, because debates are NEVER WON on anecdotes -- for instance... You got to build a case and know BOTH sides of issue to HAVE a civil debate..

Guess they haven't taught any of this in 30 years or so...

What you call anecdotes, I call evidence. If someone dies a few days or even hours after getting a Covid vaccine, that is evidence that suggests that the vaccine may have played a part. Now, as I mentioned, the way I organized this evidence could have been done better, with certain articles grouped together. I'm certainly not a professional at organizing evidence, but as mentioned elsewhere, I had started to do that, making threads for the Johnson and Johnson Vaccine, as well as the Pfizer Vaccine. I'd also made threads for 2 of my most prominent sources, namely Mercola.com and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Children's Health Defense website, as many have criticized them as credible sources of information- those threads could have been places where we could discuss the pros and cons of these sites at length. Consolidation is what you wanted, right? And yet those threads were closed.

 

[phoenyx]

But the general vibe is that it has to avoid "retail politics" and "current events" where there is nothing solid or true to discuss.

This seems more like a viewpoint than a fact.

Not at all. A TWEET for instance should never be the sole basis for a CDZ thread.. Discussing ANY riot based on 1st day media reports should NEVER be the sole topic of a CDZ thread. Hardly ANY long surviving news stories that the MEDIA DID NOT BOTCH in early reporting.. Those should never be the sole topic of a CDZ discussion..

WHY? Because you can not expect Civil Discussion when No one KNOWS nuttin'... Or worst has been fed that partisan blazing hot spoiled sushi that just exists to stir up anger and division... Say like the INITIAL REPORTING on the Covington Kids adventure,. Or the death of Officer Sisnik..

One doesn't have to know much about a subject to have a civil discussion. One just has to commit to respecting one's conversational opponents.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

I saw one post that acted as an invitation to visit a website advertising dietary supplements.

That seems more like product promotion than it does clean debate. I can't think of a discussion group that DOESNT allow its bandwidth to be used for promoting sales at an outside site.