Tangents in Debates

liamconnor · Post by **liamconnor** » Mon Jul 17, 2017 1:37 am

I submit that a major deterrent to argumentative progress and membership here might be the problem of tangents.

A person clicks on a popular topic of, say, Kalam's Cosmological Argument... and finds the conversation for the last five pages has been about N.T. manuscripts. (this is just a hypothetical example).

I submit this is a turn-off for newbies and the casual reader and all people in search of discussion on specific questions. If such a person clicks upon a thread addressed to a question he is interested in, only to find that it turns out to be discussing something he cares little for, he will move on to another forum.

Question: how might the mods of this forum zero in on tangents? It seems the greater part of their work is to issue warnings against personal attacks. This is of course important. But is it more important than moderating a good, linear debate?

After all, how many famous debates are famous because the disputants just went all over the place?

I recommend a new focus.

Post by **otseng** » Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:37 am

Off-topic/tangent responses are against the rules.

4. Stay on the topic of debate. If a topic brings up another issue, start another thread.

You can report a post and select "Post is off-topic" in the report reason.

OnceConvinced · Post by **OnceConvinced** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 4:46 pm

1) Yes, we should avoid going off on tangents if we can, but it gets difficult sometimes. It also is sometimes difficult determining whether someone is going off on a tangent. For them, they may feel what they are discussing is relevant.

2) One thing I would not want to be doing is having to issue comments or warnings every time it happens. We would be doing that all day long.

3) I was really bummed out that the Lions somehow managed to draw their rugby series with the All-Blacks. How the heck did that happen?

bluethread · Post by **bluethread** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 5:45 pm

OnceConvinced wrote:

3) I was really bummed out that the Lions somehow managed to draw their rugby series with the All-Blacks. How the heck did that happen?

"the All-Blacks"! How racist. The mods need to do something about this. By the way where is the "safe space" on this sight?

OnceConvinced · Post by **OnceConvinced** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:29 pm

Well they do have a number of Maori and Pacific Islanders on the team.

I think the problem is that whoever came up with the name "All Blacks" wasn't particularly very creative with their naming. Same with some of our other New Zealand teams like the All-Whites (soccer) and the Tall-Blacks (Basketball).