Scratch

cheddargirl wrote:

ScratchReallyROCKS wrote:

I love myself a good argument. Not just pointless bickering.

EDIT: let me rephrase that. Although they may seem the same, bickering is definitely not the same as debating. They're both arguments of their own type, bit they are not at all the same. It seems like everyone who has disagreed to this idea has been horribly mistaken on that part. A debate is a way to express your side of an issue, by finding weak points in the statements of others on theirs. Bickering, on the other hand, has no good reason, and participants usually accuse each other and are disrespectul. I hope that helped.

You probably didn't see the thread which sparked this topic, (it was closed due to the fact that it was getting close to being a religious flame war).

The sad reality here is that debate topics on the Scratch Forums, even with the intent on not wanting to start bickering, often usually turns into bickering and flames very quickly (especially with "trigger" topics like religion and politics) - hence why they're usually closed so very quickly if it's determined if they are likely to turn into a bad argument very quickly.

I think I might have seen that topic.

RocksAndFire wrote:

And your argument wasn't "Clean." People could be offended because of it.

Example?

Blade-Edge wrote:

If you can't see it yourself, you must not have a good sense of the term clean argument
It means free from biased comments, not just nice with no negativity

I've looked into these things. As long as there is free will, there will be biased statements.

Nodear wrote:

I hope this one doesn't get chlosed.

How ironic would that be? 

Nexstudent wrote:

I think that there should be a friendly debate section about world problems. It would be cool, but it would be best if you had to be reviewed before being allowed to use it, due to flaming issues.

To me that sort of board is just a magnet for flame wars. It's easy to slip into personal attacks, inappropriate or inaccurate statements, or general insults that will splinter the community. At the end of the day, while we are a community that has much more to discuss than Scratch, these forums were never intended for this sort of topic.

I'm taking a class in debate this trimester and the debate format that encompasses religion and morals, etc. is called "value" or "Lincoln-Douglas" debate. It's difficult to build a case for this sort of debate because you have to judge the worth of something, rather than simply suggest a course of action. If you think you've seen flame wars on the internet, you should see my debate class trying to stay on topic during LD debate.

On the other hand, it seems we are having an LD debate right now (Free Speech vs. Respectfulness or perhaps Free Speech vs. Moderator Sleepy Time). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as we don't start flaming each other :D ) I just don't think topics, much less whole forum sections, should be devoted to argument.

I believe that it's bad to discourage debate.  But this could be interpreted as either "Only close down the arguments that have turned into pointless bickering" or "Don't close any arguments."  There is a difference, as ScratchReallyROCKS said, between bickering and debate.  And I'm going to spell it out a bit more clearly:

Bickering:

User1: I'm a Republican because Democrats are stupid.
User2: Well, I'm a Democrat because Republicans are idiots.

Debate:

User1: I lean more towards the Republicans because I agree with more of the views of Republicans than I do Democrats, for instance...
User2: I'm more of a Democrat because I believe that their views are more beneficial for the growth of America than those of Republicans, for one thing...

See?

I encourage debate.

[trollresponse]Cool story, bro[/trollresponse]

Last edited by BEXtraordinary (2010-10-28 15:59:47)