Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Welcome to Serious Debate, the board where the verbose users are free to speak their mind and where we expect an actual willingness to discuss and debate. But, like with official debates, rules need to be in place to assure a smooth flow of discussion and avoid any unnecessary clutter.

Here on Serious Debate, a couple of our basic site rules will need to be followed more closely. Your lenience is smaller and the moderators will act quicker. Break these and you will risk consequences sooner than on the other boards, which includes getting warned or being suspended. Don't worry, fun is still allowed, but now in moderation. These rules are as follows:

- Keep it relevant.

Make sure that any addition or contribution you make to the threads is relevant to the topic at hand. If you have nothing to say on a particular subject, skip the topic and move on. Should the discussion steer too far away from its original topic, it is adviced to start a seperate thread instead of risking the initial thread to suffer from derailing. Intended derailing can result in consequences. If you want to address a specific individual about personal matters, contact the user privately instead of starting a public discussion.

Similarly, any post that does not include a meaningful addition to the discusion but instead does focus on for example jokes, insults, trolling, single reaction images, or shitposting, is strictly disallowed and may result in direct consequences. It is fine to make a joke, but please don't distract others from the topic and assure you still make a serious contribution to the topic at hand in your post. Moderators may choose to edit and spoiler certain posts, if their contents are deemed to be too distracting.

In the event that someone trolls or shitposts in a thread, don't repeatedly reply to the user as this derails the thread even further. If another user has already called out the user or a moderator has hidden the post, then ignore it and continue discussion as normal. Don’t take the bait, but instead pretend the post doesn’t exist.

- Behave.

A good discussion requires a certain level of maturity and respect towards each other. We want our discussions to appear open and free to any opinion. Disagreements and criticism in a discussion is of course fine, unnecessary mean behavior and insults are not, and therefore will result in consequences for offending users. If you want to address a specific individual about personal matters, contact the user privately instead of starting a public discussion.

If you observe one or multiple people distracting the discussion, try advising them and the flow of discussion in the right direction. Posting insults or harsh criticisms instead can move the discussion further away from its intended topic, and therefore will result in consequences for yourself as well. If the behavior persists, ignore their posts and contact a moderator.

We welcome your opinion here on KYM, but we also welcome line breaks, punctuation, and the use of formatting. Although it is not enforced, please try to keep your posts neat and organized, and refer to the KYM textile guide for ways to make posts less ugly. When dealing with large posts, quote specific sections instead of the complete post. Everyone will appreciate you for it.

That is what it comes down to. The remaining basic site rules still hold an equal value compared to the rest of the website.

If this level of seriousness is not your thing, we advice to instead use our General Board, where the site rules function normally and a more casual tone in discussions is present.

>verbose users

rip or something i guess

To add another guideline:

-Don't take the bait.

In the event that someone posts in a serious debate thread just to shitpost, ten more people replying to the shitposter telling them to go back to riff-raff only derails the thread and harms the discussion more while simultaneously giving the shitposter exactly what they wanted to begin with. If another user has already called out the shitposter or a moderator has hidden the post, then ignore it and continue discussion as normal. Pretend the post doesn't exist.

In regards to keeping it relevant:

Let's say that in a debate, we start with two people very clearly arguing over the issue at hand. But at some moment, a particular aspect of the conversation becomes more discussed upon than the others, and eventually they break off into a full-fledged tangent. Reading these later posts, you wouldn't necessarily know how they fit into the topic unless you went back and saw the progression of the conversation. So- is there any standard for how far away from the main discussion they can drift before they get a warning? Do they get the opportunity to defend themselves if a mod declares they are off-topic, but they don't agree?

And to the verbose/wordy/highly opinionated users: at least try to keep your posts neat. We welcome your opinion here on KYM, but we also welcome line breaks, punctuation, and the use of formatting. Keep your posts neat and organized, and refer to the KYM textile guide for ways to make posts less ugly. RandomMan's post here is a great example of making your thoughts easy to read over and understand, without becoming a daunting wall of text. Everyone will appreciate you for it.

Also:

try advising them and the flow of discussion in the right direction.

I cannot communicate how important the PM system on KYM is here. At no point should a discussion thread become many small, isolated private chats among two or three people. If you have something to say to a single user, send them a private message; the rest of the site does not need to see your discussion. Likewise, do not bring issues from PM's into discussion threads. If you have received a private message/email/tweet/pigeon, you should respond via the same means.

Other than that, good luck and happy arguing!

The general standard I personally hold is that if a debate gets veered off into a tangent to the point where it feels like the two people debating are the only people who can even participate in the thread anymore then I feel the conversation should break off and discussion become more focused on the main topic. Of course, this can vary from mod to mod and I personally am a bit of a stickler about being on-topic (particularly in SD threads). If you feel you were unfairly reprimanded for derailing then you can certainly feel free to defend yourself, but do not do so in the thread and instead contact the mod in question through PM. The key here is making sure the thread is not further derailed by arguing with mods.

As a combination of @Doeoeod and @0.9999…=1's posts: Say two or more users are following a tangent that is related to the topic enough for it to not be off-topic, but other people are not joining the tangent, instead just commenting along side it. Does that need to be moved to PM? If it's technically on-topic, maybe people will join in. At what point do we say they need to just start PMing each other?

For example, say we had a general Transsexual Right's thread where we discussed the obvious. Say Lisa, Poochyena and I got started on a Tangent about the Unisex Bathroom Issue, that starts to span multiple comments, but is, atm, just between us three. Do we take our tangent to PMs? If we are just talking about personal discussion that has nothing to do with the topic or anyone else in the thread, shouldn't that just be called Off-Topic?

I could have sworn I suggested making a sticky for SD months ago and other mods said Nah…

Anyway, I have one more thing to add:

Please don't quote super long posts

This is not a enforced rule but in SD there will likely be more long posts. Please don't press the quote button. It makes a mess of the page.

Especially do not quote a huge post right above you just to say one sentence. People aren't that retarded, they can follow a post from the next without you quoting it.

If you need to addess someone, just use the @ symbol. if you need to quote a specific segment in a post, use the <blockquote> tag

This thread nearly gave me a heart attack. I was worried I accidentally broke a rule because I wasn't diligent enough to track down all the relevant list of rules. Thankfukly, it appears that I haven't, but I'm going to knock on wood just in case.

I haven't consulted with anybody else about this, but I don't think anybody would disagree with this: Sources and Citations would be nice

Especially for OPs or refuters. Sometimes we find posts claiming information that are hard to swallow for some. I know the info mentioned may just be a google search away, but to prevent unnecessary bickering over the validity of some posts it's best to link to a relevant article or reading.

This thread is more of an addition to the site rules because we punish shitposting and off-topic posting harder here than with the other boards. It is unfair to punish harder but not inform users beforehand that we do so.

Therefore "Don't take the bait" is probably more an advice to give to posters than much of a rule, as it isn't covered elsewhere.

But regardless, a good description. I'll cut a few parts out of it and add it to the keep it relevant rule.

Same to Blue and Doeoed, I'll add a bit of it to the OP post.

I could have sworn I suggested making a sticky for SD months ago

Yeah, someone mentioned that when I asked if this was a good idea in the IRC. But rather late than never you know.

Understood