Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Casiella]

Scagga, I'd like to think you could find a more polite way of phrasing your hypothetical response. I don't want to get into "pre-clearance" because then somebody will inevitably say "but this is almost just like the other thing", when it may actually differ significantly.

I think we're all smart enough here to figure out how to disagree without being a pain.

[lallara zhuul]

All this talk about how to dance around the literal rules of the forum instead of following the spirit of the rules of the forum seems to me like practice rounds on how to sharpen your forum-fu, so you can insult people without being moderated.

[Myyona]

.

As far as I've seen, most instances of "you're doing it wrong" have been given as statements rather than opinions and have lacked the reasoned argument backing them up.

Let me quote this as I think it is a very important point more people should be aware of. Especially for negative statements or disagreements is it crucial to add arguments and/or examples if you want to do anything more than insult the other person. Besides, there is no discussion if there are no arguments.

I learned this through my PhD, maybe Victoria did too, but it is something I wish more people in general paid attention to.

Ps. there was a time when scientists told each other “youredoingitwrong” too.

[Lyn Farel]

Well, firstly, I have nothing at all against someone specifically asking for constructive criticism and remarks to one's background/roleplay, and isn't it already allowed ?

On the other hand, I would not like to see some "thread ownership" as you said that the OP can use to litterally short circuit the forums rules. For the simple reason that you will eventually end with people slandering other people in their own little thread "because they can" and, that will quickly be followed by the offended party opening its own personnal thread to slander back. Very sane situations, isn"t it ?

Secondly, there are in my eyes 2 kinds of "ur doing it wrong" syndromes :

- The first one that could be spitted on the face of your hypothetical neophyte/novice, that could for example say that his character is not inside a pod when flying. Well you can point this out politely by the rules of the forum or just tell him to stfu because he is doing it wrong. Well, the point is that he is in any case here (which is not an excuse to be rude ofc).

- The second one that can be mostly find on these forums, concerning points of the PF that are debatable, not clear enough, or highly subject to personnal interpretations and feelings. I mean by that that everyone generally agrees on what is said litterally by the PF and the core statements about something, but they might heavily disagree between each other on conclusions, deductions, interpretations on how this little PF fact is represented in the life of New Eden, etc. Think to the last thread on the Voluval for example. Or just the moderated thread on "KotMC people are imperial loyalists ? C/D". Examples are legion. In that second case, you just can't be more loose with the people or it will quickly turn into a bloodbath for the simple reason that a lot of people want to impose his own interpretation to others that are not following it.

[scagga]

How about replying to this statement: 

Noob: "All Amarr are female because I've only seen female Amarrians"
Enlightened poster: "You're wrong, here's a link to the character creation page.  Surely you know that prior to Glorious make benefit empress Jamyl we had a male emperor?"

Would the respondent there be moderated for telling someone that their opinion was wrong?

The part I bolded and underlined is where this argument goes wonky. When something is verifiable like that, it's not an opinion. Counsel is leading the witness.

What if the listener is allergic to factual arguments, then they move to accuse you of veiled urdoingitwrong'ing for using them?

Many people on this forum express views that are factually wrong.  They are opinions, and in my view it's ok for opinions to be wrong so long as when they are expressed in a discussion, it is acceptable to point out that they are incorrect.

[scagga]

Scagga, I'd like to think you could find a more polite way of phrasing your hypothetical response. I don't want to get into "pre-clearance" because then somebody will inevitably say "but this is almost just like the other thing", when it may actually differ significantly.

I think we're all smart enough here to figure out how to disagree without being a pain.

Oh of course, what well thought-out reply I might add.  We ought to play chess some time.

[Ciarente]

Many people on this forum express views that are factually wrong.  They are opinions, and in my view it's ok for opinions to be wrong so long as when they are expressed in a discussion, it is acceptable to point out that they are incorrect.

In my experience, 'factually wrong' is very often in the eye of the beholder.

[Victoria Stecker]

How about replying to this statement: 

Noob: "All Amarr are female because I've only seen female Amarrians"
Enlightened poster: "You're wrong, here's a link to the character creation page.  Surely you know that prior to Glorious make benefit empress Jamyl we had a male emperor?"

Would the respondent there be moderated for telling someone that their opinion was wrong?

The part I bolded and underlined is where this argument goes wonky. When something is verifiable like that, it's not an opinion. Counsel is leading the witness.

What if the listener is allergic to factual arguments, then they move to accuse you of veiled urdoingitwrong'ing for using them?

Many people on this forum express views that are factually wrong.  They are opinions, and in my view it's ok for opinions to be wrong so long as when they are expressed in a discussion, it is acceptable to point out that they are incorrect.

I generally don't see facts and opinions being interchangable like that. If something is factually incorrect, it's not an opinion - it's a mistaken belief. Example: If I say that slavery occurs, I'm stating a fact. If I say that slavery should occur or is right, I'm stating an opinion. Facts are statements of reality - the way things demonstrably are. Opinions are value judgments. If you disagree with someone, it may be because they have their facts wrong (“All Amarrians are women”), in which case you can politely point to the evidence that they are mistaken. More likely it is a difference of interpretation of the ‘facts’ known as EVE PF.

"UR DOIN IT RONG" is usually a statement of opinion made as a statement of fact.

The reason this occurs so often in EVE is that we have so few facts. We have PF which is incomplete and a great deal of which is open to interpretation. When someone thinks that their interpretation is 'correct' and other interpretations are 'wrong,' we run into these conflicts. So we end up with people behaving as if they are stating facts when in fact they are not.

If something actually is fact, it should be possible to point to it and say, "this is the truth, this is the proof." An example of fact would be that the Amarrian Navy went toe-to-toe with the Jovians and got its ass handed to it. This is a matter of historical record, unless you want to claim that said record is falsified, it's a fact.

If something can be argued against, it's probably not a fact. We run into grey areas with something like this:

"KotMC is not an Amarrian corporation." This is something people can argue over, and treating it like a fact is inappropriate. For explanation of why, I’m going to be a little ridiculous.

“Electus Matari is an Amarrian alliance.” This is something pretty much everyone can agree is false, but that doesn’t make it a fact. Why? Because some hypothetical individual could come along and say, “Based on their pro-Amarr policies and the manner in which they treat pirates and those who disagree with them, I consider Electus Matari to be Amarrian.” Now, we’d look at this person like they had three heads and were speaking in tongues, but the point is that in that sense, whether EM is Amarrian is a judgment, not a fact.

Going back to the KotMC argument (not because I want to keep flogging the dead horse but because it makes such an excellent example of this), that doesn’t mean that you can’t say that KotMC isn’t Amarrian – it means that you can’t state it like fact.

Unproductive: “KotMC just isn’t an Amarrian corp, why is this causing such controversy? They just aren’t. It’s not like EM would get mad if we said they weren’t Amarrian, they aren’t and everyone knows it.”

Productive: “I don’t consider KotMC to be an Amarrian Corporation and this is why:
“Based on X,Y,Z (it helps if you back up your argument, but remember that most PF is open to interpretation, as we’ve seen with the different interpretations in the Sacrifice thread), I think Amarrian Corporations should be characterized by the following things A, B, and C. KotMC is, in my opinion, characterized by D, E, and F. Based on this, despite being comprised of primarily Amarrians, professing loyalty to the Empire, and fighting in the Amarr Militia, I don’t consider KotMC to be an Amarrian corp.”