Moderators' position on strawman arguments.

osarusan · 10-07-2014 3:34pm #1

My own tolerance for strawman arguments is pretty low. I think they're a very annoying thing to do in a thread or any discussion or debate, anywhere.

I've reported them before, and not seen any action taken (although I know that action may have been taken which I can't see).

I would like to give an example of one, and ask whether it constitutes trolling, in the eyes of the moderators, especially After Hours moderators.

The background of this is a discussion about a bakery in NI which refused, on religious grounds, to decorate a cake ordered by a LGBT activist who wanted some pro-same sex marriage designs on it, and whether this refusal is a case of discrimination.

osarusan wrote: »

Really.

The man who ordered the cake is called Gareth Lee.

Is there any evidence that they even knew he was gay?

old hippy wrote: »

I imagine the cake design kind of gave it away, don't you?

osarusan wrote: »

Only a gay person could have ordered such a cake?

Again, is there any evidence that they knew he was gay?

osarusan wrote: »

The letter sent by the equality commission mentions discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Is there evidence to suggest (apart from the 'evidence' of the design of the cake, which is an extraordinarily ignorant comment) that the bakery staff/management were aware of the sexual orientation of the customer?

gozunda wrote: »

1. Why is it 'extraodinarly ignorant' in your opinion?

osarusan wrote: »

Are we sure they knew the customer was gay?

Look at the cake he ordered - what else could he be?

Extraordinarily ignorant in at least two ways - it reinforces some stereotypes about gay men, and ignores the support that is offered to the gay rights movement by heterosexuals.

gozunda wrote: »

Sorry I lost. So you are saying the customer was ignorant in ordering a cake with a message relevant to supporting gay marriage and civil rights
Or
The message itself is ignorant because of its wording or the use of cartoon figures!

Does the cake / message have to 'acknowledge' support of heterosexuals/ Martians / the granny? And more importantly why?

For me, the first two parts of the last post are a clear strawman argument - I'd consider them a deliberate attempt to misrepresent my point completely.

They're very frustrating to deal with, and inevitably impact on the quality of debate on the thread, but I rarely (never) see any moderation of them.

Do moderators think that strawman arguments like this can be considered trolling?

Dades · 10-07-2014 4:16pm

The example above isn't something a mod is likely to pick up on unless they are closely following every single conversation in every thread. Honestly, that kind of interaction should be reported (which you didn't) if you want the mods to act on it - instead of posting it here.

Fwiw, I would see that type of response as someone acting the dick and worth a verbal warning if not a yellow.

On the subject of straw men, the above case the user is obviously being disingenuous, but not all cases are going to be worthy of warning. Some people are just bad at making arguments but firmly believe in their assertions.

osarusan · 10-07-2014 4:24pm

Dades wrote: »

The example above isn't something a mod is likely to pick up on unless they are closely following every single conversation in every thread. Honestly, that kind of interaction should be reported (which you didn't) if you want the mods to act on it - instead of posting it here.

Fwiw, I would see that type of response as someone acting the dick and worth a verbal warning if not a yellow.

On the subject of straw men, the above case the user is obviously being disingenuous, but not all cases are going to be worthy of warning. Some people are just bad at making arguments but firmly believe in their assertions.

Thanks.

I'm only talking about the most obvious cases of strawmanning being considered trolling - only when the disingenuousness is just blatant.

Penn · 10-07-2014 4:56pm

Logical fallacies aren't against the rules unless the poster is demonstrably doing it repeatedly on purpose to annoy/inflame, in which case it's generally considered a form a trolling.

But making poor arguments isn't against the rules.

Turtwig · 11-07-2014 1:29pm

The problem here is that moderators, myself included, use strawman arguments. Only if we can discern that a poster isn't playing fair and their intention is to disrupt or annoy others can we intervene. People, generally, suck at exchanging their concepts with other people who they have a very emotional disagreement with. It's far easier and more comforting to twist what the other party is saying into something you can easily knock and remain secure in your own beliefs.

There is also the fact a poster accused of a strawman may not actually be strawmanning. They may have in fact understand the original poster's point far better than the OP understood their own. This happens too. Then there's wording and typo issues. People say one thing but mean another, sometimes this is obvious, sometimes it's not. In short, a strawman is going to be low on the list of actionable priorities. Personal attacks, spam and soapboxing will generally always come first.

K-9 · 11-07-2014 1:48pm

That last quote seems a bit borderline all right, the first couple of posts, no problem for me. Sometimes people just don't get your point. All you can do is explain your reasoning as best you can and if they aren't getting it, just move on.

It's difficult to know. If you explained your point over a few posts and the other poster seemed purposefully not to be getting it, maybe a thread warning to drop the point and move on? In emotional subjects like this it can be hard to tell if a poster is genuinely just incapable of seeing the other sides point, being disingenuous and/or trolling. It would usually take more than 1 thread to build up a case for the latter.

KahBoom · 11-07-2014 3:16pm

Straw-men are one of the primary tactics used to disrupt debate on almost any economic topic, which makes discussing quite a lot of things regarding economics a no-go (because you get flamed/trolled, by people deliberately misrepresenting your arguments with straw-men, and using that as a reason to be highly obnoxious/condescending).

A lot of it isn't mere difference of opinion or trolling, but deliberately trying to shut down certain viewpoints from discussion - it works too, because it is usually done in numbers (multiple posters, using the same style of argument, to try to legitimize it), or with such persistent obnoxiousness that it basically ends the discussion for everyone reading, leaving just the two people arguing.

I think Boards should consider that, even though it's impossible to ever prove, there's a high chance this kind of disruption is now paid work for people.

We can be almost certain this has been true in Israel related threads (Hasbara being known for organized soapboxing, and the general level of propaganda in such topics, would make that very unsurprising), I'm of the opinion it happens to some extent for economic topics (in many ways an even more difficult topic to discuss, than Israel vs Palestine - plagued by constant reregs too, which is very suspicious), and there's a chance it affects threads related to party-politics as well.

While it can be merely annoying like the in OP's example, it's also used to try to influence/control/prevent discussion on certain topics.

Insect Overlord · 11-07-2014 3:20pm

Conspiracy Theories is that way.

>

KahBoom · 11-07-2014 3:50pm

When it comes to Israel vs Palestine, it's common knowledge and officially acknowledged policy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_%28Israel%29
"In 2009, Israel's foreign ministry organized volunteers to add pro-Israeli commentary on news websites. In July 2009, it was announced that the Israeli Foreign Ministry would assemble an "internet warfare" squad to spread a pro-Israel message on various websites, with funding of 600,000 shekels (c $150,000)."

Plenty of past precedent and grounds for considering this as something that is done across a number of topics - and its relevancy to the thread, is that the type of arguments discussed in the OP are one of the primary ways of trying to disrupt/influence debate.

K-9 · 11-07-2014 4:05pm

An File wrote: »

Conspiracy Theories is that way.
>

Israel and Russia would be pretty much well known and well backed up. Tbh the vast, vast majority don't need to be paid.

nesf · 11-07-2014 6:00pm

It's more the fallacy of the excluded middle than a strawman argument in the final post you quoted really.

Your arguing that they didn't discriminate because they couldn't know the customer was a gay man is a pretty good example of a strawman argument though.

Overheal · 11-07-2014 6:13pm

I think a mod would ideally step in if/when a user exhibited it was a deliberate attempt to troll. Sometimes you'll see some people who just deliberately miss the point of what others are saying, other times they just aren't getting it. Theres a couple trolls I've seen on the garth brooks thread, for instance, but at least for the most part they do their own little soapbox in a very noisy thread as it is, and nobody seems to pay them heed or drag the conversation down, so its whatever.

As it is, I could see why Osarusan's argument might be a reasonably held view by them. They're just pointing out, matter of factly, what the discrimination issue specifices (the orientation of the buyer) and how that would be important to the case. Other people also, validly, point out the orientation of the consumer shouldn't matter, but that might not be the argument present here. The only reason this is even a story is because you have a couple conflicting laws: the freedom of speech, the business owner's freedom of religion, and the standing laws on discrimination - which would call into relevancy the orientation of the consumer as I understand it. The prosecution could always argue a legal case based on the fact that the bakery 'assumed' the orientation, and they might win, but I digress.

Summing it up, I don't see how Osarusan is doing anything wrong. I suggest you try approaching the delivery of your own viewpoint in a different way and see if that is any more constructive, while also trying to re-read over some of the user's post and take into consideration what their views really are on the issue: from experience, I know that's usually the last thing you do when you think someone is just trolling, but if he's not trolling, you would want to consider their held viewpoint, as a matter of constructive discourse.

nesf · 11-07-2014 6:25pm

Overheal wrote: »

Summing it up, I don't see how Osarusan is doing anything wrong. I suggest you try approaching the delivery of your own viewpoint in a different way and see if that is any more constructive, while also trying to re-read over some of the user's post and take into consideration what their views really are on the issue: from experience, I know that's usually the last thing you do when you think someone is just trolling, but if he's not trolling, you would want to consider their held viewpoint, as a matter of constructive discourse.

Aimed at me?

Overheal · 11-07-2014 7:14pm

nesf wrote: »

Aimed at me?

w-what? Where did you come from? No not at all

Damn son, you probably hadn't even posted by the time I loaded this thread and replied :pac:

nesf · 11-07-2014 7:50pm

Overheal wrote: »

w-what? Where did you come from? No not at all

Damn son, you probably hadn't even posted by the time I loaded this thread and replied :pac:

The last paragraph made no sense to me because it looked like you were referring to someone here talking about the OP because you used the OP's name several times in the third person.

*shrugs*

Overheal · 11-07-2014 7:58pm

nesf wrote: »

The last paragraph made no sense to me because it looked like you were referring to someone here talking about the OP because you used the OP's name several times in the third person.

*shrugs*

wow, I need coffee

This should be a highlight in and of itself: I see nothing wrong with the counterarguments in that quoted discussion - It may be completely off the wall, and have no correlation to the other discussion points raised, but I'd want to read a bit more evidence that the user was doing so on a serial basis before jumping them.

nesf · 11-07-2014 9:55pm

Overheal wrote: »

wow, I need coffee

This should be a highlight in and of itself: I see nothing wrong with the counterarguments in that quoted discussion - It may be completely off the wall, and have no correlation to the other discussion points raised, but I'd want to read a bit more evidence that the user was doing so on a serial basis before jumping them.

It's a strawman argument in that it's a different argument to the thread topic and one that can't be reasonably argued as the man buying the cake could easily be gay or not and the bakery may care or not care whether he's gay or not (they merely may not want to make pro-gay cakes, good luck proving anything here). Or in other words it's your standard perfect endless internet argument that allows both sides to passionately argue their case without any real worry of being proven wrong and has nothing really to do with the original topic.

The thread topic on the other hand is simple. Can a bakery refuse to do decorative icing on a cake if it conflicts with the owner's religion? This is a legal question though perhaps not exactly a simple one because there are many different rights involved. Less exciting and it's hard not to look anti-homosexual arguing the bakery's side of it. The sideline "should they be allowed" is a more interesting one but unlikely to be productive given the topic at hand and how easily people get heated over it.

osarusan · 12-07-2014 1:01am

Overheal wrote: »

I think a mod would ideally step in if/when a user exhibited it was a deliberate attempt to troll. Sometimes you'll see some people who just deliberately miss the point of what others are saying, other times they just aren't getting it. Theres a couple trolls I've seen on the garth brooks thread, for instance, but at least for the most part they do their own little soapbox in a very noisy thread as it is, and nobody seems to pay them heed or drag the conversation down, so its whatever.

As it is, I could see why Osarusan's argument might be a reasonably held view by them. They're just pointing out, matter of factly, what the discrimination issue specifices (the orientation of the buyer) and how that would be important to the case. Other people also, validly, point out the orientation of the consumer shouldn't matter, but that might not be the argument present here. The only reason this is even a story is because you have a couple conflicting laws: the freedom of speech, the business owner's freedom of religion, and the standing laws on discrimination - which would call into relevancy the orientation of the consumer as I understand it. The prosecution could always argue a legal case based on the fact that the bakery 'assumed' the orientation, and they might win, but I digress.

Summing it up, I don't see how Osarusan is doing anything wrong. I suggest you try approaching the delivery of your own viewpoint in a different way and see if that is any more constructive, while also trying to re-read over some of the user's post and take into consideration what their views really are on the issue: from experience, I know that's usually the last thing you do when you think someone is just trolling, but if he's not trolling, you would want to consider their held viewpoint, as a matter of constructive discourse.

I don't really understand any of what you are saying - I am the OP, and am asking whether the very last post I quoted (posted by Gozunda) is a kind of trolling.

Overheal wrote: »

I see nothing wrong with the counterarguments in that quoted discussion - It may be completely off the wall, and have no correlation to the other discussion points raised, but I'd want to read a bit more evidence that the user was doing so on a serial basis before jumping them.

I see it as them deliberately misrepresenting my argument to leave it looking ridiculous.

But thanks anyway, I'm trying to find out how this kind of strawman is viewed by moderators, and it seems that there are a range of different positions on it.

weisses · 12-07-2014 1:05pm

An File wrote: »

Conspiracy Theories is that way.
>

Yawn

These kind of replies are getting quite boring

12-07-2014 1:29pm

I really hope I'm not alone but I have no idea what strawman means. Feel like a right thicko!

Could someone explain it to me in a "strawman for dummies" way?

Awkward Badger · 12-07-2014 3:18pm

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I really hope I'm not alone but I have no idea what strawman means. Feel like a right thicko!

Could someone explain it to me in a "strawman for dummies" way?

From wikipedia:

A straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally,[1][2] is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent's argument. [3] To be successful, a straw man argument requires that the audience be ignorant or uninformed of the original argument.

The so-called typical "attacking a straw man" implies an adversarial, polemic, or combative debate, and creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition by covertly replacing it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and then to refute or defeat that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the original proposition.[4][5]

This technique has been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly in arguments about highly charged emotional issues where a fiery, entertaining "battle" and the defeat of an "enemy" may be more valued than critical thinking or understanding both sides of the issue.

Basically changing someone's argument to something you can better argue against and then arguing against that (the straw man) instead of what the person was actually arguing. Lots of arguing

Overheal · 12-07-2014 7:41pm

aka Moving the Goalposts... or the Kobayashi Maru

Turtwig · 13-07-2014 4:28am

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I really hope I'm not alone but I have no idea what strawman means. Feel like a right thicko!

Could someone explain it to me in a "strawman for dummies" way?

A strawman is where you construct an imaginary opinion that someone holds. Then proceed to tell others that the actual argument the person holds is that imaginary position you constructed. The problem is unless they're savvy at the topic or they're willing to research original sources they might not be aware it's an inaccurate representation. Since the dawn of the internet this has become a much more serious issue. As it's now possible to quote mine
E.g
"While X is greater than T it should be clear from the preceding paragraphs that X cannot replace T."
Becomes.
"X is greater than T"
Proof we should replace T.

Note this is written text, in day to day speeches people are often more imprecise with their words. They often contradict themselves. Making quoting words verbally shown so attractive. The general public never stop to think why a person has seemingly contradicted a position they hold 99% of the time. Use the quote mine to confuse the reader. Or better yet misinform them. Spreading uncertainty about any given issue. Even, if being pedantic there is no actual uncertainty. Then produce the strawman to solidify your position.

Barack Obama meant to say the following.
"We are no longer just a Christian Nation"
What he actually said was
"We are no longer a Christian Nation - at least not just"
This was quoted as.
"We are no longer a Christian Nation"
And used in the strawman that Obama didn't want Jesus anywhere in America.

When he went to great pains to be inclusive of all religions and none at all. But if you play the snippet from the speech, headline it correctly, you can convince an audience of the strawman.

A strawman can be accidental or intentional. Either way, they're damaging to any discussion.

nesf · 13-07-2014 9:10am

Turtwig wrote: »

A strawman is where you construct an imaginary opinion that someone holds. Then proceed to tell others that the actual argument the person holds is that imaginary position you constructed.

This is too narrow a definition. It's sufficient for me to respond to a similar sounding but different point to what you made in an argument, I do not need to try and convince others that it was your real point or claim it was your point. Normally the idea is to get you answer my new point which tacitly gives it credence in the audience's eyes.

To match your example:

Obama: "We are no longer just a Christian nation" (in recorded segment)
Host (when back in studio): "So panel, are we no longer a Christian nation?" (a trap for the Democrat on the panel, respond to the question and it looks like you think Obama said this, refute the point as not relevant and you have Obama's name being said over and over against with the phrase "not a Christian nation")

No attribution is made, but the goalposts are firmly shifted, and this kind of thing is super common because the host can always say they didn't directly attribute it to Obama and were just trying to generate debate or whatever nonsense.

KahBoom · 13-07-2014 2:04pm

Turtwig wrote: »

...Since the dawn of the internet this has become a much more serious issue. As it's now possible to quote mine
E.g
"While X is greater than T it should be clear from the preceding paragraphs that X cannot replace T."
Becomes.
"X is greater than T"
Proof we should replace T.

Yea this is a great point: I can't count the number of times, I've had to tell the same offenders multiple times "quote my sentences in full", because they have (quite deliberately in my view) selectively quoted the sentence, and made an argument that I've already dealt with in the unquoted half of the sentence.

With some posters, I would even make a point of re-arranging the sentence so it was impossible to misquote:
"While X is greater than (though it should be clear from the preceding paragraphs that X cannot replace) T"

Even though it is deliberate, posters will get away with that kind of thing on a regular basis, because it is low-level enough to avoid mod action - but it really is an attempt to disrupt debate, and/or to troll.

Altogether, it's a very successful way of disrupting debate on the forum, without getting in the eye of mods - that kind of poster is way more damaging to discussion than your regular/obvious troll.

Dades · 14-07-2014 12:28pm

KahBoom wrote: »

I can't count

I'm sorry but I can't accept the opinion of someone in this day and ago who cannot count.

But, yes, selective quoting is shameful and commonplace.

Awkward Badger · 14-07-2014 12:52pm

Dades wrote: »

I'm sorry but I can't accept the opinion of someone in this day and ago who cannot count.

But, yes, selective quoting is shameful and commonplace.

How long ago ?

Grammar nazism is still rampant too. Nothing more frustrating than making a post and then see everyone scoffing at a spelling error and ignoring everything you've just said.

LoLth · 14-07-2014 1:14pm

thing about selective quoting is, the original post is there for everyone to see. Best defense is to call it out with the original quoted for comparison. if they continue, then it could be a case of trolling to get a reaction. Don't lose the head and just mark it down as the actions of a losing party.

of course this is all very distracting from the real issue raised by the OP: my opinion? Worzel could totally take that wuss from Oz .

Dades · 14-07-2014 3:39pm

Awkward Badger wrote: »

How long ago ?

Touché!

K-9 · 14-07-2014 4:05pm

That's all you can do, point out the strawman and the difference with what you initially said and see what they post. If they keep at it point it out and disengage!

Turtwig · 14-07-2014 4:06pm

Grammar Nazi is sometimes tolerable.

I'd rather someone correct me on all intensive purposes. So I'd know to use intents and purposes. Than carry on years with an erroneous misconception. Often times it says more about the person offended at having their grammar corrected than it does the corrector. We all get stuff wrong all the time. If bluewolf hadn't corrected me there's a chance I'd still be carrying that misconception. Thanks to her, I have one less misconception.

It's like everything really, there's a balance. Trolling becomes apparent through many factors. Excessive or unrelevant graammr nzing is unwell come.

Moderators' position on strawman arguments.

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