Debate on boards.ie...

LegacyUser

I read this a few weeks ago in the Irish Times - some of the posts I see when a debate is going in reminded me of it.

An Irishman's Diary wrote:

The depressing thing about debate in Ireland is not so much that it seldom really occurs (and it seldom does), but that so many people delight in using it to score points over petty issues: the equivalent of triumphantly detecting a split infinitive in the course of an undergraduate debate on the morality of nuclear warfare

While the majority of people are expressing an opinion which is well-balanced and based on some experience/theory, we've all seen the annoying habit of users nit-picking in an argument, instead of focusing on the relevant issue to hand. Maddening...!

danniemcq

was something like this posted a few weeks ago?

discuss!

Dave

When people start doing that, it's only an indication of the fact that they've run out of things to say.

whiskeyman

Main reason I hate watching the Irish version of Q&A or Prime Time.
It's also a skill many politicians have...odd that.

Rantorama

It's the grammer nit-pickers on the net i hate. Someone might put forward the most cohesive intelligent point durning a debate(but with a minor spelling or grammer mistake) and you will always get some anal nerd, who is usually losing the argument.

'Btw,you can't even spell'
'You left out the comma'...e.t.c.

The last refuge of a failure is someone who has to resort to pointing out flaws in someones spelling rather than flaws in their argument.

monkeyfudge

Durning?

Sleepy

Funnily enough I was discussing this with an ex-girlfriend last night. She commented that I've become a "nicer" person in her eyes and when I asked what she meant one of the things she commented on was that my political outlooks have changed considerably (a shift to the left) since we were going out. I acknowledge this and would, in large part, put this down to many of the debates I've been involved in here on boards.ie.

Nowadays I largely avoid the politics board because frankly, some of the opinions there really make my blood boil and I find it hard to control the vitriol in my replies (which has earned me a couple of week-long bans in the past). The Humanities board, however remains the first board I check out every morning and I can't imagine it being any other way in the near future.

Oriel

monkeyfudge wrote:

Durning?

Is that supposed to be a question?

Rantorama

monkeyfudge wrote:

Durning?

God, I left that in deliberately as a nerd snare. :rolleyes:

WhiteWashMan

bruachain wrote:

I read this a few weeks ago in the Irish Times - some of the posts I see when a debate is going in reminded me of it.



While the majority of people are expressing an opinion which is well-balanced and based on some experience/theory, we've all seen the annoying habit of users nit-picking in an argument, instead of focusing on the relevant issue to hand. Maddening...!

that is absolutely true.
it gets very boring when you are debating something, and suddenly someone decides to turn the spotlight on some off topic thing and then begins this stupid pedantic point scoring, as if the winner of this side issue is going to be the over all winner of a debate, and shall then be festooned with flowers, will ride high on the shoulders of their peers and shall for ever be favoured by the gods.

er, no. what youve done is make yourself look stupid by argueing some inconsequential point that has nothing to do with anything.

LegacyUser

Maybe we should begin to report offending posts here!

STICKY!!!

The Sweeper

I quite enjoy nitpicking grammar. Especially when my own isn't flawless, and I know for a fact that it riles people hugely so they're even more likely to typo as they furiously pound the keyboard - you know the one:

"You stupid fuc..." deletedeleteddelete

"You stupid ars..." deletedeletedelete

"I hate you and I wish you were..." ctrl&shift&delete

"I wont discuss this anymore."

...don't you mean "won't"?

"ARGH YOU STUPID FUC..."

It's an integral part of internet warfare.

sceptre

the equivalent of triumphantly detecting a split infinitive in the course of an undergraduate debate on the morality of nuclear warfare

I doubt that Myers was there the night a number of years ago I mentioned (in passing) someone splitting an infinitive during a TCD debate but if he was I was taking the mickey and only doing it because the other chap was a pretentious tosshead without a point, which I'd already illustrated, and was jumping up and down to offer useless and irrelevant points of information like someone suffering from an extremely bad case of piles merely to throw me off my train of argument. Knowing absolutely no-one running any college debating soc these days it still wouldn't surprise me if in some quarters there are people taking delight in getting personal with opponents who actually do have a point mostly because they themselves don't. And are probably tossers too.

Agree with wwm. And Rantorama. There are people around here, happily not too many, who appear to delight in concentrating on off-topic irrelevancies and trying to steer the discussion towards that to the exclusion of anything else. A slap would be too good for them.

monkeyfudge

Rantorama wrote:

God, I left that in deliberately as a nerd snare. :rolleyes:

haha.. you do that too?

Any typo or mistake I ever make is exactly for the same reason...

AARRRGH

Arguing with inexperienced, young nerds is never advisable in the first place!

But I agree. Trying to "win" your argument based on trivial off-topic stupid opinions is...retarded.

D

Wait sorry people but this is after hours, no sensible debates allowed. Move along now.

Civilian_Target

I also hate the politics board. Too stupid opinions on Northern Ireland....

cil_aine

Civilian_Target wrote:

I also hate the politics board. Too stupid opinions on Northern Ireland....

it's so true y'know. i was visiting this summer school up in wicklow, these politicians from the north came down, were talking through the views on IRA weapons decommisioning etc etc and this guy who does some program on Newstalk was screaming and swearing not listening at all. It can be really difficult to have a civillised debate round here, especially when the north comes up. some people are far too stuck in their ways. but, i have to say i do enjoy Q&A and Primetime now and again. Some times it's better than the uk's Question Time, yet Question Time always has better guests.

nesf

Nit picking grammar is annoying. One or two mistakes in a post should just be ignored as typo's tbh. Otherwise you are derailing an argument for no good reason. If someone however posts utterly unreadable crap, then I think it's fair to point it out. But this is, to be fair, very rare.


Debating can be a pain with the wrong opponents regardless. I really don't think it's an Irish problem. However on the rare occasion that you meet someone with whom you can enjoy a good debate, treasure it. Both on and offline you will meet a lot of people who simply cannot debate a point or issue. All they can do is state a position and then attack or dismiss anything that is contrary to it. Or repeat their position with some kind of belief that by saying it over and over that it becomes justified or correct. These people generally don't seem to be bothering to read or listen to you correctly.

I know that I've a few friends where how we got to know each other was on other sides of a debate and we carried it off into the pub afterwards and ended up getting to know each other and becoming friends.

Sam Vimes

not an argument but a good example of a conversation with my dad and the point of this thread:

i was thinking that since air tyres on bikes were invented for suspension and lots of bikes now have suspension built in could they do away with air tyres and all the puncture problems that go with them. i asked him what he thought about it.

his reply: air tyres were invented in belfast........... ........ ....(tumbleweed)


its impossible to have an argument with the man. you have to have 15 different ones because he outright refues to stick to the point. boils my blood

monkeyfudge

In realtion to the original post there... I find it hard to believe that this is purely an Irish characteristic... Does this sort of thing not happen in debates in France?

By bringing up this point am I nitpicking?

WhiteWashMan

monkeyfudge wrote:

In realtion to the original post there... I find it hard to believe that this is purely an Irish characteristic... Does this sort of thing not happen in debates in France?

By bringing up this point am I nitpicking?

im sure it does, and indeed all over the planet, but i think the author of the piece is allowed to limit it to his own experience in ireland, no?

or is this going to turn into another 'he obviously english coz he said something bad about the irish' threads?