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Quick PSA: How to Civilly Discuss

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Greetings members and guests. You may be wondering what in the high heavens has been going on lately. Threads are a mess of toxicity and hate. It's very difficult to pinpoint the actual claims of many a thread, oh dear oh dear.

It is because of this that in this thread I will be trying to explain how to actually engage in constructive dialogue with your fellow xenogamers members.. 

 

Part 1. Make sure any claims you make in any thread are substantiated by verifiable evidence.  

 substantiate.png.24bd957180e55ccc47a728f2d3d4c0c5.png 

For instance, were I to make a thread called "Virr is an incredibly toxic individual who bullies and harasses me daily please demote" it would probably help to have multiple things. Maybe witness testimony that, yes indeed, Virr does do these things. Maybe a screencap of the abuse Virr definitely really sends me on the daily. 

virr.png.de51c17b47b3f20dcbf21de36331b314.png 

However the strongest form of evidence I could provide would be unedited records of the events that had occured in full context. It is very very easy to clip a sentence or two out of context to try and assassinate someone's character

virr2.png.622024ffac71f7635984c8bd6dc33031.png 

Even if doing this somewhat incriminates me, it is better to provide evidence of the occurrence in context. It adds towards the credibility of my claim, as I am obviously not trying to hide any bad acting on my part this way. While this is the strongest form of evidence, that does not mean that Anecdotal evidence is inherently bad. It is especially useful in cases such as abuse through voice. Abuses or violations through voice are especially difficult to gather evidence against, as demos must start being recorded before the event transpires, and it's unreasonable to expect anyone making an abuse report to have been running demos at all times or for them to have enabled some kind of third party recording software. In this situation, you can see how merely the testimony of multiple unrelated individuals might be sufficient evidence worthy of creating a thread about. 

What isn't strong evidence though is "I feel like virr is being toxic because they vaguely don't like me and don't want to communicate with me outside of the platform of xenogamers when necessary". 

Which brings us to step two. 

 

Part 2: Realize that opinions are not really worth discussing if you are not willing to try and back them up. 

eh.png.61b80609ad89fbe3e08535cae42de2a8.png

We've all got opinions. 'They're like armpits' or some other bottom-of-the-barrel-dad-joke. But generally it's not worth making a thread about an opinion if the most reasoning you have for an opinion is "idk i just feel that way I guess". That's not to say you don't have a right to that opinion, but the point of the forums is to provide some outlet for discussion. If I wanted to make a vote to remove clocktown because I think it's a bad garbage map, but I cannot elaborate on why I think that, it's pointless to even try to discuss it. That's why the vote exists, to just be able to give your input without having to defend it. It would be pointless and unproductive to just constantly parrot "Idk man I want it removed because I think it's bad" (which usually just devolves into a sh¡tstorm). Just create the vote, vote, and be done with it. You'd make just as much progress arguing over whether blue is a better color than green.  

 

Part 3: Please don't needlessly attack other folks' character, thanks. 

This one kind of speaks for itself. Kinda a "love the sinner, hate the sin" kind of deal. Generally you should take issue with what people are saying and not who's saying it. If virr said something as absolutely stupid as...

virr3.png.6f75ad1d50111aa682283433213fc14f.png 

it would still not be acceptable or intelligent to attack virr directly for his opinion on things. Attack his argument, that's fine, but the end goal of discussion is not mindless name-calling. There's a big difference between saying "hey man, I think your opinion is poorly thought through and inconsistent because xyz" and "lol ur dumb nerd". 

 

Part 4: Do not, under any circumstances, posit that you know what anyone's thoughts are unless they've already explicitly stated it.  

This is the big one that really annoys me the most. Like okay Sherlock, we get it, you think so highly of your genius self that you think you've conquered what philosophers worldwide have grappled with for decades, the impenetrable prison of the human mind. 

Here's the reality; you likely do not know what that other person is thinking. Even if they were to explicitly tell you what they are thinking, there's always something lost in the transition from thoughts to words. You can directly quote someone's opinion on a matter, you can try to theorize what their feelings on a matter may be through some amount of evidence, but to approach the matter without delicacy and just assume that you've got an individuals stance or views nailed down with no supporting evidence makes you look like an arrogant idiot who's so strapped for any modicum of support for their claims that you literally have to build a straw-man and burn it to have any impact.  

 

Part 5: Every single person on this planet has a set of biases. 

Everyone has a set of actions, opinions, or choices that they are predisposed to. This brings back the point about being humble. You are not above this. You may think you have no active bias against anyone or even anything, but previous experience and interaction always paints an individual's worldview a certain way. Some biases we can be conscious of, while others we can't. There isn't anything wrong with anyone for having an internal blind bias, it's completely normal, but my hope is that the more people who know about this, the less people will think that someone's bias exists solely to harm them. Just please be kind; as much as you're thinking the other person on the opposite end of the argument is a biased garbage bin, they're probably thinking the exact same about you, and it doesn't help anyone to grow sore over it. 

 

So there it is, my not-so-brief outline on issues with a couple of recent trends in threads. I hope it was at least somewhat coherent and I hope you have a wonderful day. 

Adios

 

 

Edited by LAN_Megalodon (see edit history)

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You forgot "step 6"

Step 6:
Resort to calling someone names or personally attacking them because they're winning the argument or you've ran out of counter points to present.

There!

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