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Christopher Weeks wrote:
>
> About .debate, Scott writes:
>
> > ...I would love to see it dropped...
>
> What is the added value to those of you who want .debate gone? I can
> completely understand not valuing the presense of debate, even I duck out now
> and then when I'm busy. But I don't get the motive behind the suggestion that
> it should be gone.
>
> As I see it, the presense of .debate costs us nothing(except for Todd and Suz).
> But it gains something for at least some of us.
>
> So why not just go away if you're not interested? In what way does it
> negatively affect your LUGNET experience? If there really is some negative
> effect for most people that I haven't identified, then I might change my mind
> about whether it should remain.
I think there is some overflow from .debate into other groups. I can't
absolutely put my finger on it (in part because I realize that in part
the Larry vs. Scott shouting match may have started outside of .debate,
but I certainly see linkage between their .debate battles and what
transpires in other groups). I know I carry my own feelings on the
debates outside of the group (of course that being something under my
control, I could chose to step out of .debate - I have stepped way back
already, and perhaps I need to just remove it from view). There
certainly have been several folks feeling like Lugnet is a less friendly
place that it used to be. I don't know if that has any connection to
.debate, but it seems possible (one thing I note is that many of the
folks active in .debate are also some of the folks who care the most
about Lugnet as a whole).
What I really want for myself is to see .debate return to something
where it felt like debates didn't get stuck in absolutely intractable
shouting matches. One problem of course is that any topic worth debating
has no easy solutions, so therefore, there is no end to the debate. When
debating in person, at some point the participants need to go home, or
go to bed, or whatever. This effectively ends that debate, though it may
get resumed at some point later, in which case it at least forces a
cooling off period. An online debate has no structure to bring it to
termination (which does suggest that some kind of "max posts per thread"
rule could possibly do something).
I also wonder about the negative impact in other areas because of the
time folks are spending in .debate. Larry and other folks who post alot,
do you feel that you post less elsewhere while engaged in .debate? I
think I do. The of course one has to ask is this actually bad or not. I
certainly wouldn't suggest that Eric Kingsley shouldn't have had a kid
because it might reduce the time he has to spend on Lugnet, so why
should .debate be any different?
Another thing which is a factor in my own participation on Lugnet: I
thrive on critical discussion. It can be on almost any topic, but I need
some in my life. Last week, while in San Jose, I was hashing out some
product design issues (which was the purpose of the trip), which fed
that need, and one day I calmly swept away all the .debate posts except
those posted that day. Back home, I'm back in a situation of not having
a work outlet for that need. Right now, this discussion is filling that
need (and I feel this is a productive discussion, I think it is giving
some folks a chance to highlight what they like about .debate and what
they don't like). During Brickfest 2000, I had a great opportunity to
feed the need by discussing the Pirate Game rules with Chris.
Well, I don't know if that helps any, but that's some of where I'm
coming from.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Uselessness of .debate
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| (...) What is the added value to those of you who want .debate gone? I can completely understand not valuing the presense of debate, even I duck out now and then when I'm busy. But I don't get the motive behind the suggestion that it should be gone. (...) (24 years ago, 19-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.admin.general)
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