knapplc and archy - P&R besties

The only thing I personally think Archy is more "guilty" of than the average P&R contributor is he has previously had a tendency to be one of the more evasive and disingenuous debaters I've come across. That's really where some of the historical ire towards him has come from.

And this isn't mean siding with the other P&R hooligans. This is 100% an opinion I formed on my own over the years and for two reasons:

1) I minored in poli sci and philosophy and did debate, so I studied a lot of political argument tactics for years and then applied them professionally for half a decade

2) I have personally been involved in a number of ridiculous back and forth conversations with him where he twists, manipulates and avoids pertinent topic points

Here's my thing though (and this is what I tell our members all the time) is that I don't think Archy is intentionally trolling or being disingenuous. I also don't think he's breaking board rules in most circumstances. I think he believes his opinions to be right. Another thing I tell them all the time is that it's not against board rules to be wrong. If a passionate believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster joined the board tomorrow and started spouting off ridiculous conspiracies about said monster... that's not against the rules. 

The other reality Mav is that most of them patently admit to trolling one another and breaking rules all the time, but none of them like to be individually called out for it. They just want us to punish 'the other guy' for being a big meanie head. I imagine we'd probably all agree that that's not a game we're willing to play.

But you also hit the money on the head with your analysis. That's really the kind of stuff that's been happening for years in there. One person thinks another person is being disingenuous in a vacuum but they're almost all unwilling to acknowledge when they do it themselves.

 
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Enhance said:
The only thing I personally think Archy is more "guilty" of than the average P&R contributor is he has previously had a tendency to be one of the more evasive and disingenuous debaters I've come across. That's really where some of the historical ire towards him has come from.
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Again, I'm not trying to defend Archy.  And I'm not disagreeing with you either.

But that's what I'm trying to point out.  knapp was pretty disingenuous with his diatribe on polls.  ZRod was disingenuous by stating "facts" that were 2/3 wrong.  JJ was evasive when I kept asking him why it was unreasonable.

So if we're going to suspend Archy for those things, there needs to be a lot more as well.

Enhance said:
The other reality Mav is that most of them patently admit to trolling one another and breaking rules all the time, but none of them like to be individually called out for it. They just want us to punish 'the other guy' for being a big meanie head. I imagine we'd probably all agree that that's not a game we're willing to play.
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And I don't necessarily have an issue with that.  But that's basically what your first two examples are in the OP.  Then your third example is exactly what knapp did to Archy that I referenced yesterday.

I'm not trying to pick on you @Enhance.  Again, I'm not even saying you're wrong.  I appreciate all the moderating you do.

And I know you asked about suspending knapp and we all kind of just passed.  I think it just becomes an echo chamber in there (despite what knapp likes to say) and everyone just gangs up on who they don't agree with.  

I guess I just think we either need to decide if stuff like this is going to be allowed or not.  And then stick to it for everyone.

But if we're going to try to moderate this kind of stuff, it's going to be extremely difficult to treat everyone fairly.

 
No worries! I hope I didn't seem like I was being argumentative or dissenting. I agree with virtually every point you made and your analysis is pretty spot on. I do personally tend to lean on the side of Archy being more of a problem than the rest of them, but the way I look at it, if one person is 60% of the problem and someone else is 40% of the problem... they're both being problems. (Those numbers are just arbitrary BTW... but hopefully that makes sense to some degree.)

We're basically watching over a bunch of adults who know how to generally play nice in most sub-forums except one lol.

I guess I just think we either need to decide if stuff like this is going to be allowed or not.  And then stick to it for everyone.
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IMO the accusations of being disingenuous or not having arguments in good faith... IDK how to police that. I don't think any of us have the bandwidth to objectively verify peoples' P&R arguments and decide what's fair and what's not.

What I am attempting to tamp down on and moderate is the flaming. "You're clueless," "no one takes you seriously," "this is why you're a troll," etc. I'm trying to be as objective as possible about it but it's that kind of commentary that ultimately leads to the big blowouts and I think it's easier for us to police that moreso than whose argument is more germane than someone elses.

 
Enhance said:
IMO the accusations of being disingenuous or not having arguments in good faith... IDK how to police that. I don't think any of us have the bandwidth to objectively verify peoples' P&R arguments and decide what's fair and what's not.

What I am attempting to tamp down on and moderate is the flaming. "You're clueless," "no one takes you seriously," "this is why you're a troll," etc. I'm trying to be as objective as possible about it but it's that kind of commentary that ultimately leads to the big blowouts and I think it's easier for us to police that moreso than whose argument is more germane than someone elses.
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I agree.

And I agree.

 
All you have to do is read the first few pages of the "In case of emergency" thread to see that a significant number of posters - including knapp - are just as closed minded and set in their ways as they complain about Archy being.  They cling to their own beliefs and disregard any evidence to the contrary at least as much or more than he does.

Four years of significant evidence to the contrary and knapp can still sell himself on the "Biden had a cold" farce.  If Archy said anything remotely close to that he would be ridiculed to no end.

 
I'm fairly certain knapp and others here have a long history of disagreeing with Loebarth, so this was probably just an opportunity to take a dunk on him without getting in trouble.

 
Someone needs to explain to me how knapp's vitriol, partisanship and hatred of those opposed to his views is any different that what he complains about in others.

 
Because he's in the cool kids club and so the other cool kids like it.

He's part of the problem in politics but he doesn't realize that.

 
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