RE: Suggestion for a minor rules change.
July 5, 2015 at 6:38 am
(This post was last modified: July 5, 2015 at 6:39 am by bennyboy.)
Yes, I've seen this happen several times, sometimes to me, and sometimes to others. Someone will enter a new thread ONLY and with the clear purpose of "warning" others what kind of person they're debating-- even though the accused has done none of thing things in the current thread that bothered the warner in the past.
I think the rule should be that someone upon newly entering a thread should be expected to contribute to THAT thread. In other words, they should either respond to the OP, or demonstrate that they are aware of at least the last couple pages of the thread. Of course, if you're deep in a thread and someone starts pulling out shitty arguments, it should be fine again to say, "There goes Johnny, the closet theist poe, with his old BS again" or whatever. But you shouldn't enter the thread, see that Johnny is involved, and declare, "Look out guys, this fucker's going to start quoting the Bible soon, so don't expect a decent debate," when Johnny may in fact be making a deliberate effort already not to do that in this thread.
I think the rule should be that someone upon newly entering a thread should be expected to contribute to THAT thread. In other words, they should either respond to the OP, or demonstrate that they are aware of at least the last couple pages of the thread. Of course, if you're deep in a thread and someone starts pulling out shitty arguments, it should be fine again to say, "There goes Johnny, the closet theist poe, with his old BS again" or whatever. But you shouldn't enter the thread, see that Johnny is involved, and declare, "Look out guys, this fucker's going to start quoting the Bible soon, so don't expect a decent debate," when Johnny may in fact be making a deliberate effort already not to do that in this thread.
