I think this suggestion by Xerxes is a good one if it is agreeable for a good portion the user base. The main advantage i see for this is that it will keep threads about what they say on the title. If there is a serious point to contest as raised by a thread’s premise I would say that it belongs in it own thread (linked or otherwise). To take off from one of Xerxes examples, there is thread on drafting strategies and a user would like to discuss the price point drafts rather than posting in that thread something like: [quote=“arcv2”] I think the real best drafting strategy is not to play because it costs way too much.[/quote] That discussion should stand on its own merits in separate thread, rather than baiting the people in the existing thread to refute it.
I think this guideline is right at home with Improve the Discussion and improves upon Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree as it fits with Keep It Tidy.
I would love to hear if anybody has a useful way to codify this as well as any possible issues that such a guideline might bring up!
So to clarify, if someone wants to make a thread that invites opposing views, they have to make it explicit?
For example if I make a thread “is Edward Kim good?” Then people can come in and say yes or no. If I make a thread “Edward Kim appreciation thread” then people who don’t like him aren’t meant to come in.
would it be possible to have threads where certain types of criticism are allowed but not others? Eg “discuss the latest flavor review by Ess and cee” someone could come in and say today’s episode was crap, but someone couldn’t come in and say I don’t think the flavor review should exist.
I think that making a thread’s premises immune to in-thread criticism is going to break Keep It Tidy, as it means that some classes of commentary are going to proliferate and clog the thread listing.
I didn’t want the ladies’ night thread to blow up (and I’m sorry that it did), but if nobody is game to speak up then minority opinions never get heard and echochambers form. So I posted my disagreement and stayed out of it.
If I want to talk BWBI, is it because I want to specifically talk BWBI or because I want to advance ICE to the moon and back? Some ability to question the premises of threads is important.
How often will people create a brand new thread to criticise the premise of another? It’s easy to post in a BWBI thread “blue sun is better”, but you’d feel silly posting a thread titled “why blue sun is better than BWBI”. I think that we can at least try the proposed rules and wait to see if they cause the problems you anticipate.
I’m going to preface this by saying that I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in the ladies night thread. It’s a thread for an american event an thus of very little interest to me so I have not read it.
That said, this suggestion seems… almost silly. Maybe I’m misunderstanding something, but IMO tangential discussion about [Thing X] (including criticism of a thread’s premises) inherently belongs in the thread about [Thing X], and should remain there until it starts to overshadow the original discussion, at which point the thread should be split.
Good points being made. I think that crux of this suggestion is, if I had to give it a name, Respect The Scope. This is to say that when somebody puts effort into creating a new thread with topic they want to discuss, all posters should respect and consider how their reply fits into the scope of the discussion.
Maybe the way to implement this not to explicitly disallow any type of post, such as refuting the central premise. Instead it could be recommended that any reply to a thread that might goes outside the scope be prefaced with something along the lines of “not trying to go off the rails here” or “sorry break up the discussion.” And if this scope stretching post isn’t resolved fully in say 2 or 3 replie, it would be time split the discussion. Preferably one of the replies would recognize that the side conversation is overshadowing the main scope and invite any follow up to be in a separate thread.
Under this rule my drafting example might look like this:
This drifts a bit from the initial proposal as isn’t as hard and fast of a rule. But it does avoid invalidating criticism on grounds that the criticism wasn’t allowed to be made.
I might just be saying some stuff that seems like a no brainer, but if we’re not doing it too often right now, it would be worthwhile to add it to the Guidelines.
As another user that doesn’t know about the thread mentioned, I think it’s flawed to compare events to strategy discussion. When discussing events it’s often better to shut up and don’t attend if you disagree with the aim of the organizer instead of arguing in a forum. The whole point of a strategy thread is discussion on a competitive level (which I hope is still the aim for Stimhack).
Not being able to question the premise would lower the competitive quality of the discussion, unless more threads start as posts in the Uncompetitive decks thread. A great example of this is mention in your post about if a BWBI deck is actually better in Blue Sun, we need to be allowed to talk about it.