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January 6, 2009 at 08:43:12     Permalink Seconding Rady Diary Entry by Steven Leser (about the author)

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Against Ad hominem and more

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Regarding http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ad-Hominem-Attacks-by-Rady-Ananda-090106-173.html

I second Rady's point that Ad hominem attacks need to stop here at OEN as I also sheepishly admit that I have occasionally used them despite trying hard not to fall into that trap.

Ad hominem responses though, are not the only community issue that needs work here at OEN. I think almost as bad are the off topic responses one frequently gets to their articles or diaries. Here are examples:

1. Repost any speech or statement by a Democratic elected official on an important topic and you can expect one response regarding the topic and about 89 other responses on how all Democrats are bad, how that official voted the wrong way on another issue, how that official should be spending his time doing something else, why they arent in favor of impeachment, how they are bad because they believe in the official story of 9/11 or any other pet project issue.

2. Any particular criticism of Ron Paul gets immediately taken over by Paulites who steer the discussion away from the particular item you are critiquing and talk about how anything other than Laissez-faireism is totalitarianism or Communism.

3. Discussions of any particular aspect of the economy gets hordes of people selling their idea on the complete restructuring of the economy. and if you dont believe them or agree with them, or if you want to concentrate on a different aspect of the economy, you automatically dont know what you are talking about. Anything you are trying to talk about is drowned out in discussions about eliminating capitalism, or eliminating the Fed, or people championing the cause of economic Laissez-Faireism.

There is nothing as frustrating as spending good time thinking about and researching an article and then have one or more individuals hijack discussion of it to talk about their pet project.

As a result of ad-hominem and off topic responses, many articles have been denied the kind of dialogue that they deserve.

I dont like to raise problems without offering solutions so:

A. With regards to the ad-hominem issue, I think editors should automatically hide ad-hominem comments whenever they are found.

B. With regard to off topic comments, I propose a discussion forum only section of OEN. When you respond to an article, you are offered the chance to post directly to the article, or post in the discussion forum for ideas that are only semi-related to the article or barely related.

 

An OEN Editor, Steven Leser specializes in Politics, Science & Health, and Entertainment topics. He has held positions within the Democratic Party including District Chair and Public Relations Chair within county organizations.

Steven Leser (more...)
 

 

 
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