Perhaps a sticky should be made.

[Playfishpaste]

All of the frequenters of the EMM I'm sure are aware of it's lifecycle. At the beginning of the month, things actually go pretty well, varieties of topics, philosophical queries, interesting ideas here and there etc. Then somebody tries to bag on Christianity/Islam, and we get some religious folk all in a fuss. Afterward the religious folk post stuff about why being irreligious voids morality, which brings us into morality in general (but not like at the start of the month, here the only debate becomes whether or not we have absolute theistic morality or relative morality). Afterward, from the religious vs. irreligious morality, we get a whole bunch of those subtopics, abortion, evolution, the standard misinformed fodder that doesn't get anywhere and gets to be 17 pages long.

Am I complaining? Not really, since I could just as easily click on the non-repitious threads. However, I would figure if we just made a sticky somewhere describing a few things, like why pascal's wager was refuted, or certain logical fallacies, it would deter a lot of posts which would be long and repetitive and ultimately useless. This board has a brief description of the regulations and then it prompts people to immediately get into the god/no god debate with the enormus Existence of God thread. I just think it might be better to save people some time.

Speaking of which, should this be in questions and suggestions?

[Denny Crane!]

Yes it probably should be. However I can make the decision and enact it here and now, it doesn't need broader consultation so you know, make the case and if it will work I'll do it. If it doesn't work after a month I'll undo it much like the Philosophy section (which is only partially used and partially ignored)

I can think of one way that could possibly work, if nothing else to create a quick reference guide for posters who want to save time. Rather than a whole bunch of stickies that will be promptly ignored (much like the sticky about gods existance is ignored) is to create a philosophical arguement reference sticky. For instance I could stick the post contra anselm in there. If we ever finish thrashing out the whole folky logic ''you can't prove a negative'' affair in. We could stick in some of the points about god debates, or whatever. It could be a categorised cross referenced hyperlinking one post sticky.

I'd be looking for a volunteer to create it though since I haven't got the time or will.

[Hippolord]

. If it doesn't work after a month I'll undo it much like the Philosophy section (which is only partially used and partially ignored)

Wait are you undoing the philosophy section? Or did i msunderstand? Please don't! I hgad some really good disscussions there!


_________
@above:
Exactly, there would be far to many threads, and people would just demand that more and more be stickyed, because when you look at it, there are alot of subjects that are repeated, and thusly would fit the O.P.'s categorie of things needing to be sticikied. Perhaps, as you said, a few generalizations might work better.

[Playfishpaste]

Seneca, your suggestion is what I meant, just a quick guide. Like a locked thread that has one post in it with the title "look here before you post" or something of the sort. I think the current thing like this "debating forum rules" was created under the assumption this would be a subforum with much less traffic and would only be visited by frequenters who knew the ins and outs of discussions like these. Thus I think this New thread should be made as an addendum. If you'd like to make a subforum though, that could work too, sort of like the Vestigia's Archives of good posts and discussions. However you think would work the best.

Inclusions to this thread I could see would be:

• A brief summary of the different types of arguments for god, teleological, ontological, etc, and their postives and negatives.
• Descriptions of philosophical postulates made (pascals wager, Voltaire's god, Calvinism, Annihilationism, the Problem of Evil, Euthyphro's Dilemma etc) and especially wheter or not they are currently considered dead. I see that as very important because people may have seen things from some bible pamphlet or some atheist message board that are archaic arguments which were famously refuted, but people unaware of this still bring it up.
• Description of theological terms (Strong Atheism, Weak Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Annhilationism, Cavinism, Orthodox Christianity, Sin in christianity, Personal Gnosis etc).
• A section exclusively devoted to the mechanics of a position and a philosophical, or scientific, or any logical argument. Including fallacies, how to's for syllogisms, analysis (Deduction, Induction), different methods of different schools of logic (scientific, telelogical, empirical, platonic), etc.
  

I'd of course be happy to contribute to said post.

[Hippolord]

Although i am not aware of this life cycle you speak of (Even though i hae only posted here for 4 months), i think that this is a genuinely good idea. Most of the time i think that EMM is to broad of a subject to stand concrete as some other threads. You will always have borderline stuff that is near extremist, and people get all in a fuss about it, whethe rit be religous or non-religous folk. So i think this is a good idea, perhaps breaking dow the broad EMM into a few stickies and such that will help to manage the chaos.

My only fear is that they will become like the "Exsistance of God" Thread, true it has people post on it, but it has come to the point that there are as little as 10 posts per day on it, and the discussion has become a huge repea tin of it's self. Should this happen to the threads that you are proposing, it would defeat the perpose of ever creating them, as they themselves would tend into a boring cycle within themselves.

[Denny Crane!]

Although i am not aware of this life cycle you speak of (Even though i hae only posted here for 4 months), i think that this is a genuinely good idea. Most of the time i think that EMM is to broad of a subject to stand concrete as some other threads. You will always have borderline stuff that is near extremist, and people get all in a fuss about it, whethe rit be religous or non-religous folk. So i think this is a good idea, perhaps breaking dow the broad EMM into a few stickies and such that will help to manage the chaos.

My only fear is that they will become like the "Exsistance of God" Thread, true it has people post on it, but it has come to the point that there are as little as 10 posts per day on it, and the discussion has become a huge repea tin of it's self. Should this happen to the threads that you are proposing, it would defeat the perpose of ever creating them, as they themselves would tend into a boring cycle within themselves.

That is one minor reason I wouldn't do it, the main one being I'm not going to stick 45 threads to the forum (think of how many arguements could be stuck)

But a quick reference guide would allow people to quickly access previously made arguements to post in the persons thread and save rewriting and rewording.

[chriscase]

Knowledge is a journey, not a destination. Let the repetitious threads be, they help those who are involved in them, though they cover territory that is well-worn for others.

If anything, make a FAQ of "all star" treatments of particular topics and close them. They will be there for those who want to look.

[Denny Crane!]

Knowledge is a journey, not a destination. Let the repetitious threads be, they help those who are involved in them, though they cover territory that is well-worn for others.

If anything, make a FAQ of "all star" treatments of particular topics and close them. They will be there for those who want to look.

It isn't really about closing down new threads but just more of a reference guide.

[Tankbuster]

That's an idea I've had many times!
I love the EMM because I've learned a lot here, and we often have intelligent and interesting discussions, but I also find myself explaining some things about once every week, and it can get quite tedious.
So I think it's a great initiative, and I'd be very willing to contribute.

And of course, as Seneca says, nobody would be obliged to refer to the thread; they can explain things themselves if they feel like it. But when we see that someone hasn't done his homework yet, you know that help is available.

Playfishpaste, I'd also add some references to the pseudo-history that we see all too ofen here: the bogus about the Council of Niceae and the parallels between christianity and pagan cults, for example. TG has made several threads debunking this stuff, so maybe a sticky reminding them would be a useful tool.

[Denny Crane!]

Okay well I'm willing to set up the framework. People can at their leisure hunt out posts (a lot of TG stuff tends to be good) and others, the scriptorium has quite a few as well including Tom Paines ''contra anslem''

I'll see if I can do it tonight and if anyone comes across something just quickly make a post in that thread and I'll link it into the original post.

Actually in theory it is more like a specialised focused and more accessible scriptorium. A mini house for exceptional explanations and arguements. Okay look later if your on.