Mudpit Forum Rules

[Tango12345]

Debate Forum Rules

Here are the rules of conduct that all users are encouraged to abide by and moderators asked to enforce. Although these provisions may not necessarily be included in the ToS, in order to create an atmosphere conducive of a polite debate in which political ideas are discussed peacefully the moderators are requested to uphold these guidelines.

This forum is only for the discussion of issues of politics, national policy, and international relations only; including those issues that may be driven by current events that are determined by the moderators to fall into primarily these areas of discussion. Religious, Moral, Ethical, Philosophical and Historical should be restricted to other forums. Moderators can move topics to more appropriate forums.

Topics that have resulted in heated discussion may be temporarily closed to provide a short cooling off or refocus period and to promote composed discussion without implying any prejudice or favoritism to any one side of the issue.

1) Debate in good faith and respect other members. Elaborate and further develop your arguments whilst trying to respond to other members' arguments. Do not continue to repeat the same arguments.

2) Address the argument, do not attack the person. Debates should be as detached and impersonal as possible. Do not post in such a manner that would elicit a strong, emotional response if possible. Your argument should be phrased in such a way that minimizes the ability to misread the post.

3) Try to back up your arguments with evidence and sources where appropriate. Any statistics used in your posts should be sourced.

4) Do not post images or videos without some clear supporting text discussion. Examples of supporting discussion include: who is the author of the video and what his/her viewpoint is and why you think it is important. Posts with image or video trolls and other spam posting will be removed at the discretion of the moderators.

5) Avoid any form of misrepresentation. Do not state that something is fact or a well known fact just because you read it in a message board, website or blog. Statements made in blogs or amateur videos are not acceptable foundations for new threads and threads such as these may be closed at a moderator's discretion.

6) Every thread must begin with a specific question or framework based on recent developments for the discussion you wish to initiate. You may not start a new discussion topic solely by posting a copy of an existing news story, image, quote from a web site, or other source information. In the instance of this occurring, a moderator may request that commentary be added within a reasonable amount of time or the thread can be closed.

7) Plagiarism is generally frowned upon. If something is not your work, please clearly state the source and include any material quoted directly from the source in quotation tags.

8) In the event that a member begins to post disruptive and inflammatory arguments against other members of any political orientation, religion, or nationality, a moderator may enforce a one day forumban on this member in order to facilitate an effective cool down period in the instance that a single member is the sole instigator of any overtly hostile action. This measure will only be taken after continued misbehaviour following a written warning in the form of a PM to the member. The moderator is required to mediate in such disputes and act in an unbiased manner to resolve the problems. Once the situation has been resolved, the member may be unforumbanned early.

In addition, the Terms of Service apply.

Have fun and enjoy your discussions with fellow members of Total War Center.

These rules were voted on by the Curia, as debated here. Amended as per the OP here.

[removeduser_487563287433]

The below is an infographic detailing a list of rhetorical and/or logical fallacies - a great guide for general best practice debate.

For those interested, it's from the gold standard of infographic design online, Information is Beautiful.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/