The Rules of Discourse
Version 0.0.1
This version is an early rough-draft of the Rules of Discourse.
1. Care to Avoid Fallacious Argument 1
1.1. Basic Personal Responsibility 1
1.3. Mediative Corrections of Fallacy 2
2.2. On Frivolous Appeals versus Reasonable Appeals 2
3.2. Situations in which a Disciplinary Citation is to be Issued 3
All members of the group are to verify to the best of their ability that their arguments and other discursive contributions are free of any fallacy.
Any fellow member of the group, upon detecting fallacious rhetoric in an argument, may issue a Peer Correction. A correction is deemed to be a Peer Correction whether the member issuing it is without any mediative authority in the group, or whether it is someone who has mediative authority in the group but is not specifically invoking it. However, if the content of the Peer Correction is solid enough to stand on its own merit, the one receiving it is still required to submit to the correction.
It should be noted that claiming a fallacy to have been used when in fact it hasn’t is to be regarded as in itself an instance of the Crying Wolf fallacy (which is be avoided as rigorously as any other fallacy) and/or whatever other fallacy is used to bolster said false accusation.
Another recourse that one may have upon detecting that a fellow group member has invoked a fallacy is to request a Mediative Correction of Fallacy - or, simply put, a Mediative Correction whose subject-matter is the commission of a fallacy.
Even if the member seeking redress of a fallacy zimself has mediative authority in the group, zie may not mediate the incident without first assuring that the particular case is rightly in zir jurisdiction.
A Mediative Correction is a correction that may only be made by a member of the group with mediative authority who has (a) assured that the alleged violation of conduct is in fact in zir jurisdiction and (b) followed the proper procedure to verify that the violation has in fact been committed. Mediative Corrections are to be treated as authoritative. They may be appealed provided that there is reasonable cause of doubt and provided that there is a higher authority within the group to appeal to - but until and unless they are overturned, they must be adhered to.
Any defiance of a Mediative Correction that has not been previously overturned will receive a Disciplinary Citation.
If a Mediative Correction of Fallacy is appealed, and the higher mediation reaches the decision that the Mediative Correction is to be upheld, a further ruling must be rendered with regards to whether or not there was reasonable doubt of the initial Mediative Correction to warrant an appeal. If there was sufficient reasonable doubt, then the appeal will be upheld, but the appeal will be labeled as “Reasonable”, and no consequences will be imposed for having made the appeal. On the other hand, if it is found that the correctness of the Mediative Correction issued was sufficiently obvious that an appeal should not have been made, then the appeal will be labeled as “Frivolous”, and a Disciplinary Citation will be issued for having issued it.
A Disciplinary Citation is to be issued by the group’s Administration when there is a violation of the rules that is serious enough to require disciplinary action.
A Disciplinary Citation is to be issued when a Mediative Correction is defied without first being overturned.
A Disciplinary Citation is to be issued when a member of the group persists in a kind of violation despite having received enough corrections that zie ought to have been able to have reformed the offending tendency.
A Disciplinary Citation is to be issued whenever a group rule is violated and it is deemed beyond any reasonable doubt that the violation was intentional.