The Rules of Discourse
Version 0.1 - released 2017-10-05
This version is the first beta version of the Rules of Discourse.
You can visit this document’s home-page (http://virtualstoa.org/rules-of-discourse/) to find the latest version of this document, as well as any companion documents.
1. Care to Avoid Fallacious Argument
1.1. Basic Personal Responsibility
1.2. Peer Corrections of Fallacy
1.3. Mediative Corrections of Fallacy
2.3.2. On Frivolous Appeals versus Reasonable Appeals
2.4.2. Situations in which a Disciplinary Citation is to be Issued
3. On the Sharing of External Works to the Group
4.2. The Right to Raise Topics
4.3. Exceptions and Caveat to the Relevancy Provision
4.3.1. Flood Tactics in General
4.3.2. Argumentum ad Nauseam Abuse of the Right to Raise Topics
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.
Before issuing a ruling, the mediator must examine the criteria defining the fallacy in question so as to verify that the fallacy indeed has been committed. The mediator must also consider other argument-patterns that can easily be confused with the fallacy in question (whether they be cogencies or fallacies) and examine the disputed argument under the razor distinguishing the fallacy in question from each of those competing argument-patterns.
Only once this has all been done objectively can the mediator invoke the mediative authority and issue a Mediative Correction of Fallacy.
Corrective actions are actions done in response to any violation committed in the group. They can range anywhere from Peer Corrections to Disciplinary Action.
Peer Corrections are the most basic corrective action that can be taken against a violation committed in the group, whether deliberate or accidental.
Any fellow member of the group may offer a Peer Correction.
The only restriction on the issuing of Peer Corrections is that if they are done in such a way that they themselves constitute violations - then they, too, will be subject to corrective actions of whatever level is deemed appropriate.
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.
Disciplinary action is when actual formal consequences in the group are imposed on account of violations committed. Exactly what disciplinary actions may be imposed will depend on the severity of the violation as well as the medium on which the forum is hosted.
For example, if the forum is hosted on Facebook, then a disciplinary action could be anything ranging from the deletion of a post or comment to permanent banning of the offending member from the group.
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.
When someone shares an external work with the group, whether it be at the start of a conversation or in comment in the midst of a conversation, the default is to treat it as though the sharer fully endorses not just the gist of the work, but everything stated therein. This includes all ramifications in this, including that any fallacy contained in said external work is to be treated by these rules as an instance of the sharer zimself committing that fallacy.
That said, this is only the default treatment of the sharing of external works under this rule - not the absolute treatment. There are specific factors that can alter the treatment from this default.
The sharer may explicitly call out a fallacy in the external work that zie is sharing at the time that zie shares it and thereby be exempt from culpability of the fallacy itself - yet risk being culpable for the Crying Wolf fallacy if the fallacy that zie calls out isn’t present at the place where zie claims it to be.
The sharer may also express uncertainty of specific things in the external work, thereby avoiding culpability of the errors zimself should they be errors without incurring the risk of culpability of the Crying Wolf fallacy. However, one who is excessive in their use of this allowance (either in a specific case or in-general) may incur culpability of a yet-unnamed fallacy related to, even if not identical to, the Just Asking Questions fallacy.
Members of the group are expected to make due effort to assure that any response that they offer is relevant to what they are responding to. Failure to do so is subject to corrective action. This rule can be referred to as the Relevancy Provision.
In the case of an online written discussion group, this will generally include making the effort to properly read and understand any post that one responds to as well as doing the same with any material used in the response.
It is understood that some online media on which discussion groups may be hosted are designed in a manner that present a strong temptation to respond to a post or comment without first properly reading and understanding it. That said, such design of a medium does not excuse such a failure on the part of any participant in a discussion - and the level to which it can even mitigate such failure is to be very limited.
The Relevancy Provision includes the requirement that group members respect one another’s right to raise topics - that anyone has the right to raise discussion on any topic that is of interest to zim that doesn’t undermine the group’s scope and purpose. One person’s lack of interest in or esteem of the worthiness of a subject of discussion does not justify violating another group member’s right to raise discussion on that topic.
Furthermore, it is the right of one having raised a valid topic to devote the discussion to inquiring on that topic - and to not have it overrun with debates as to the justification of raising that topic in the first place.
As such, questioning in-thread the appropriateness of a discussion topic is to be done only with the greatest trepidation. In such cases, it is the burden of the accuser to justify that the discussion is out-of-place in the group. Any accusation of that nature that fails to justify it’s claim, or which in any way relies on fallacy to do so, is to be be subject to Corrective Action that should at very least include a Mediative Correction.
The Relevancy Provision will not be enforced in a time and manner that would contribute to the effectiveness of a flood tactic. However, to qualify for reprieve under this exception, one must explicitly call out the flood tactic fallacy and risk culpability for Crying Wolf should the accusation be in error.
Though the Relevancy Provision includes the Right to Raise Topics, it does not include the right to use that as a cover for Argumentum ad Nauseam. However, this caveat applies only to solid accusations of Argumentum ad Nauseam, not to dubious ones.