General Rules of Discourse
[GRD] Version 0.3 -- released 2017-11-02
You can visit the home-page of the Rules of Discourse (http://virtualstoa.org/rules-of-discourse/) to find the latest version of this document, as well as any other documents that comprise the Rules of Discourse.
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
2.4.3. Appropriate Severity of Disciplinary Actions
2.4.4. Situations Warranting Maximum Disciplinary Action
2.4.4.1. Obstructive Behavior Demonstrating Lack of Good Will
2.4.4.2. Obstructive Behavior Threatening the Mission, Purpose, and Integrity of the Group
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. Exhaustion Tactics in General
4.3.2. Abuse of the Right to Raise Topics for the sake of Argument by Repetition
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 to 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.
If a mediator must make an inquiry so as to determine whether or not to issue a Meidative Correction, or exactly what Mediative Correction needs to be made, such an inquiry may be referred to as a Mediative Inquiry.
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 made the appeal.
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.
Disciplinary Action can run anywhere in the range from very minor ones (the exact nature of which may even depend on the group’s medium) all the way to the maximum measure, which generally speaking is expulsion from the group. As such, it is important to assure that the severity of a Disciplinary Action is appropriate to the situation.
The preferred goal of Disciplinary Action in general needs to be encouraging the one in question to improve zir faculty of reason and to assist zim in doing so. For that reason, extreme actions such as expulsion from the group should be limited to a last-resort measure, and only in certain kinds of situations:
The maximum disciplinary action may be used in cases dealing with someone who has not only engaged in conduct obstructive to rational discourse - but done so in a way that has demonstrated beyond any reasonable that zie is not merely unskilled in rational discourse, but lacking interest in improving in that area. Extra deliberation is encouraged before such measures, and required before they are to be made permanent, or even prolonged more than necessary. Such deliberations must include the examination of circumstances that may have created actual impediments to the one in question learning the skills of rational discourse, impediments which may have been mistaken for lack of interest.
Even after a final ruling on that matter, if new evidence is to come in that casts doubt upon the basis of the decision to employ such an extreme measure of Disciplinary Action, the decision must be revisited.
The maximum disciplinary action may be used in the case of one who persists in behavior that is obstructive to rational debate in a manner and intensity which threatens to undermine the mission, purpose, and integrity of the group.
However, as in any case permitting the maximum Disciplinary Action, it may only be used as a last-resort measure. In this case, that includes the requirement that it only be used if lesser measures to protect the group are rendered ineffective or non-viable by zir refusal to provide the necessary cooperation.
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.
Also, if the statement in which the external link is shared has enough said in it to constitute content on its own right - then the link may be treated as the sharer’s source rather than the sharer’s own statement -- but only if the sharer specifically states that the external resource is shared specifically for that purpose.
An external reference also may be treated as the sharer’s source rather than the sharer’s own statement even if the statement is only about sharing the link - provided that the reference is provided in response to a request for the source of a previous statement. However, in such situations, to minimize the risk of a misunderstanding, it is advised that the statement in which that external reference is shared also make clear reference to the request that it is in response to.
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 exhaustion tactic. However, to qualify for reprieve under this exception, one must explicitly call out the exhaustion 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 Argument by Repetition. However, this caveat only grants leniency to well-grounded accusations of Argument by Repetition, not to dubiously-grounded ones.
(NOTE: Eventually, material covered in this section will be addressed in the Introduction to the Rules of Discourse document. This section is therefore only temporarily to remain here until it is sufficiently addressed there.)
(p2) Certain materials beside this document may be needed or useful to use in conjunction with this document as part of a comprehensive rule framework. In addition to the fact that each individual group is liable to have its own specifics that articulate things such as the scope and purpose of the group, other companion documents to this document may be helpful.
(p3) The Introduction to the Rules of Discourse is the introductory declaration to the Rules of Discourse and eventually will also be the basic roadmap for their use.
(p4) A Compendium of Fallacies is in the works which, when released, may not catalogue every possible fallacy - but will catalogue enough fallacies and cogencies to be a helpful tool (progressively more so as it improves over time) in resolving disputes about alleged fallacies in the group.
(p5) There are many different kinds of media on which a discussion group can be hosted. For each kind of medium, there are bound to be specifics as to how the Rules of Discourse apply in that medium. This document has for the most part shied from detailing specifics about any particular medium - and future versions will do so even more. Instead, companion documents will be prepared specifying details of the Rules of Discourse that are specific to a certain medium or a certain kind of medium.