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: Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:10 am

wellsy summed you up perfectly the other day

9 of Dally's stupid debate tactics:

1) Attack The Poster: Instead of addressing the argument that has been made, people using this method attack the person making it instead. This is particularly easy for many delusional people such as Dally. The charge made doesn't even have to be accurate, in fact it's better in some ways if it's off target. That's because the more whacked out the charge is, the more compelled your opponent will feel to spend his time defending himself while you continue to make your points.

e.g. Dally: You're jealous because you wanted the Rhinos to win and they lost. (I wanted them to lose)

2) The Bait & Switch: When a claim is made and your opponent refutes it, don't try to respond, simply change the subject. Example,

Dally: All mergers are bad. None of them work.

Knowledgable poster: That isn't true. They can be successful in some situations.

Dally: What about the thousands of fans lost to the game because of mergers?

Knowledgable poster: Wests Tigers gained more fans in many of the years. Here are the stats...

Dally: Did I mention that Manly won the WCC, proving that mergers don't work!

The best part about this is that since they never acknowledged they were wrong, they can feel free to make the exact same incorrect claim in future debates.

3) The Blitzkrieg: The goal here is blast your opponent with so many accusations that they can't possibly respond. Example,

Dally: English RL isn't as good. Leeds are crap and just whinging. All English fans are jealous they lost. Leeds played dirty tactics and grabbed players nuts.

Moderator: That's great, but the post was about a Manly player allegedly making a racist comment!

It doesn't matter if all -- or even any -- of the accusations are true, relevant, or make any sense. The goal is just to get them out there. Making an accusation takes a few seconds, refuting one takes much longer. So an opponent confronted with these accusations will never actually have time to respond.

4) Enter The Strawman: Tremendously exaggerating your opponent's position and then claiming to fight against a position they don't hold is always a great way to dodge the issues. "You want teams to merge" "you think all mergers are good" etc.

Eventually some people start to take them seriously and build on them.

5) History Will Be Kind To Me For I Intend To Write It: The technique is similar to using strawmen in some respects. What you try to do is to rewrite history, to claim that a debate in a previous time was different than it actually was. Here's an example of how this is done,

Wellsy: The Wests merger didn't lose thousands of fans. Here are the figures…

roughyedspud: There, the figures prove that I am right.

Wellsy: Where? What figures prove you right? I have shown you the figures are similar if not gained fans at times.

Dally: They lost fans. Every merger loses fans.

Wellsy: I've shown you the facts. They don't

6) I'm Not Hearing You -- La La La: Just totally ignoring what your opponent has to say and going on to something else is another technique often used by Dally, who totally blows off any uncomfortable questions that are asked. For example...

Padge: If mergers lose fans, then why is it better to let clubs die as they also lose fans?

Dally: Mergers are bad. They lose fans.

Padge: Answer the question.

Dally: I've already answered it previously.

Padge: No you haven't. Answer the question.

Dally: Are you questioning me? Why are you so obsessed with me? I don't need to take this. I'm not talking to you anymore.

When they duck the question, it's a pretty good indication that they don't have an answer anyone wants to hear.

7) Motives Matter, Results Don't: Oftentimes when Dally is losing an argument or can't explain why he seems to be so inconsistent on certain issues, he starts questioning the motives of their opponents. For example, Parksider talks about what teams he thinks should be in SL and what teams he wants to see in and what teams he thinks might have to make way. Dally questions why he'd kick teams out, says he'd keep them all and add more. It's pointed out that isn't possible, and again goes on about adding more and anyone that would kick teams out are people with whom I disagree about expansion.

That Context Is On A Need To Know Basis: Stripping away the context of a situation is a favoured by Dally. It's very easy to make someone look like a bad guy if you simply don't include every detail that doesn't support your case.

Dally: I was just trying to have a discussion about mergers and people have attacked me.

(Reality, Dally starts a thread hoping people will agree with him as to go against a previous Parksider thread, and thus gets broody and attacks everyone because they don't agree with him!).

9) That's Mean, Mean, Mean! When it comes to certain subjects, Dally can turn into a complete bubblehead. For example, you could come to a situation where by merging two teams they both stay alive, save money and could possibly be bigger than both clubs put together previously, plus save a space for another club. But Dally will just claim that fans are being lost and the game is being lost and everyone that agrees with it is mean because of this.

I think all of these are pretty descriptive of Dally's debate techniques. If anyone would like to add anymore to these or think of better examples, I will change them. It should be quite amusing to see it evolve.

In the mean time, whenever Dally displays one of these tactics, instead of trying to argue with him people should maybe just put the name of the tactic down and ask him to debate the original question. Then maybe these threads may actually prove meaningful in the future!