A Godwin's Law for Traveller threads, what would it be?

[Thunderbolt]

Having only recently become aware of this Internet 'law':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

I wondered if such a thing might exist for Traveller discussions.

 

[aramis]

Godwin's law seems to apply.

Several things are flamewar bait, tho: Lesbian Aslan, Near-C rocks, World-Killer Shuttles, viability of Piracy in the OTU.

 

[Thunderbolt]

If I've understood the 'law' correctly, it implies that any forum thread of sufficient length gravitates to a particular statement or accusation, and when a person invokes said statement or accusation they automatically lose the argument and the thread is assumed to be over.

All those topics you mentioned certainly look all too familiar

 

[rancke]

Several things are flamewar bait, tho: Lesbian Aslan, Near-C rocks, World-Killer Shuttles, viability of Piracy in the OTU.

Those are topics that have been discussed over and over again to the point that some of us can't be bothered to participate in them any more and others can just cut and paste their arguments and counter-arguments. But I think that speaking of flamewar bait suggests something false, namely that we tend to get into flamewars over them. I don't think we do. I don't think we tend to get into flamewars of any kind much, come to that.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

I'm a bit loathe to bring it up but it seems to me the only answer is...

"That's NOT Traveller!" and it's many iterations.

Anytime someone resorts to claiming someone else is not playing Traveller, because of some house rule or whatever, they have lost the argument.

Now, what do we call this variation of Godwin's Law?

 

[aramis]

I'm a bit loathe to bring it up but it seems to me the only answer is...

"That's NOT Traveller!" and it's many iterations.

Anytime someone resorts to claiming someone else is not playing Traveller, because of some house rule or whatever, they have lost the argument.

Now, what do we call this variation of Godwin's Law?

Far-Trader's Axiom of defeat.

 

[aramis]

Those are topics that have been discussed over and over again to the point that some of us can't be bothered to participate in them any more and others can just cut and paste their arguments and counter-arguments. But I think that speaking of flamewar bait suggests something false, namely that we tend to get into flamewars over them. I don't think we do. I don't think we tend to get into flamewars of any kind much, come to that.


Hans

Hans, considering the number of infractions such topics have generated in the past, yes, flamewar is the appropriate term. Tho' Jihad fits better for Pirates and planet-smashing.

 

[rancke]

Hans, considering the number of infractions such topics have generated in the past, yes, flamewar is the appropriate term. Tho' Jihad fits better for Pirates and planet-smashing.

Do me a favor and provide me with links to the three latest flamewars over those subjects, then. My memory is obviously playing me false.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Do me a favor and provide me with links to the three latest flamewars over those subjects, then. My memory is obviously playing me false.


Hans

You wouldn't see much... the offending posts generally get zapped.

I've personally issued over a dozen infractions due to each of those topics except lesbian aslan in the last 4 years. Actually, for people resorting to nasty snark rather than debate or discussion, but that's where I draw the line at flamewar: persons on both sides of the debate switching to ad hominem attacks. It's been about 18 months since the last flamewar round here... but that last resulted in 7 or 8 infractions, two permabans, and at least one 366 day ban. Not counting the permaban lifted by Hunter because 3 mods all hit the infraction button at about the same time.

 

[Vargas]

The advent of MGT didn't spark any flamewars.

Yeah, I don't buy it either.

 

[rancke]

You wouldn't see much... the offending posts generally get zapped.

I've personally issued over a dozen infractions due to each of those topics except lesbian aslan in the last 4 years. Actually, for people resorting to nasty snark rather than debate or discussion, but that's where I draw the line at flamewar: persons on both sides of the debate switching to ad hominem attacks. It's been about 18 months since the last flamewar round here... but that last resulted in 7 or 8 infractions, two permabans, and at least one 366 day ban. Not counting the permaban lifted by Hunter because 3 mods all hit the infraction button at about the same time.

I see. There would have been flame wars if you hadn't prevented them. I'm glad that my memory isn't as bad as it seemed at first.


Hans

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

According to Wikipedia, Godwin's Law states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

IMO, the Traveller Corollary to Godwin's Law might be better stated as: "As an online discussion of a Traveller-based topic grows longer, the probability of the claim, "That's Not Traveller" approaches unity."

The Rekobah Obvious Observation states: "The probability stated in the Traveller Corollary will reach unity only in Traveller-based threads of infinite length."

Neither Godwin's law nor it's various derivations claim to articulate a fallacy; they are instead framed as memetic tools to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. Essentially, knowledge of their existence may actually reduce the probability of any such comparisons being made.

 

[far-trader]

"As an online discussion of a Traveller-based topic grows longer, the probability of the claim, "That's Not Traveller" approaches unity."

An excellent formal statement of it

Neither Godwin's law nor it's various derivations claim to articulate a fallacy; they are instead framed as memetic tools to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. Essentially, knowledge of their existence may actually reduce the probability of any such comparisons being made.

Precisely, and my hope for nominating "That's not Traveller" and it variations.

Great question to get us thinking Thunderbolt

 

[far-trader]

Far-Trader's Axiom of defeat.

Flattered or Far-Trader's Observation?

Other suggestions?

What about Enerii's Observation?

If we get a few, we can always put it to a poll

 

[rancke]

I'm sorry, Dan, but I'm not impressed. It seems to me that very few of the discussions I see feature one side claiming that the subject under discussion is not relevant to Traveller. There have been some, of course (especially if the subject really ISN'T Traveller :devil, but in most case I'd say that the likelihood that someone will make that claim eventually is, for all practical purposes, nil.

Sorry to be a buzzkill.


Hans

 

[aramis]

I see. There would have been flame wars if you hadn't prevented them. I'm glad that my memory isn't as bad as it seemed at first.


Hans

Not prevented; snuffed them out.

 

[aramis]

I'm sorry, Dan, but I'm not impressed. It seems to me that very few of the discussions I see feature one side claiming that the subject under discussion is not relevant to Traveller. There have been some, of course (especially if the subject really ISN'T Traveller :devil, but in most case I'd say that the likelihood that someone will make that claim eventually is, for all practical purposes, nil.

Sorry to be a buzzkill.


Hans

Actually, Hans, those generally were towards the start of the ad hominem attacks.

 

[far-trader]

No apology necessary Hans

It was the closest I could come up with after some considered thought. It's been charged more than actually engaged, in my recollection, but I'm pretty sure some have resorted to it. I might even have crossed that line myself.

 

[bromdenlong]

Godwin's law seems to apply.

Several things are flamewar bait, tho: Lesbian Aslan, Near-C rocks, World-Killer Shuttles, viability of Piracy in the OTU.

I've seen people getting a little snarky about piracy viability, but the others surprise me. Not wanting to stir anything up, could someone PM me with brief descriptions of why people got agitated over the other issues?

 

[aramis]

I've seen people getting a little snarky about piracy viability, but the others surprise me. Not wanting to stir anything up, could someone PM me with brief descriptions of why people got agitated over the other issues?

I'll point them out, as I see them, and attempt to be relatively neutral, here...

The Lesbian Aslan issue has died out, but was based upon a very well written but highly controversial aslan fan-expansion that involved making Aslan females genitalia more hyena-like (and thus less readily apparent what gender is by genital configuration), and solving issues with aslan gender ratios.

Near-C Rocks and World-Killer shuttles: The issue is triggered by Traveller's constant thrust drives; it's readily possible to get up to 0.1C in under a week... at which speed, a shuttle is a huge bomb. Assuming, of course, that you don't miss the target world. This honks off a number of people for a variety of reasons: the drives themselves violate thermodynamics, no sane government would let civilians fly ships that can wipe out civilizations, etc. Been a recurrent flamewar starter since 1995... on the TML, and later, here... usually when someone thumbs their nose at thermodynics, followed by someone else accusing the pro-thermodynics person of not playing Traveller, followed by other snark.

The piracy issue is hot and multi-fold. The following groups seem to be pretty stable:
1) Piracy exists in the OTU because MWM says it does. Now we need to figure how
2) Piracy Can't exist because there ain't no stealth in space
3) Piracy won't exist because no sane government will let civilians fly spacecraft with gravitic drives
4) Piracy won't exist because there's no market for it
5) various means of making it work by using more inclusive definitions of piracy
6) "Won't you all just shut up about it?"

Groups 2-4 all get frustrated with group 1, often leading to snark when group 1 cites canon to refute them, and with group 5, claiming barratry and hijacking aren't piracy.
Group 6 tends to be the response to the snark and cross-chatter, not realizing that all they're doing is peeving off everyone else in the discussion by essentially claiming that noone in the discussion has anything valuable to add. Which, after 15 years, really, I've not seen anything NEW added, myself.