I disagree. Its possible to debate almost every subject on this forum without even addressing the person you're debating with. Personal feelings towards a person, true or not, hardly ever increase the debate's level if they are posted.

There's often no level of debate at all.

Einstein, only 2 of those terms are insults ("Righttard"--Do people actually say that?!--and "wingnut.") and one (Right Wing) can be a bit vague.

Communists, socialists, fascists, and trolls are all real things. People often argue in favor of their respective "isms." There's nothing insulting, for instance, in arguing against fascism when a socialist argues for it as necessary to achieve global economic justice.

These words represent real ideas. Discussion of these ideas is the purpose of the forum. When they fit, there's nothing wrong with using descriptors to refer to ideas or the posters who have posted them.

If one wants to argue that an authoritarian regime should control all income and wealth in the name of fairness/equality/justice, one is arguing for fascism and communism. Sometimes descriptors are just accurate. It's not insulting such an individual to refer to obvious objections to fascism and communism: They're appropriate to the argument that person is making, as are the words "fascist" and "communist" to describe his/her proposals.

When someone has a problem with simple descriptors like these, their problem is either with the accuracy of the person using the descriptors or the English language.

If their problem is with the English language, the solution is professional psychological help which certainly won't be found here.

If their problem is with the accuracy of the person using the descriptor, this is a forum. They're free and encouraged to correct the inaccuracy. If the hypothetical supposed fascist/communist above didn't actually ascribe to those beliefs, they'd have an easy time saying "No, I don't support those things. This is what I support..."

I certainly agree that "name-calling" is undesirable and unproductive. But such name-calling can be called-out and corrected. If someone objects to simple descriptors yet fails/refuses to correct alleged inaccuracies, they're either trolling or they have a psychological problem with the English language. ==>_Neither of these cases is a matter of insults._<==

When someone claims to be certain that aliens have given the wealthy of planet Earth self-replicating robot technology capable of performing 100% of labor for mankind, and argues that we should structure society in a fascist way around equal distribution of fictional robot-produced goods, face it: They're trolling hardcore.

I'd rather post to a forum that's a little mean to obvious trolling by obvious trolls than rewards them with attention. The position that such robots exist is 100% faith with 0% evidence. Calling it ignorant is not an insult to the troll who posted it, it's an obvious rebuttal of the obvious trolling which should not be encouraged.

Ad-hominem's are not only insulting, they are one of the biggest fallacies one can make during a debate: they offer nothing of meaning to the argument, and only work to destroy whatever discussion is going on. You can point out that someone is wrong without calling that person "ignorant" or describing that person as belonging to a political philosophy that one may or may not prescribe to or fit into with one's ideas, especially if doing so is only to undermine discussion and make the opponent stop discussing. There is no place for ad-hominems and other fallacies in a decent debate, and I think mods and forum mods alike should take a zero tolerance standpoint against ad-hominems at the very least (as other fallacies may be made unintentionally, such as circle-argumentation like "the Bible is correct because it is is what God teaches us").

And yes, calling someone a Communist in this day and age, even if they would be advocating a 100% taxation of everything in which the individual owns LITERALLY NOTHING (if the individual owns even the tiniest little bit and is not taxed 99%, it is not true communism (in which the government would have to own ALL)), one could at least make arguments against his ideas and their different aspects, rather than just saying "You are a communist, and therefore your arguments are null and void.". This in turn will lead to a much more constructive, rather than destructive,  discussion, which will also not scare off any people who might be interested in joining the discussion as well, offering new insights.

If your only objective is to stop a discussion because your opponent cannot admit that you are correct and resorts to continuesly repeating his own points without making any concessions, your best bet is to just ignore your opponent and stop the discussion yourself first. Man up, be the adult, and let the other one have the last word; that will not change anything of the fact that everyone sees you are right and your opponent is wrong.

"Calling people a 'troll' or 'commie' is insulting."

The fact that we have trolls is insulting.

Calling communists "commies" may not be their favorite thing in the world, but it's not particularly derogative. It's generally said in jest when such beliefs are not the focal point of a topic and time isn't going to be spent mocking them.

It's not intended to be flattering, but, at the same time, it's not an accusation of ignorance of stupidity either. It's just a slang word for people who hold their beliefs. Its use, with adequate explanation, does not shut down discussion in any way.

Crying about it while ignoring the more-than-adequate explanation that comes along with it, however, has been known to shut down discussion every time.

"Surely evidence-based discourse is what is needed?"

A lot of the evidence in philosophical discourse is logic/philosophy or references to "the greats" in logic/philosophy. The problem which frequently presents itself here is an inability on many posters' parts to even form or offer an argument, let alone a rational one, let alone one which might possibly be valid.

This is what results in the crying and ultra-selective responses I will discuss below. This is the core of the problem. Everyone "being nice" to everyone isn't a solution when people are trolling and otherwise uninterested in discourse. **When someone always responds ultra-selectively, never responds to core arguments, and never responds to requests for clarification or more information, that in-and-of-itself is insulting and disrespectful.** And it's not just insulting/disrespectful to whomever else is engaged in so-called discourse, but to everyone who might make the poor decision to read the garbage frequently posted to this forum.

People often complain that having their illogical, no-thought-given garbage fallacious posts torn apart is mean. It wasn't flattering so it must be ad-hominem to explain why it's off-topic, misses key points, and illogical anyway. **What these people continually ignore is that not calling out bad form (or, usually, a complete lack of any) is disrespectful to readers and possible responders. The people who aren't aware of this are generally the ones posting the spam/trolling content which insults everyone here because, presumably, they don't know better how to actually discuss and debate topics of contention.**

"Ad-hominem's are not only insulting, they are one of the biggest fallacies one can make during a debate: they offer nothing of meaning to the argument, and only work to destroy whatever discussion is going on."

And people should stop doing that. It's obvious, irrational, juvenile, and makes no point.

But so should juvenile, irrational people should stop pretending that anything that upsets them is an ad-hominem attack while they ignore all of the arguments and explanations that go with it.

If you get upset that someone brushes off your views as "communist" but refuse to correct them in any way for months, face it: Your views are, as far as anyone knows, communist. And you're the problem.

This is a politics forum. Everyone posting who wants validation without thought is begging (and going) to be disappointed. Frequently. People constantly ignore arguments against them and ramble about red-herrings. It's dumb. It's boring. It's embarrassing.

Not critiquing such juvenile practices just makes the forum worse for everyone, even if they don't know it and would love some meaningless validation of their beliefs. Critiquing such juvenile practices isn't inherently ad-hominem attacks, it's necessary if this forum isn't to be totally dominated by trolls and elementary school students with inflated egos who couldn't make a half rational argument to save their lives.

"You can point out that someone is wrong without calling that person "ignorant""

When a troll repeatedly talks about topics that they demonstrate absolutely no knowledge of (and this is pointed out very clearly), it's not worth the time to save a log of all such demonstrations. The term "ignorant" covers the topic and why it's not being investigated further. This is more respectful (to readers) than to simply ignore inane rambling without explanation.

It's not the ideal, but trolls and completely irrational children (let's hope they're children) crap all over forums if they run amok. If you're arguing that this forum should be a completely embarrassing garbage bin, I guess I can respect that argument. But let's be clear: That is the alternative to never calling someone out on trolling or otherwise demonstrating absolutely no interest in discussing or debating anything, ever.

A bunch of selective responses never engaging the heart of the topics at hand isn't a discussion and doesn't make for a discussion forum. It's a boring, awkward, dysfunctional circle-jerk of half-wits seeking meaningless intellectual validation. It's boring. It's embarrassing. Maybe it's why this forum is here and some people post to it. But it shouldn't be.

"or describing that person as belonging to a political philosophy that one may or may not prescribe to or fit into with one's ideas"

And yet listing an appropriate term is much, much more convenient for both the writer and readers than listing off five or more ideas which all fit well under the term.

When the term fits, it's succinct, rational, and respectful (of everyone) to use it. Go go into some ultra-vague list about authoritarian power without checks and redistribution of income/wealth every time you simply wanted to refer to communist ideas would be dumb. Yeah, I said it.

No one claiming to have their ideas being misrepresented has ever had any trouble correcting the record. The only people who have complained have never even tried.

We're all adults here. Or hopefully moderately intelligent children, if interested in reading a "Politics" forum (such as it may be). Asking for linguistic acrobatics because some weirdo gets offended at the English language is neither sensible nor respectful to everybody else here.

"especially if doing so is only to undermine discussion and make the opponent stop discussing."

That's different. Of course I agree. But insofar as the people raging like babies (ohnoes he was honest! ad-hominem! ignore his LENGTHY explanation as if he didn't take the time to make himself VERY clear!) about being mislabeled are the people refusing to correct the supposed errors or discuss anything, it doesn't appear to be the problem here. Claims of ad-hominem attacks (which certainly do happen) on this forum are more often an attempt to shut down discussions posters aren't interested in having/finishing than they are a response to actual ad-hominem attacks. Context matters.

"There is no place for ad-hominems and other fallacies in a decent debate, and I think mods and forum mods alike should take a zero tolerance standpoint against ad-hominems at the very least"

And bear in mind that trolling rarely includes ad-hominem attacks. Trolls avoid being so obvious.

Irrational people who resent having their "arguments" obliterated often turn to trolling after initially appearing not to.  It embarrasses and infuriates them, so they respond by trolling--anything to change the topic, abandon the topic, and attack whoever upset them. This never fails to go unnoticed around here.

Our moderators can't even spot a troll when it's advocating structuring society around alien technology that it's sure humanity has. You're asking for more than they can possibly deliver.

Nobody's debated the philosophical purity of anyone's version of communism around here. Someone's just made it clear they enjoy trolling and, to this end, will never be more specific than extremely vague communist platitudes. And, to the end of trolling, has cried about being asked to be more specific and being asked to account for contradicting himself repeatedly.

There's a lot more disrespect around than just ad-hominem attacks. "Talking nice" won't remove any of it. Often, that encourages it. Trolls like the attention. Who knew.

Dear V. Kemp / Mister Spock,

Firstly I would like to adress the grasp that my opponent seems to have of the meaning of the term "ad-hominem", or rather "argumentum ad hominem". Allow me to dissect this term so that we can all agree on the definition and further use this for the sake of arguement:
"ad hominem" literally would mean "towards [the] man ", in proper English meaning "against [the] man". Basically and generally, what is meant by an argumentum ad hominem, is that an argument is made on basis of a quality of the opponent, and that because of said quality the argument the opponent has previously made is declared null and void. Argumenta ad hominem are per definition a fallacy, because these arguments are based on the person of the opponent, rather than the subject at matter in the discussion. A decent discussion should always go about the ideas and arguments one makes, not about one self.

Forms of these arguments that are most prominent on these forums include:

- Abusive: this includes not only the direct insults, but also the act of remarking that the opponent may have a certain character flaw, and therefore declaring the argument null. Therefore, even if a person were to act in a childish manner, dismissing his argument "because he is childish" remains a fallacy. The same goes for when the opponent is strange, or even weird [4]. The fact the opponent acts that way, does not allow you to dismiss his arguments on that simple notion.

- Guilt by association:  by this we mean that due to the fact that the opponent and a certain group of people share a simliar or even the same idea, that when that group is wrong in its conviction on another idea, that therefore your opponent must be wrong as well. This can be combined with another fallacy, the overgeneralisation, to form arguments such as: "my opponent subscribed to idea A, which group B also subscribes to, and therefore my opponent must be part of group B: and thus he is wrong on idea C," the overgeneralisation being that because the opponent subscribes to one, or several, ideas that a certain group subscribes to (but not all of their ideas), that he therefore must be part of that group; the Guilt by  association being that because said opponent shared an idea with a certain group, that is viewed negatively by yourself, he must therefore be wrong about the subject at hand.

Perhaps your understanding of the term "argumentum ad hominem" is not quite optimal, as you state the following:
"People often complain that having their illogical, no-thought-given garbage fallacious posts torn apart is mean. It wasn't flattering so it must be ad-hominem to explain why it's off-topic, misses key points, and illogical anyway. **What these people continually ignore is that not calling out bad form (or, usually, a complete lack of any) is disrespectful to readers and possible responders."

When one "tears apart" an "illogical, no-thought-given garbage [...] post", one can do this in a completely correct "ad res" argumentation without having to rely on "ad hominem" arguments, as debunking one's post refers to the matter that is discussed in the post and not to the person who has written the post. Therefore, there is no need for any ad hominem arguments to be made. However, a mention is made on "calling out bad form". I presume that hereby the bad form of the writer of the post is meant? Using the bad form of the writer to discredit his writings would in fact be an ad hominem argument, as this is directed towards the writer and not the actual content of the post. One can rip a post apart without resorting to ad hominem arguments easily, just by not even bringing up the writer nor the writer's form. This way one would do a much bigger respect to readers and possible responders, by himself not adding to the total number of fallacies in the thread.

I hope you are still following me and my "linguistic tools".

Secondly, I would like to provide proof that you do, in fact, use the above mentioned forms of the "argumentum ad hominem" type. If I were to, for example, dissect one of the lines you posted:
"If you get upset that someone brushes off your views as "communist" but refuse to correct them in any way for months, face it: Your views are, as far as anyone knows, communist. And you're the problem."
1. Brushing off one's views as communist may be actually based on arguments, however are communists the only group who subscribe to these views? If not, this is an overgeneralisation: Communists hold these views, and therefore everyone who holds these views is a communist.
2. Let us say you have proven that one of your opponent's views is communist, just for the sake of argument. Saying however that, because this single view (or even a handful of views) is (/are) communist, that therefore your opponent's other argument(s) are also communist, is a fallacy, falling under the header "Guilt by association".
3. Now let us say all of your opponents views were to subscribe to Communist ideals, ideals that in this combination are held by no other ideological group. Perhaps, even that the person you are debating with is communist. It matters not, as using these "character flaws" as arguments to nullify your opponents arguments, still is an argumentum ad hominem (namely an abusive argumentum ad hominem).

That is 3 fallacies in 1 line. Of course, I picked quite a juicy one, but I hope you realise that this is not an exception in any way, shape or form. Lines like these are quite common in your posts.

Thirdly, I would like to adress the use of several other fallacies. Most importantly, I would like to discuss the following lines:
- "It's not the ideal, but trolls and completely irrational children (let's hope they're children) crap all over forums if they run amok. If you're arguing that this forum should be a completely embarrassing garbage bin, I guess I can respect that argument. But let's be clear: That is the alternative to never calling someone out on trolling or otherwise demonstrating absolutely no interest in discussing or debating anything, ever."
In these lines you express the fear that when you do not keep these "trolls" in check, the forums would deteriorate to a completely embarrassing garbage bin. This, in fact, is an "appeal to probability": the fact that there is a chance that the forums may deteriorate to said garbage bin, in your argument, equals that they inevitably will. This is not necessarily so, as opponents who like to "crap all over the forums" as you say can also be held in check through a different manner than countering their arguments with ad hominem arguments: simply ignoring them. This will deprive the poster of any attention, and a one-sided discussion will quickly die out. One of the posters on these fora has quite nicely and effectively used this art of ignoring, with perhaps only one persistant "troll" as you call them, still continuesly posting in response to him: perhaps this instance could be used as an example.

Fourthly, I would like to adress how you think that you are allowed to use fallacies, because your opponent uses them. This, in fact, is also an "ad hominem" argument, one of the type of "Tu quoque"("and/also you", or "you too"). Your point that the opponent is making fallacies, does not disprove my point that your argument contained a fallacy. One may even call your argument hypocritical (on the premise that you are correct in your criticism), as you are critisizing a fallacy while using fallacies yourself.

I hope I have helped you come to the insight that even though your opponent may not be discussing in a proper manner, this does not give you an excuse to make ad hominem arguments. Even in the worst cases, when your opponent writes up the biggest, most horrific abomination of a fallacy-ridden post that you have ever seen, there are other options than to respond with a post of yourself that would just add to the sum of fallacies, for example writing a post without fallacies. If this still does not work, one may try the strategy of just ignoring the opponent.

Retort Storm

Yes Righttard is used by lerfties a LOT.

Commie when directed at a person can be an insult, when directed at an ideal it may not be an insult.

____

Person A makes a remark that includes the sky is blue.

Person B says the sky is not blue

Now this is way to easy an example but I intend to follow it.

Person A can say:

According to pictures I see it is blue
NASA says it is blue
This color sample I compare to the sky says blue
This crayon is called blue and is close to the tone of the sky.
The UN says it is blue
Astronomers say it is blue
Dude you're ignorant, the sky is blue

Any but the last defeats his comment without directly insulting him

Ad Homimens work both ways Mace.

Additional point to be made: Character/Source Assassinations. To often I have found that detractors will attempt to negate a person or source with an ad hominen attack upon that source/person. I.E. "Fox News is not a news source, they make propoganda" when in fact Fox News is the largest US Cable News provider, has bureaus in most major markets, generates its own stories, purchases stories from other news agencies (Rueters and other syndication groups), has corporate ties to dozens of other news companies, and has a news website with tons of obvious news.

Aka Fox News is a news company. Yet some insist on ad homimen attacks to reduce the source.

A proper debate would have another source to debunk a source cited or provided. If I say "most States have banned gay marriage" you should not dismiss it out of hand... instead you should provide evidence that refutes it. If you cannot then you should not try to negate my Statement.

More later

Dear V. Kemp / Mister Spock,

This will be my last post on this subject as I do not intend to use too much of my precious summer time (or what is left of it) on these forums. I feel like I am repeating myself and that the true underlying issue is that you, V. Kemp / Mister Spock, do not see the point that in an ad rem discussion, one can make their points with ad rem arguments. There is no need to result to ad hominem arguments, nor insensitive remarks,  as they do not add anything to similar ad rem arguments content-wise, and they only take away from the discussion.

"In every case of my being accused of it, no such implication was made. I'm aware of the technical definition, and so we're both obviously aware that it doesn't apply to my case. I make arguments and accompany them with often lengthy explanations. Allegedly insensitive statements are nothing but a little insightful commentary on top of this."

I have shown you at least one example where you made ad hominem arguments, I can show you another:
- "When a troll "
Calling someone a troll does not add anything contentwise to just telling that someone is trolling. This is an argumentum ad hominem vs. an argumentum ad rem: an attack against a man vs. an attack against subject matter. The latter has a place in discussions as it reflects on subject matter, the former does not as it has already been established that one's actions  were marked as "trolling", therefore calling the person a "troll" gives little added information contentwise and only serves the purpose of abusing the person.

- "Not critiquing such juvenile practices just makes the forum worse for everyone, even if they don't know it and would love some meaningless validation of their beliefs. Critiquing such juvenile practices isn't inherently ad-hominem attacks, it's necessary if this forum isn't to be totally dominated by trolls and elementary school students with inflated egos who couldn't make a half rational argument to save their lives."
Here you start of with a few ad rem arguments: the practises of some on certain subject matter may be juvenile by the way we judge them. This is indeed not an ad hominem argument. However, when you say that those people are (again) trolls or just simply "elementary school students with inflated egos", you are making ad hominem attacks again. The point that the level of argumentation they used in their post is plenty, one does not have to add that the opponent is himself an elementary school student.

In your case, you do often make arguments with lengthy explanations based on ad rem arguments, however, you quite often add an argumentum ad hominem as well to boot it. And that is where your argumentation becomes unacceptable for a civilised debate. One can make insightful statements that provide little insightful commentary using ad rem arguments.

"Which does not preclude the likelihood that, in the absence of a decent discussion, talking about why it's lacking is probably a fair idea."

However, when you reply to an undecent discussion in an undecent way, you are just adding to the hopelessness of the overall discussion. As I've said before, it just increases the sum of fallacies. If you have real points to make, such can be done without the fallacies. If you are only posting so that you can reply in a fallacy-ridden way, you might as well just not post as it does not add much to the subject matter and its only purpose is to end the discussion.

"Simply pointing it out isn't.

Calling out a troll isn't an ad-hominem attack. I've done it with loads of examples. I even had someone read a troll's post referencing aliens and basing political philosophy on this faith. He smiled and left the room in less than thirty seconds, saying "he's trolling."

It's not an ad-hominem attack to point out such ridiculousness and ask for better."

Here again you show that you do not fully comprehend the idea of ad hominem arguments. Simply pointing out that the arguments are bad, is not, as you said, an ad hominem attack. However, resorting to calling a person a troll (rather than simply saying that what he is posting is trolling) is clearly directed to the poster, even if it does have a basis on the subject matter. There is a simple alternative to calling the person a troll (an argument ad rem that shows that the poster's arguments are trolling), and so is is not necessary to resort to those ad hominem arguments.
It does not have to be an ad hominem attack to point out ridiculousless and ask for better, but it is when you refer this ridiculousness back to a flaw in the opponent's character, or when you base the opponent's character based on these flaws and conclude that, because his posts are ridiculous, that therefore the poster must be ridiculous as well (which would discredit all his arguments due to a character flaw: a clear argumentum ad hominem).

"If he's trolling, I don't need an excuse. It's good and respectful to everybody to call him out. And if I'm just pointing out that a poster hasn't even participated in the debate, it's not an ad-hominem attack."

Here you bring up the matter that a poster may not even be participating in the debate, and that pointing that out is not necessarily an ad hominem attack. That is true, as one can point out with ad rem arguments that the poster's arguments do not add anything to the debate. However, when one starts to call out the poster for not participating, that point (the opponent does not participate in the debate) becomes an ad-hominem attack.
I do not understand where you get the idea that countering someone's fallacies with more fallacies of your own is justified and respectful to anyone else, as you are simply disrespecting the course of the debate by using such fallacies, when you could've made your point without them.

"If pointing it out were supposedly an argument on content, then yes. But as we well know, I give explanation on content abound. As we've established here, the fallacious logic is presenting ad-hominem attacks as arguments, not criticizing people for not even making arguments. The criticism that people are absolutely ignoring major points without rebuttal or explanation of any kind is not, in fact, an ad-hominem fallacious attack. Yet it is constantly presented as such on this forum. **The crying that resulted in the forum disappearing for 3 days did not even differentiate between language used to describe arguments and language used to describe people.** Just a little minor point."

Of course one can critisize the argumentation of their opponent when it ignores major points that one himself has made. It does indeed not have to be an ad hominem attack when it is based on content matter rather than character flaws of the opponent (i.e. the opponent being a troll by purposefully ignoring major points, the opponent being juvenile by not being able to come up with a counter a major point, etc.). Just pointing out that there is a lack of a counter would have sufficed, the comments on the opponent's self are not necessary.
I believe that a lot of the crying that resulted in these fora is not focussed on the ad rem arguments, rather that when someone posts a counterargument full of (content-based) ad rem arguments, that person then adds an ad hominem argument, perhaps to weaken his opponent's point by discredeting his opponent (abusive ad hominem, or guilt by association), or because of habit, both being fallicious arguments to add these ad hominem attacks as contentwise the person has already countered his opponent with his ad rem arguments.

"This is an ad-hominem attack because you're refusing to address the ridiculousness of what you proposed in your initial post. You argued essentially that I shouldn't call communism communism but rather I should list 5+ communist ideals championed by a poster every time I want to refer to their communist ideals. This is just silly.

You nit picked over "true communism" like that's ever even supposedly been a point of contention here. These shenanigans are part of the problem of the garbage that passes for discourse around here.

Nobody ever debated the purity of communism. I simply mentioned a communist as a communist. He claimed offense, yet failed to differentiate his beliefs from communism in months. Then he cried about it. The problem was the absolute drivel level of [lack of] dialogue and crying, not my use of the word "communist" to describe a poster's beliefs.

If I had name-called someone a communist and they rebutted me, your criticism would be legitimate. But I didn't name-call. And nobody ever rebutted my descriptor. Discussing things as they are not is pointless."

I do not see how the use of linguistic tools would be an ad hominem attack, nor how me not adressing the fact that one should not call a set of ideas that overlaps with communism, communism. One is not a communist unless oneself presents himself as being a communist and comes out for it. Unless this is the case (or the very unlikely event that the opponent shares ALL of his ideas with communism and has NO other ideas that would differ from communism), an argument referring to the opponent as a "communist" rather than to his ideas as being part of communist ideology, is in fact, a guilt by association ad hominem argument, and accusing the opponent's person of being part of the communist ideology (rather than argumenting that his arguments were communist ideology, and then why these particular communist ideas (and not the fact that they are communist: overgeneralisation, guilt by assoctiation) are incorrect. You do not need to refer to a poster's communist ideals, they are not the subject matter on hand and therefore only are used to make guilt by association arguments. This is not silly, it is just a civilized, well-structured discussion with sound argumentation.
I believe the person who is the subject of this matter has never implied that he would want to introduce a 100% tax rate, where the individual does not own anything, and the government owns all. He may have advocated a 90% tax rate, and little individual ownership. The fact that these ideas may still be like communism, and are in contrast with several ideas that counter communism, does not mean that these ideas are intrinsically communist. The nitpicking is necessary on this point, as otherwise the term "(over)generalisation" would be applicable.
Aside from the fact that the ideas may not be 100% according to communist ideas, there still remains the fact that even if they were, one can make the argument that the ideas are communist, but does not have to resort to calling the person who has those ideas a "communist". He had all the reason to cry about your guilt by association ad hominem attacks when you call him a communist, he would not have had these reasons had you simply called his ideas communist. When you are making such an ad hominem argument, it is in fact you who is unnecissarily undermining the fundaments of discussion, with your opponent responding in a way that I do not agree with either, but that may have been caused by your ad hominem argument.
One does not have to rebutt an ad hominem argument, as they simply have no place in an ad rem discussion.

"If it's a large number of views and **nobody claiming offense differentiates their views from Communism in a matter of months,** it's just succinct language. Sure, arguments could be made that it wasn't an apt descriptor. But, given months, the absence of ANY such arguments is substantiation that it was, in fact, just a logical, respectful, succinct descriptor."

[...]

"Again, large number of views. No exceptions which contradict Communist ideals. No argument whatsoever claiming such."

[...]

"I never claimed character flaws. And I absolutely never depended on such a label as a basis for an argument. I think that should be ridiculously evident from the past 12 years. *ad-hominem attacks anyone who thinks otherwise*

Again, this is not the subject matter of this discussion, as this discussion revolves around ad hominem attacks and other fallacies. If the ideas the person bring forward are used by communists and perhaps based on communists foundations, that may be worded in an ad rem argument. When you use these ad rem arguments to form an ad hominem argument, using the ad rem arguments as a descriptor of the poster, THAT is when you are committing a fallacy. These fallacies may seem logical, but (I repeat myself) hold no place in an ad rem discussion and add nothing to the ad rem arguments other than the ad hominem aspect. In that way, using these ad hominem arguments is neither logical, nor respectful, and as mentioned before it is not a succinct descriptor.
If you are not claiming character flaws, nor using labels as a basis for argument, then why do you even have to add such a label to a person? Again, I stress the fact that this adds nothing to the ad rem arguments, and are therefore unnecessary and should be avoided because people can feel offended and can claim abuse (communists are a group that are normally viewed negatively, especially in the USA. Of course, implying that you would mean them negatively would be a generalisation, but I mean to imply the possibility that the opponent or readers may have these negative associations and therefore claim abuse) or guilt by association/generalisation (you denounce (some of) the opponent's ideas as communist, and therefore call him a communist).

"Yes, lines which we have established are not ad-hominem attacks. Lines which are not the basis for a single argument I've ever made in my lifetime. Lines which are accurate and have not been disputed by anyone, ever, with an actual argument of any size, type, or complexity. Or even a feeble attempt.

You claimed 3 fallacies. I have stated my disagreement. I am, of course, open to being told where you disagree with my responses to your three claims. I can respect disagreements just fine, but what I'm used to around here is vague claims without any responses disputing a word of what I've said."

The fact that the (ad hominem) fallacy is based on actual ad rem arguments, even if they are logically perfect, accurate, and undisputed,, does not change the fact that it remains an ad hominem attack. The conclusion that ad rem + ad hominem =/= fallacy, is wrong. It is not the use of the line that makes it a fallacy, it is the intrinsic qualities of the line.
I think this quite accurately debunks your disagreement with the fact that the points I made about that line. I hope I am being clear enough now, if not, I am perhaps not understanding the arguments you use to disagree with my points. Could you outline them in a clear, punctual way, such as I used to dissect that one line?

"It's neither fear or a prediction. It was a simple assessment of the current state of affairs. When most people who disagree with someone just call them names and **literally** dispute/respond to **nothing** they said, that's not dialogue or debate. When people talk about their faith in alien technology held hostage by the elite like we can possibly have any sort of discourse based on their wild, baseless theories, that's not dialogue or debate.

We're already there."

If we have already reached the point where these forums have deteriorated to a garbage bin, then clearly your strategy of using fallacies to counter fallacies has not worked as you had expected it to (to prevent these "trolls" from running amok, as you stated), or at least not optimally. The fallacy-ridden posts (I think we can establish that at this point?) you have used at times in the past, only contribute to this situation without dialogue or debate, with all of the namecalling.

"Aside from the fact that others--including juvenile moderators--respond to them, rather than ignore them (or delete obvious trolling, in the case of the moderators), I agree with you on this one. The fact is that they still get enough attention to encourage sustained trolling, as is obvious from the fact that we have trolls who've dwelt here for long periods (even when I ignored them for months)."

[...]

"As I said, they appear to get enough encouragement anyway. I don't discourage them with ad-hominem attacks and name-calling in place of arguments, I argue the crap out of their nonsense and occasionally, allegedly, am slightly insensitive."

Yes, you point out a very clear fault in the ignoring strategy, that I had forgotten to account for. I have myself wasted some time on tiring discussions with people not willing to give way on any of their arguments, not even when logically and accurately countered. Warning other users before they waste their time may be a valid reason to post, but I still feel like responding with fallacy-ridden counters is not the best way.
Perhaps we could introduce some kind of rating system on these politics forums, such as many other political forums (and just forums in general) use. Of course we have the tag system, which apparently was being worked on (although I have not heard any news of recent developments in quite a long time). Still, maybe we could use this in the future.
This is however just theorizing and does not give a solution to the problem at hand of the time-wasting discussions without content. But with the mods' more serious stance on the advocating and control of the politics forum, perhaps certain fmods who have knowledge of political debate can warn people when a discussion is going nowhere, saving valuable time.

"I don't claim knowledge of probability, but the sure logical certainty is that more educated, intelligent readers of the forum are sure to abandon any interest much quicker given a volume of completely garbage selective-responses and references to alien technology which certainly has no place on a politics forum. That moderators respond as if there's any legitimate content in talk of alien technology held hostage by the wealthy is just sad and certainly doesn't encourage a positive trend for the forum, whatever the chances that it has negatively impacted X number of potential participants."

I myself used to be a bit active on these politics forums, for a short period of time. However, for me, not only the waste of time when responding to some arguments, but also (if not even more so) the ad hominem arguments made to counter some of my own (even if accompanied by ad rem arguments) made me to ignore these forums, only posting on occasion.
Of course this is just speaking from personal experience, which is never a solid argument, but I hope you see my point of how ad hominem attacks made against serious debaters may scare them away and therefore be detrimental to the debate.
And as the "trolls" towards whom you may direct the most of your ad hominem arguments or "insensitivities", may seem to be resilient to them (continuing posts, perhaps only changing their subject matter to cries about how you made ad hominem arguments, neither being constructive to the debate), they may cause more harm to the debate in the form of scaring away possible serious debaters, rather than doing good in the form of making the "trolls" stop making content-less posts.

"Perhaps. I'm sure it's the mature thing to do. But maturity is not required, nor can it be moderated (examples abound!). It's for the good of the forum. Somebody's got to do it. And it's always accomplished with content, not ad-hominem attacks in place of logical arguments and reasonable questions.

I'm pretty sure I addressed the crap out of this one by now. Are you seriously claiming I don't fill my posts with arguments in response to what people say? Are you seriously claiming that my supposed occasional insensitive comments are given in place of arguments? That's just silly."

I have never said, nor even implied, that you do not use ad rem arguments. What I am implying and saying, however, is that in conjugation with those ad rem arguments, you use ad hominem arguments. I have shown proof of how you use ad rem arguments to form an ad hominem argument, and that exactly is the tilting point where your post goes from constructive to being (partly) detrimental to the debate.

"I never claimed others' use of fallacious justified me doing the same. I simply point out when they do it. Sometimes, allegedly, it's not the most sensitive way that I do it. This does not equate with me using ad-hominem attacks. Remember your definition you posted? Its very important here. I base no arguments or claims on supposedly insensitive remarks. I fill my posts with actual discussion of content. These supposedly insensitive remarks are a tiny portion of my posts. Ignoring this fact is just ridiculously fallacious. "

You say you do not use those "insensitive remarks" to form new arguments. If this is the case, then why do you even make these remarks? If you only objective is to scare off certain posters, because you feel like their posts do not hold any content and they are just wasting everybody's time, do you not see the possible harm you inflict to the discussion by scaring off possible serious debaters? Even more so as the trolls continu posting regardless of those remarks. Even if they make up a tiny portion of your (otherwise) ad rem posts, could you consider the possibility that they inflict more harm than good?
And do you conceive that these remarks are not necessary when you can  argue that your opponents actual post is nonsense? A purely ad rem argumentation without these remarks would perfectly show it.

Kemp....

How about you limit yourself to three paragraphs for the next three days, per post? And not mile long ones.

The irony is palpable

/cops a feel of the irony

Short reply:

Ok I can see where you are coming from now. You argue that since you do not technically use the remarks to form arguments with, that therefore they are not ad hominem arguments. I conceive that, linguistically speaking, you are correct on that.
You are open to discussion regarding these remarks, as long as the opponent even attempts to debunk them. I can see your opinion here, where you dislike it when the opponent just whines about the use of the remarks, without even having attempted to prove that they were untrue. Still I feel like we might be slightly overgeneralising, the nomen having been given to the opponent too quickly, as your view of a communist may differ from mine (I perceive the person of matter more as just being delusional (the alien talk) and having strange, utopian ideas, rather than him just being an outright communist).

I still do not feel that your remarks would fit in a polite, proper debate, but in your argumentation against me you have shown that you are quite capable of making your point clear without use of these remarks (at least not directed towards me, aside from the odd ironic/sarcastic snear and the use of the word "silly" ).

The point about the linguistic devices was not meant as an attack, I meant to ask whether you could condone my use of them.

Of course my remarks wouldn't fit in a "proper debate." But then, neither would nearly anybody posting here and much they post.

...Well, maybe in a 3rd grade debate club. OH CRAP I DID IT AGAIN.

It's generally not intended particularly seriously. We're on a forum dominated by adults acting like children. It's not an excuse to be irrational, but I'm not exactly posting here to get credit for a graduate degree. I'm not going to go all-out high-minded academic and spend time responding to someone who's probably an angry teenager snickering as he trolls a forum. Such an idiot surely wouldn't understand the diction just as he doesn't understand simple arguments now.

I'm not mean-spirited about it. I don't wish anyone ill. I've had plenty of less-than-amicable exchanges with people that ended with us both happy to have had the exchange and respectful of one another.

A lot of times, people not very familiar with basic logic and rhetoric will completely ignore massive points and not realize they're failing to participate productively in dialogue. As it turns out, if someone argues in favor of NAMBLA, they're going to have to address concerns that the organization might harm the crap out of (bad choice of language!) children. Completely ignoring repeated arguments based on these concerns and continuing to post isn't winning an argument, it's forfeiting the argument while continuing to disrespectfully spam a topic which one clearly has no desire to discuss.

It can get a little unpleasant trying to get these very significant arguments addressed by posters who just don't have the practice and education in such exchanges. But I try to be nice and things generally turn out just fine.

When I refer to trolls I'm not being mean to people whom I don't perceive as very skillful or knowledgeable of debate. I'm talking, they've been at this for months, they literally ignore absolutely everything which really challenges their position, and it couldn't be more obvious that they're not remotely interested in discussing anything. They might be intellectually incapable; I kindly assume they're trolls, not THAT stupid.

If I piss someone off by drawing attention to their inability or refusal to discuss a topic with insensitive language on occasion, we obviously already had a problem before I was snide about it. I can't derail discourse that doesn't exist.

I don't enjoy confrontation, but I don't enjoy extremely juvenile and just stupid exchanges either. Even teenagers in their mid teens are easily capable of better. There's no reason adults should be throwing away all respectful discourse just because it's the internet.

The point I make now is the point I made 400 pages above: There are much more disrespectful things than a few jabs, and they ruin all conversation much more than occasional light-hearted ball-busting. Or even snide remarks about ignoring arguments and responding uber-selectively.

This is teh interwebs. People can slaughter ideas with theirs, or they ought to learn something from the fact that they can't. If I had a dollar for every important point/argument on this forum that was completely ignored by someone who later got self-righteous about disrespect... well, I'd have a lot of dollars.

Okay this, too, got very long. I'm done here.