I am tired of IRC flamewars

Let me be the first to admit that some of my opinions are controversial. Some people don’t agree with them – hell sometimes those people may be right so I love debating the points. In such debates I find enlightenment, if my opinions stand up their arguments they are strengthened and refined, if they fail to stand up – then I learn and improve or even radically alter them – I have completely changed my mind about many things more than once.

But I am sick of having those debates on IRC because it’s the worst possible place to have a debate. My opinions as they stand have been developed over years, with many debates with others and consistent questioning by myself. Everytime I read something new on a topic I hold one on – I test my ideas against the ideas expressed and see if my ideas need to be refined. So my long held believe in the value of diversity to the FOSS world has been greatly improved when I read Stuart Kaufmann’s work, although it was unrelated, I could see a clear parallel.

All this works for me – because I always consider the possibility that I may be dead wrong. The irony is that exactly because I do so – on IRC I am perceived as arrogant. Because people raise counterarguments I had long ago considered in detail by comparison with the sources they got their ideas from (we’re talking books, not one-liners) and found wanting. If I hadn’t – I would not have continued to hold my opinion. On IRC though, it looks arrogant to say “I know that argument and I don’t buy it” – when my reasons for not buying it is long, complex and thought out over years, and on IRC you have to sum it up in one line.

Then try explaining: if you want to convince me (and if you don’t – why are you arguing ?) then you’ll need to come up with something original, or at least if you are supporting an argument I’ve discounted come up with a piece of evidence for it that I wasn’t already aware of. In other words, I feel my ideas are constantly tested – and the chances that you will successful challenge them with a one-liner on IRC is exactly the same as that I can convince you of them with a one-liner on IRC – a simple matter of no chance whatsoever.

I’m sick of being painted as something I’m not. Heck I got accused of being arrogant and convinced of being always right in a post where I was questioning whether my opinion still applies ! While being agnostic and testing my previous opinion in light of new developments, I’m accused of holding on to that opinion too harshly – that is the problem with IRC as a forum for debate.

Now I do provide a comments section on this blog. In future, if you wish to debate a post with me – do it there, where you can cite your sources, link me to evidence and back up your argument, and I will reply – with similarly researched and backed up arguments. If your argument is better than mine, I promise I will agree with you, if it’s equal to mine I will cease to hold my opinion and make it and yours two parts of a set of possibilities I think might be true. If it’s less than mine, then I expect the same courtesy.

If you wish to discuss something on my blog with me on IRC – in future, well it’s fine if you just want to ask something simple like “What’s the title of the book you cited” – but if you disagree with my conclusions, post your reply on my blog, or I will summarily ignore you, even – in fact especially – if you are somebody I like and respect (Vhata, I’m kind of thinking of you here :p ).

I am not able to express my views on the kind of things I write about here in one-liners, and any attempt to do so will by nature be very oversimplified and not really express what I feel. My experience on IRC is that the result ends up getting me attacked for strawmen.

I had a few paragraphs below where I pointed out examples of arguments where on IRC I had struggled to explain my position – and then carefully shown what was behind it, I stripped them out because they are not relevant to this post. I will rather do a follow-up post in a few days where I handle them exclusively. This post is a statement of position. I am happy to debate, I love it, it’s a learning experience – but there are appropriate and inappropriate forums for any kind of debate. The things I write about on this blog – are not things that can be adequately debated on IRC and every attempt to do so has turned into a disaster so I will no longer attempt to do so, I will ask you politely to comment here if you disagree. Where we can look at your idea in detail and completely and determine to what extent it casts genuine doubt on mine.