The Debate Hall: How to Post

Congratulations on being accepted into the Debate Hall proper! Before posting, there are a few guidelines to follow. Posting in the Debate Hall is not a right, but a privilege and an honor, and as such the conversations here are held to a higher standard than the rest of the forums. It is for this reason that you should take extra notice of the way you post in here.


When coming up with a title for your thread, making it intelligent and relevant to the topic within is especially important. People will form opinions about your topic before they even click the link; the name you decide upon will influence the mindset readers take when entering your thread and most likely the manner in which they post. Colons and / or semicolons are a nice touch, and may be used to indicate a subtitle further explaining the purpose of your thread. Proper capitalization, punctuation, and other grammar is expected; there’s nothing more annoying than having to look at a poorly worded title every time you enter a subscribed thread!


- Posting in a thread or replying to someone else’s argument is to be done with normal Debate Hall etiquette. This is not the General Brawl Forums; make your post body presentable. Copy and past them from your text editing software and spell check if you have to, and make sure to word your sentences intelligently. While one-liners or posts with very little content will be regarded as spam, don’t make your post a wall of text either! Break them up into paragraphs, which are much easier on the eyes. Long-winded rants may be impressive and may show that you took your time crafting a response, you can probably cut down your post by half if you word it concisely and to the point.

- To add extra emphasis to your argument you can use exclamation marks, underline / italicize / bold certain key words, or capitalize. Take a look at how HTML can improve your tone:


However, the key here is moderation, and posts should always be presentable. Do not be the guy who uses fifty exclamation marks and tries to capitalize 90% of his post.

- Use paragraphs. This is very important and distinguishes between different points and ideas very well. Most Debaters, and this post, press the enter key twice to distinguish paragraphs and that is probably the best way for you to do it too. Start a new paragraph every time you come to a new idea in your post. This will help make your post much more readable. Other things can be used to make your post easier to read, but thy are not necessary. Headings can improve the look of your post and are done using the 'sizes' option of the advanced post editor. Bold and italics can also work to stress points.

Here is an example post before and after you apply the rules of spelling, grammar, and formatting.

Before:

red is teh besst colro and if yOU dont us it you are StuPiDd every1 whos any1 uses teh color red. it is teh color of teh Ph1re!!!11!!

Click to expand...

This post is challenging to read, but if you apply the spelling, grammar, and formatting rules, it becomes much easier to decipher:

After:

Red is clearly the best color to post in, and here is why:

1) Every good debater posts in the color red.
2) Red is the color of fire.

These two points make it quite obvious, at least in my opinion, that red is the very best color for posts.

Click to expand...

- Always, always, always re-read your post before you post it! What you wrote may seem awesome in your head, but until you read it out loud to yourself you won’t know how dumb it actually is. This also gives you the chance to go over any other flaws you may have missed when writing it. It happens to everybody, and saves you the trouble of going back and editing.

- Behavior towards your fellow Debaters should also be done with respect. Flaming or swearing should never be necessary, and will probably be met with an infraction. As a Debater, you represent the Debate Hall no matter where you post on these forums, and tarnishing your reputation by making improper posts is a reflection on this room, as well as the rest of us.


The standard format used when arguing in the Debate Hall is the "point by point" post. Unfortunately, the forum’s quote button does not support this. Instead, just use the quote button like normal but also remember to insert an ending quote tag after each point you want to reply to, and a beginning quote tag before each point, so that your replies show up on the "root" level of your post. This allows people to follow the discussion easily, and also lets the person you’re arguing with use the quote button and pick up just your response.

Here’s an example. Say you want to quote this post:

Delorted: “I am an agnostic.

Therefore, I am an illogical charlatan who is not worthy of Debate Hall status.”

After clicking the quote button at the bottom of his post, it should show up like this:

Delorted said:

“I am an agnostic.

Therefore, I am an illogical charlatan who is not worthy of Debate Hall status.”

Click to expand...

In order to respond to each point, just insert an ending tag after the first part and a beginning tag onto the second part. The refutation should end up looking like this:

Delorted said:

“I am an agnostic.

Click to expand...

I know.

Therefore, I am an illogical charlatan who is not worthy of Debate Hall status.”

Click to expand...

Couldn’t agree with you more!

For posts where there may be more than two points unlike the one above, just surround the sections that you break it up into with quote tags.


In any intelligent debate, there is nothing more important than providing evidence for your claims. Your post has zero credibility unless you are able to back up your assertions with some sort of reasoning or external link. You can easily post hyperlinks at the bottom of your post, after making a specific point, or wherever you need them. To get your link to become embedded in a word in your sentence like this, just use the formatting option in the “Advanced Posting”. It will ask you for a link, and then automatically add it to your post with the customizable sentence selected. Here’s an example:

Come to the site here.

Click to expand...

As you can see, it's a simple URL tag; the same exact format as quoting except that URL replaces QUOTE, and instead of the name of the poster in quotations, it's the name of the site you are linking to.

When using outside sources, make sure that they are credible. Finally, always make sure that you don’t just post a link and nothing else. Explain, summarize, and show what information you want people to know from the link. Don’t expect them to go searching for themselves, but they can if they want to; sources are mainly to be used to show that your argument is credible.


Here is a quick list of logical fallacies that lead to poor arguments. Be sure not to use any of these in your posts!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html

Fun fact: I made this entire post using all the guidelines listed above! Good luck Debating, and remember: arguing should be a learning experience for everyone involved. Even those who have been here a long time don't know everything about everything, so be humble, and make sure to have fun!

Hmm, I believe the making threads part is a little thin.
There can be much more in that section such as what not to make.
For example, don't make "what's your opinion" threads which provide very little substance for debates.
An example of which would be, "Who's your favorite basketball player" or "Is Disney worse or better now?"

Also, always make sure you know about the topic before you make the thread on it. Do some research before hand. No one has to be an expert, but please do some research before making a topic. It really helps people look less stupid. Post your research links too, a little from both sides to help allow for both views of the debate to flourish. Otherwise, people who generally haven't heard of the topic will either be mislead or left in the dark. Having some links in the OP really helps the debates move quicker as people will be able to research faster and gain background knowledge as well. It is also a lot better for those who are reading to be able to have a foundation before reading the rest of the thread.

But yeah, those are some things about thread making that I believe are important. Disagree with me if you will, and we can debate about it to see if we should add in these points.

Feel free to discuss this as necessary; I'll stick the final topic.

Okay, CK - let's make this thread a temporary one. What I'm going to do is quote RDK's original post, make my edits, then post it here. That way it'll be like a Wiki; and you can delete this thread and make a new one without all the clutter this one will result in.

A wise man once said,

AltF4Warrior said:

The debate process is more for those reading than it is for those actually participating in the debate.

Click to expand...

Congratulations on being accepted into the Debate Hall proper! Before posting, there are a few guidelines to follow. Posting in the Debate Hall is not a right - rather, but a privilege and an honor. As such, the conversations held here are necessarily of a higher quality than the rest of the forums. It is for this reason that you should take extra notice of the way you post in here. You may have shown competence in the Proving Grounds, but this is the big leagues, and posting like a boor in here will get you booted. Therefore, if you are new, please make yourself aware of how things are run here.


When coming up with a title for your thread, making it intelligent and relevant to the topic within is especially important. People have preexisting opinions and will form new ones about your topic before they even click the link. The name of the thread you decide upon will influence the mindset readers take when entering your thread and most likely the manner in which they post. For example, if you name your thread which discusses aesthetics and art critique "Poetry and why it sucks", you immediately offend poets. While this may be eye-catching and will draw attention, it also might set the stage for a very belligerent flame-war. (Don't get the wrong idea - sometimes these are incredibly entertaining. Just be aware of your tone)

Colons and / or semicolons are a nice touch, and may be used to indicate a subtitle further explaining the purpose of your thread. Proper capitalization, punctuation, and other grammar is expected; there’s nothing more annoying than having to look at a poorly worded title every time you enter a subscribed thread!


Posting in a thread or replying to someone's argument is to be done with style. This is not the General Brawl Forums - make your post body presentable, attractive, and I daresay beautiful. You will begin to appreciate good posting skills in good time, and bad posts will seem downright offensive to the eyes. To save time and avoid crashes, copy-and-pasting your posts from a word processor is a great idea. It will also spell check your posts and make sure your sentences have the correct syntax.


The length of your post is also a concern.While one-line posts or posts with very little content are okay from time to time, posting consistently so will be regarded as spam, and be infracted as such. On the other hand, your posts don’t require a wall of text either! Brevity can be a wonderful thing - especially when you are on the receiving end. It makes it that much easier to read! In general however, break your posts up into paragraphs, as text-walls are hard on the eyes. Long-winded rants may be impressive and can show that you're knowledgeable, but that means nil if no one cares to read through 15 pages.

To add extra emphasis to your argument, you can use exclamation marks, underlines, italics, bolded words, capitals, etc. Take a look at how HTML can improve your tone:

However, moderation is key, and posts should always be presentable. Do not be the guy who uses fifty exclamation marks and tries to capitalize 90% of his post.

Before you click "Submit Reply", always, always, always re-read your post. What you wrote may seem awesome in your head, but until you read it out loud to yourself you won’t know how dumb it actually is. This also gives you the chance to go over any other flaws you may have missed when writing it. It happens to everybody, but if you have some foresight, you can save yourself the trouble of going back and editing.

In the end, behavior towards your fellow Debaters should also be done with respect. Flaming or swearing should never be necessary, but it's understood that sometimes things get heated. Expect excessive flaming to be infracted appropriately.

As a Debater, you represent the Debate Hall no matter where you post on these forums, and tarnishing your reputation by making improper posts is a reflection on this room, as well as the rest of us.


The standard format used when arguing in the Debate Hall is the "point by point" method. Unfortunately, the forum’s quote button does not support this, so you need to get your hands a little dirty. This means to properly quote someone, you may have to manually break apart someone's text using your own "quote" tags.

Use the quote button like normal, but also remember to insert an ending quote tag after each point you want to reply to, and a beginning quote tag before each point, so that your replies show up on the "root" level of your post. This allows people to follow the discussion easily, and also lets the person you’re arguing with use the quote button and pick up just your response.

Here’s an example. Say you want to quote the following "post":

“I believe posting in red is ridiculous.

Therefore, people who post in red font are a blight on humanity, and are not worthy of Debate Hall status.”

After clicking the quote button at the bottom of this "post", it should show up like this:

DeLoRtEd1 said:

I believe posting in red is ridiculous.

Therefore, people who post in red font are a blight on humanity, and are not worthy of Debate Hall status.

Click to expand...

In order to respond to each point, just insert an ending tag after the first part and a beginning tag onto the second part. The refutation should end up looking like this:

DeLoRtEd1 said:

I believe posting in red is ridiculous.

Click to expand...

Hear, hear.

DeLoRtEd1 said:

Therefore, people who post in red font are a blight on humanity, and are not worthy of Debate Hall status.

Click to expand...

Couldn’t agree with you more!

For posts where there may be more than two points unlike the one above, just surround the sections that you break it up into with quote tags. Your responses should come right after the quoted text, not within the physical quote box.


In any intelligent debate, there is nothing more important than providing evidence for your claims. Your post has zero credibility unless you are able to back up your assertions with some sort of reasoning or external link. You can easily post hyperlinks at the bottom of your post, after making a specific point, or wherever you need them. To get your link to become embedded in a word in your sentence like this, just use the formatting option in the “Advanced Posting”. It will ask you for a link, and then automatically add it to your post with the customizable sentence selected. Here’s an example:

You can find all sorts of wonderful starting points at Wikipedia.

As you can see, it's a simple URL tag; the same exact format as quoting except that URL replaces QUOTE, and instead of the name of the poster in quotations, it's the name of the site you are linking to.

When using outside sources, make sure that they are credible. Finally, always make sure that you don’t just post a link and nothing else. Explain, summarize, and show what information you want people to know from the link. Don’t expect them to go searching for themselves, but they can if they want to; sources are mainly to be used to show that your argument is credible.

Logical Fallacies​

Logical fallacies occur all the time. Debaters new and old commit them - sometimes egregiously. To fortify your arguments, make sure you avoid fallacies at all costs. That way, no one can dismiss your arguments simply by citing some latin term. It's frustrating, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Here is a quick list of logical fallacies that lead to poor arguments. Be sure not to use any of these in your posts!


Make sure you can identify fallacies, because they are everywhere. Your parents probably commit fallacies all the time, and you probably didn't even realize. Know how to identify fallacies and your debating skills will be that much greater.

Good luck debating, and remember: arguing should be a learning experience for everyone involved. Even those who have been here a long time don't know everything about everything, so be humble, and make sure to have fun!

RDK said:

I see what you did there.

Edit: everyone who's making changes / adding stuff, highlight your additions or do something to it so I know what changes you made.

Click to expand...

This is an awesome idea, as is Del's Wiki idea.

A wise man once said,



Congratulations on being accepted into the Debate Hall proper! Before posting, there are a few guidelines to follow. Posting in the Debate Hall is not a right - rather, but a privilege and an honor. As such, the conversations held here are necessarily of a higher quality than the rest of the forums. It is for this reason that you should take extra notice of the way you post in here. You may have shown competence in the Proving Grounds, but this is the big leagues, and posting like a boor in here will get you booted. Therefore, if you are new, please make yourself aware of how things are run here.


When coming up with a title for your thread, making it intelligent and relevant to the topic within is especially important. People have preexisting opinions and will form new ones about your topic before they even click the link. The name of the thread you decide upon will influence the mindset readers take when entering your thread and most likely the manner in which they post. For example, if you name your thread which discusses aesthetics and art critique "Poetry and why it sucks", you immediately offend poets. While this may be eye-catching and will draw attention, it also might set the stage for a very belligerent flame-war. (Don't get the wrong idea - sometimes these are incredibly entertaining. Just be aware of your tone)

Colons and / or semicolons are a nice touch, and may be used to indicate a subtitle further explaining the purpose of your thread. Proper capitalization, punctuation, and other grammar is expected; there’s nothing more annoying than having to look at a poorly worded title every time you enter a subscribed thread!

Your opening post (or OP) is a very important part of your thread. It often determines if someone is going to post in it. Often a good way to make OP's is to provide background information and then a clear and concise topic for the debate. Bold and Underline your topic and make it otherwise noticeable so it is clear what is being debated. After this, it is helpful, but not required, to prevent a brief argument for either side of the debate or a pros and cons section. This should also be well formatted, and it helps get the debate started smoothly. Then, briefly post your own opinion or your lack of an opinion on the subject and post some relevant sources or articles. Make sure you hit the 'Preview' Button! Re-read your post once or twice for grammar or logic issues and it is ready to be debated!


Posting in a thread or replying to someone's argument is to be done with style. This is not the General Brawl Forums - make your post body presentable, attractive, and I daresay beautiful. You will begin to appreciate good posting skills in good time, and bad posts will seem downright offensive to the eyes. To save time and avoid crashes, copy-and-pasting your posts from a word processor is a great idea. It will also spell check your posts and make sure your sentences have the correct syntax.


The length of your post is also a concern.While one-line posts or posts with very little content are okay from time to time, posting consistently so will be regarded as spam, and be infracted as such. On the other hand, your posts don’t require a wall of text either! Brevity can be a wonderful thing - especially when you are on the receiving end. It makes it that much easier to read! In general however, break your posts up into paragraphs, as text-walls are hard on the eyes. Long-winded rants may be impressive and can show that you're knowledgeable, but that means nil if no one cares to read through 15 pages.

To add extra emphasis to your argument, you can use exclamation marks, underlines, italics, bolded words, capitals, etc. Take a look at how HTML can improve your tone:

However, moderation is key, and posts should always be presentable. Do not be the guy who uses fifty exclamation marks and tries to capitalize 90% of his post.

Before you click "Submit Reply", always, always, always re-read your post. What you wrote may seem awesome in your head, but until you read it out loud to yourself you won’t know how dumb it actually is. This also gives you the chance to go over any other flaws you may have missed when writing it. It happens to everybody, but if you have some foresight, you can save yourself the trouble of going back and editing.

In the end, behavior towards your fellow Debaters should also be done with respect. Flaming or swearing should never be necessary, but it's understood that sometimes things get heated. Expect excessive flaming to be infracted appropriately.

As a Debater, you represent the Debate Hall no matter where you post on these forums, and tarnishing your reputation by making improper posts is a reflection on this room, as well as the rest of us.


Spelling, grammar, and formatting is very important when posting in the Debate Hall and Proving Grounds. As stated before this isn't General Brawl Discussion and such time and effort should be put into your post. If your post is easy to read and pleasing to the eye, then people will be more willing to read it and reply.

Spelling

Spelling is very basic and should always be 100% correct in a debate hall post. Fake or 1337 speak spellings are not accepted in the Debate Hall. When writing a Debate Hall post you should pretend you are writing an essay for school. You wouldn't spell things incorrectly there so you shouldn't here either. An easy solution for bad spelling is a spell check, but make sure that you are using the right word. Spell check doesn't tell you if it is the wrong word if the wrong word is spelled correctly, so proofread your posts.

Grammar

Nobody likes reading a post with poor grammar and so you should be careful to post properly. First and foremost is - ALWAYS CAPITALIZE AND PUNCTUATE SENTENCES. I can not stress this enough. If your sentences are not punctuated or capitalized they become ten times harder to read and some people will just skip them. After you have capitalized and punctuated your sentences you will want to use commas. This is a good source for comma use, but you can usely use your judgement skills to find where a reader would pause when reading your post and put a comma there. Another important thing is the use of apostrophes. Anytime you use a possesive or a contraction be sure to use an apostrophe. Other punctuation such as semi-colons and colons are rarely necessary, but if you would like to use them be sure to use them correctly.

Formatting

The first and most important rule of posting is to use paragraphs. This is very important and distinguishes between different points and ideas very well. Most Debaters, and this post, press the enter key twice to distinguish paragraphs and that is probably the best way for you to do it too. Start a new paragraph every time you come to a new idea in your post. This will help make your post much more readable. Other things can be used to make your post easier to read, but thy are not necessary. Headings can improve the look of your post and are done using the 'sizes' option of the advanced post editor. Bold and italics can also work to stress points.

Here is an example post before and after you apply the rules of spelling, grammar, and formatting.

Before:

Example said:

red is teh besst colro and if yOU dont us it you are StuPiDd every1 whos any1 uses teh color red. it is teh color of teh Ph1re!!!11!!

Click to expand...

This post is challenging to read, but if you apply the spelling, grammar, and formatting rules to it is much easier to read.

After:

Example said:

Red is clearly the best color to post in, and here is why:
1) Every good debater posts in the color red.
2) Red is the color of fire.
These two points make it quite obvious, at least in my opinion, that red is the very best color for posts.

Click to expand...

The standard format used when arguing in the Debate Hall is the "point by point" method. Unfortunately, the forum’s quote button does not support this, so you need to get your hands a little dirty. This means to properly quote someone, you may have to manually break apart someone's text using your own "quote" tags.

Use the quote button like normal, but also remember to insert an ending quote tag after each point you want to reply to, and a beginning quote tag before each point, so that your replies show up on the "root" level of your post. This allows people to follow the discussion easily, and also lets the person you’re arguing with use the quote button and pick up just your response.

Here’s an example. Say you want to quote the following "post":

“I believe posting in red is ridiculous.

Therefore, people who post in red font are a blight on humanity, and are not worthy of Debate Hall status.”

After clicking the quote button at the bottom of this "post", it should show up like this:

DeLoRtEd1 said:

I believe posting in red is ridiculous.

Therefore, people who post in red font are a blight on humanity, and are not worthy of Debate Hall status.

Click to expand...

In order to respond to each point, just insert an ending tag after the first part and a beginning tag onto the second part. The refutation should end up looking like this:

DeLoRtEd1 said:

I believe posting in red is ridiculous.

Click to expand...

Hear, hear.

DeLoRtEd1 said:

Therefore, people who post in red font are a blight on humanity, and are not worthy of Debate Hall status
[/Quote

Couldn’t agree with you more!

-----------------------​

For posts where there may be more than two points unlike the one above, just surround the sections that you break it up into with quote tags. Your responses should come right after the quoted text, not within the physical quote box.

Sources​

In any intelligent debate, there is nothing more important than providing evidence for your claims. Your post has zero credibility unless you are able to back up your assertions with some sort of reasoning or external link. You can easily post hyperlinks at the bottom of your post, after making a specific point, or wherever you need them. To get your link to become embedded in a word in your sentence like this, just use the formatting option in the “Advanced Posting”. It will ask you for a link, and then automatically add it to your post with the customizable sentence selected. Here’s an example:

You can find all sorts of wonderful starting points at Wikipedia.

As you can see, it's a simple URL tag; the same exact format as quoting except that URL replaces QUOTE, and instead of the name of the poster in quotations, it's the name of the site you are linking to.

When using outside sources, make sure that they are credible. Finally, always make sure that you don’t just post a link and nothing else. Explain, summarize, and show what information you want people to know from the link. Don’t expect them to go searching for themselves, but they can if they want to; sources are mainly to be used to show that your argument is credible.

Logical Fallacies​

Logical fallacies occur all the time. Debaters new and old commit them - sometimes egregiously. To fortify your arguments, make sure you avoid fallacies at all costs. That way, no one can dismiss your arguments simply by citing some latin term. It's frustrating, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Here is a quick list of logical fallacies that lead to poor arguments. Be sure not to use any of these in your posts!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/​

Make sure you can identify fallacies, because they are everywhere. Your parents probably commit fallacies all the time, and you probably didn't even realize. Know how to identify fallacies and your debating skills will be that much greater.

Good luck debating, and remember: arguing should be a learning experience for everyone involved. Even those who have been here a long time don't know everything about everything, so be humble, and make sure to have fun!




Edits are in orange obviously

Click to expand...

CK, you should get a final edit and make it more precise and less verbose.

aeghrur said:

CK, you should get a final edit and make it more precise and less verbose.

Click to expand...

Of course. I will probably run through it all once in here before I do a final edit.

You can add this to the list of links for Logical Fallacies, I find this site to be very good and it lists a large number of fallacies. Certainly my favorite place to read up on them and make sure my arguments are logical.


http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html

I think it would be helpful if you included some sort of section on actually writing and OP (doesn't have to be mine) in there since your only thing about posting threads is about thread titles.

Riddle said:

I think it would be helpful if you included some sort of section on actually writing and OP (doesn't have to be mine) in there since your only thing about posting threads is about thread titles.

Click to expand...

Hey, that's what I was thinking!
Pastafarians, we're too good.
Point is, thread starting section is too thin.

i'll write a section about the 3 most common fallacies

DeLoRtEd1 said:

i'll write a section about the 3 most common fallacies

Click to expand...

Faith is number one right?

...............................no.

aeghrur said:

Faith is number one right?

Click to expand...

As far as I'm concerned there's no specific fallacy on faith. Maybe you're thinking of appeal to ignorance, which actually applies to everyone.

Has anyone covered using proper sources? because I can tell you right now zeitgeist is not a proper source

out of curiosity, if we've been accepted to the debate hall.. do we truly need this...?

I thought this was for the PG members. lol

DeLoRtEd1 said:

...............................no.

Click to expand...

Aesir said:

As far as I'm concerned there's no specific fallacy on faith. Maybe you're thinking of appeal to ignorance, which actually applies to everyone.

Has anyone covered using proper sources? because I can tell you right now zeitgeist is not a proper source

Click to expand...

Joke, joke, lol.
Although, usually, when dealing with faith based topics, I find the most common fallacy is the ideal that the burden of proof lies upon the negative, if that is called a fallacy, lol.

aeghrur said:

Joke, joke, lol.
Although, usually, when dealing with faith based topics, I find the most common fallacy is the ideal that the burden of proof lies upon the negative, if that is called a fallacy, lol.

Click to expand...

This.
Or else everything would be assumed to be true, which would make the world quite a wacky place.
Nice use of italics, eh?

The only side the burden of proof does not lie upon is the middle ground, but whatever. Umm, to be quite honest, I believe many of our members should read this thread fully. Some of the members are a little lesser, so to speak.

Oh, wow. I'm flattered to be right at the front of this HowTo. Thanks.


I would recommend a basic intro to first order logic. Or some derivative. Or at least some reminder that where is a very big and important difference between pointing out a logical fallacy and disproving a claim.

Showing a logical fallacy only shows a failing in someone's use of a particular argument, and says nothing about the truth of their claims. For instance:

The sky is blue. It is blue because the oceans are blue, and the light from the oceans reflect off of the sky and make it look blue.

Click to expand...

This is incorrect. The explanation given is completely and utterly false. However, the sky IS in fact blue.

I see far too often people pointing out flaws in someone argument and jumping to claim victory over the truth of the claim. When you do find a flaw in someone's argument, the next step is to allow them to amend their argument to fix the discrepancy.