No worries, I just find it amusing that someone would confuse two people who couldn't really be more different, but the brain is funny that way when it doesn't always work as intended.

And yes, moving from text based communication to verbal one usually improves the amount of understanding passed between participants, but they always eventually just lead to this.

Brilliant find! That can be quite true. Or someone ends up walking away.

I find that there is less, since I'm not able to write an argument as fast as I can actually say it aloud. :P By the time I've actually thought through the point and made sure it's correct, someone in RL would be left waiting.

They could see that you would be thinking and hopefully wouldn't mind too much.

As a fellow slow thinker I would agree with that concept, but no matter how well one articulates their point in words, someone is bound to interpret them in a wrong way. And as it is typical to internet conversation, rather than asking for clarification, they usually jump to their own conclusions and start throwing counter accusations or whatever.

People are posting less, you're right. People are posting less because it's become somewhere for people to state their opinion and then argue. nobody EVER discusses anything in the 'debate' forum because there's nothing to discuss - people know what they think. AF handled 'debate' much better by having certain topics which resulted in nothing but arguments which could NOT be posted about, and that should be done here if people want ToS to survive any longer than another year.

If you think anyone EVER only keeps their problem with others in 'debates' (which is, to steal a metaphor from cracked, like calling a serial rapist a 'can do casanova') then they are being unbelievably naive.
'Debates' create resentment between people, and that stays with them in ALL their replies to each other on every thread. Nobody ever cares about what the other person says, they just want to counter them.

And here I though I was the one being a misanthropic cynic, but it sounds to me that somepony ought to lighten up a bit from all that doom and gloom. Then again I'm not a psychic, so I can't tell what others are doing or thinking, so maybe I'm just happily ignorant about all the drama that always goes around.

Anyhow, I'm more than willing to do my part, so I ask that if I happen to say something inappropriate, then I'd hope that someone would at least tell me about it.

I think the Debate board's best function is to declare that a topic will be a debate from the beginning so people are prepared for that type of exchange (not that that makes it any more enjoyable) rather than just having a previously light topic erupt into fights. When a debate starts somewhere other than Debate, I have a really strong urge to do anything I possibly can to lighten the mood, which sometimes includes jokes, sarcasm, or a very open ended question relating to the original topic. I'm starting to realize this doesn't actually help at all, so my apologies for keeping it up for so long.

I can't wait to see how lively the forums will become once Avatar 2 comes out.

I think this is a good idea, seeing how I don't really see us debating any topic so serious, that it wouldn't call for some sort of humour every now and then.

Why should debates even be serious, since they don't even work? As in people just have their opinions and lob them around and nothing changes, so might as well have some fun while at it.

Do you get infractions for that too??

Put it this way: Tree of Souls wasn't meant to be a debate forum. The only reason the debate sub-forum is there is to prevent any arguments from spiraling out of any control.

I've disagreed with HNM on MANY things in the past but in this I actually agree. Coming from the person who helped out making a lot of the AF rules, here's why a lot of subjects (religion, etc.) were prohibited.

People are set in their ways: No matter how important this forum is to you, someone on the internet is not going to convince you to shake views that are so important to you. Its easy once you log off to forget about the good points the other side made and go on arguing the next day.

Flaming: Some subjects just result in flaming. Period.

Future animosity: Some people may go into the debate forum objectively, expect a debate, and leave without any lasting anger. However, some people do take it personally and the animosity you feel at other members with opposing views carries over onto other sections of the forums, thus spreading the argument out of the debate section.

Just wanted to put that out there.

I actually feel like it's gotten a lot better lately. I feel a lot of the animosity has left, and that much of the anger I had towards other members I've forgotten about mostly.

I don't know, I just don't want to seem like I'm belittling someone's point of view :S

No I do not :xD: I think I'm a little more careful about it than you, although you've been a bad influence on me lately :P