By the love of god - stop that "evidence here, evidence there" bs

InTheory·Jul 21, 2018·3 votes·2,300 views

As you may have noticed: there are some kings of argumentation running around calling everyone else out for their "lack of evidence". This is totally disruptive and hurts the already bad atmosphere here on the boards.

There may be circlejerks and rant threads made by frustrated players who had a bad day and supporting each other in their misery. That's OK. #Nobody asks you to take them seriously If a thread doesn't appeal to you, don't read it and leave them be.

Riot actually welcomes these things in their official gameplay etiquette guidelines:

Join the discussions with posts about your favorite or least favorite champs, or #rant or reason about recent balance changes.

If you feel they are discouraging Riot do be active on the boards - do something positive for Riot instead of filling negative posts with further negativity.

League of Legends is a game. And this forum is a discussion platform. This is NO science club. You don't need to prove evidence or counterevidence.

One element of conversation is discussion: sharing opinions on subjects that are thought of during the conversation. In polite society the subject changes before discussion becomes dispute or controversial. For example, if theology is being discussed, no one is insisting a particular view be accepted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation#Discussion

All it takes for us to do is to ask ourselves two things:

do I want to participate in circlejerks threads independent of being for or against the subject/opinion? --> Yes: Proceed to question 2) --> No: Move on. Leave the circlejerks be circlejerks and use your time for something better

how can I contribute to a meaningful discussion without acting completely obnoxious? --> Simply move between two poles and avoid them: a) Fake news. Spreading wrong information whether intentionally or not. If you state something you don't know for sure - make that clear. b) Evidence Police. Treating league or discussions in boards like science that have to be 100% proven with source and evidence.

Plus: There is no reason to ever call someone out for stating their "feelings" or "impressions". Truth is: it's actually a competence of self awareness, knowing that one does not know everything. A competence that the evidence police does not have. #We do not need your evidence police here.

PS: Don't see everything black and white.

7 Comments

redniwediSJul 21, 20182 votes

I'm more than fine with a discussion full of opinion, but when someone presents their opinion as fact I'm going to ask for evidence.

InTheoryJul 21, 20181 votes

That's legit in theory, but interpretating a statement as "opinion presented as fact" is already - interpretation.

redniwediSJul 21, 20183 votes

True, but that's something communication can resolve.

If someone says "X is busted", and they say it in a way that makes me think they view it as a fact of the game, I'll ask them to support their point of view. If they correct themselves to say it's only opinion I'll drop it there, and perhaps even apologize for the misunderstanding. If they double down on it being a fact that also clarifies things.

Still, the spirit of your thread here is worth upvoting, so you've got one from me.

InTheoryJul 21, 20181 votes

If they correct themselves to say it's only opinion I'll drop it there

And this more what we need more on the boards. Not pushing every argument to the limit but to also know when it makes sense to just leave it be.

Pika FoxJul 21, 20181 votes

If youre going to make grandiose claims with nothing to back them up repeatedly and state things as fact, you should probably ha e something to back up said claims.

Vlada CutJul 21, 20181 votes

It's pointless. One person can't convince the rest of the players of the community to change themselves. They won't listen to you, they won't hear you, they won't read anything you say. Just see the title and brainlessly upvote or downvote you. Like people acomplish so much in their lives for giving a vote to someone whether it's a good one or a bad one... This was a waste of time to write, and unfortunately, it won't change much, if not it won't change anything at all.

deadlychuckJul 22, 20181 votes

Unfortunately some people jump to "evidence" when really there's no reason..

An argument can be proven invalid before you need evidence to prove it's unsound.

Like, I can make an argument for why the new runes system is a worse design than the old rune system, without having evidence of how it plays out when implemented, even though there now exists evidence within league and before it existed in league we had historical evidence in how it played out in WoW.

The argument can be made purely on validity, which means you don't even need an instance of it to demonstrate the claim.

That said, "evidence" is better than just replying with "wrong" or purely mud flinging.