getting used to debating online

[MotherCossack]

i am hopeless at this virtual debating ..as soon as i find a thread worth a proper grown up debate i get half way through my argument and somehow lose the lot... i hope it is not some devious plot to humiliate and silence me...no.. probably nerves.. being cossack the jester is what i do best..
this is the thing... i have never had a proper meaningful virtual debate before, all i've been doing up until now is arsing about and aving a*larf
the last time i was engaged in a grown up debate .... faxes were brand new, and the internet did not exist.. so clearly it was a different kind of debate, the kind which were conducted in pubs and clubs .
the word forum didnt mean nowt to me except as part of the title of a corny old frankie howard film.
what i am saying is .... will you lot bear with me... and dont be too hard on me.... its not ever my politics that are in doubt, or even [usually] my intelligence.... it is only, my self-confessed technological computerphobic illiteracy... but i will try harder and anticipate rapid self-improvemet.

[MotherCossack]

just to add... that i did partake of the good old ways of debating....
and spent the bleak thatcher years campaigning and being an activist in the good old fashioned greenham ,miners, maggie, maggie, maggie out, out, out kind of a way!!!
it is only that this strange, lonely, isolated, front room form of political exchange... it yo does take getting used to

[Franz Fanonipants]

its a very particularly constructed form of discourse. to be honest though, revleft and such have helped me better my rhetoric, thinking, and writing so stick with it and stuff.

[hatzel]

To be honest anybody who engages in debate on the internet should be prepared for the possibility that the 'opponent' has absolutely no social skills at the best of times - this may explain why they debate online, rather than face-to-face. Even without that possibility, the anonymity of the internet, coupled with the ephemeral nature of online interactions often lead to the complete abandonment of any social convention. As countless men who never considered it acceptable to walk around the city centre thrusting their turgid member into the eye-line of unsuspecting teenage girls later thanked ChatRoulette for allowing that unknown side of themselves to be liberated, so otherwise well-mannered individuals come to agree that those who prefer strawberry milkshake to chocolate should die a bloody death along with their whole family and then a dog should piss on the bodies then eat them then sick them up and piss on them again then shit. Such is the internet...

Those who master the online debate would be well advised to seek psychiatric help. Immediately. Those, however, who conduct an offline debate online ought to be congratulated. Before they are instantly forgotten and we once again regress.

Haha ColonelCossack YO MOMMA!!! Notice how I sway the argument. Observe. Though never replicate. Except for as parody. Then always replicate. Each and every time.

Sent from my phone using my fingers.

[Decolonize The Left]

i am hopeless at this virtual debating ..as soon as i find a thread worth a proper grown up debate i get half way through my argument and somehow lose the lot... i hope it is not some devious plot to humiliate and silence me...no.. probably nerves.. being cossack the jester is what i do best..
this is the thing... i have never had a proper meaningful virtual debate before, all i've been doing up until now is arsing about and aving a*larf
the last time i was engaged in a grown up debate .... faxes were brand new, and the internet did not exist.. so clearly it was a different kind of debate, the kind which were conducted in pubs and clubs .
the word forum didnt mean nowt to me except as part of the title of a corny old frankie howard film.
what i am saying is .... will you lot bear with me... and dont be too hard on me.... its not ever my politics that are in doubt, or even [usually] my intelligence.... it is only, my self-confessed technological computerphobic illiteracy... but i will try harder and anticipate rapid self-improvemet.

Part of debating on the internet is using the functions of the internet to your advantage. So being able to quote others selectively, then respond, then quote a new passage, then respond, etc...

Also, your arguments will be better received the clearer they are and the easier they are to understand and hence respond to. Using paragraphs properly and capitalization helps people follow your train of thought.

I feel as though if you do the basics you will find yourself debating faster than you thought and, more to the point, interested in what you're discussing.

Good luck.

- August