This is not to spark any negative comments, but instead to share experiences in healthy debate and possibly get more people to debate healthily. A lot of you may have seen some of my threads or posts in here and may identify me as a liberal. Well, okay, so I am. In school I had a professor who was fairly conservative and in class we would debate to the bone. Sometimes there would be a good span of time where he and I would debate and he'd forget he was supposed to be teaching. It was a lot of fun, really and helped me really develop debate skills. Ever argue (healthily) with someone on the other side of the fence on an issue and instead of getting angry, thoroughly just have a good time? Just wanted to ask that question and kind of throw that out into the wind.
I've never got angry on an internet message board. And someone's arguements DID once make me change my opinion on something (not on here where of course I am right all the time). But I've always enjoyed political discussions with people who can think for themselves as opposed to just regurgitating what they've been told (fundemantalist Christians); or people who are prepared to debate rather than simply spout propaganda (neocons). This is often better face-to-face as opposed to online. Far too many people (not just on here) think that copy 'n' pasting vast chunks of text or putting up links to other sites 'proves' that they are right.
Very true, and I also think it's easier to take things personal online for some reason. And you have to be careful how you say things since the body language isn't there. Sometimes a smiley can be purely friendly... or it can look like the poster is being smug. You know what I mean?
Smilies are almost essential to convey the meaning. Melbel is an idiot! is obviously meant in a jokey you're-not-an-idiot-really-in-fact-I-quite-like-you way, whereas Melbel is an idiot! is a bit more venomous.