Comment thread Bingo

Is it just me, or are The Gazette's comment threads heating up again? Not so much in an interesting, debate-the-issues way-- more a boring: "You are," "No, you are," "Well so's your old man" kind of way.

And this after I was on Public Access TVa few weeks ago, talking with local personality Yale Cohn about how much improved the comment threads had been since The Gazette moved to the new Website. Excuse me while I eat those words.

We were talking about school bullying  when the subject turned to civility. Yale wanted to know if kids are bullying more because there seem to be so many more bullying adults these days. I don't know the answer, but it sure is an interesting question.

Just last week I was talking to a group of Kirkwood students about building logical arguments ("'Because you're an idiot' isn't a rebuttal," I told them). We went through a short list of logical fallacies -- arguments that aren't.

Yes, I know, some of the folks who log in under cute pseudonyms so they can sling nasty names will call this egg headdery, but there is a difference between creating an argument that holds water and using "logic" as an excuse to subject innocent bystanders to your bottled-up rage.

Like the comment thread favorite, Ad Hominem attack ("Oh yeah? Well, you stink")  against the person instead of addressing the issue. Or Appeals to Belief ("everybody thinks it's true") favored by folks that say the Iowa Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling was flawed because most Iowans don't like the idea.

That one probably didn't even work on your mom when you were a kid, sort of like the Bandwagon appeal ("but all the kids are doing it") from commenters trying to enlist folks in their hatred of Democrats/Republicans/City Council/Misc. Others.

Then there's shifting the Burden of Proof to the wrong person -- the favored strategy of one particular reader who assigns "integrity ratings" to our articles as they're revealed to him by the Lord. He always challenges us to show him better numbers if we've got them -- better numbers than the ones revealed ... to him and only him ... by a divine third party...

And oh, there are more -- so many, many more. I might even make up a few BINGO cards like they do for office meetings and family dinners, just to entertain myself.

On second thought.