(2019-06-28, 07:59 AM)Chris Wrote: I've always assumed the rules were primarily intended to prevent pseudo-sceptics disrupting legitimate discussion, without preventing people who happen to be sceptical from participating in legitimate discussion. Whatever they were intended to say, I think as they are written they accomplish that quite well. (They let in someone who is a believer in some phenomena but a pseudo-sceptic about others, but thankfully that's not common. And they exclude some legitimate discussion by reasonable sceptics, but without much more proactive moderation to decide what points are legitimate and what aren't, perhaps that's unavoidable to some extent.)Good point Chris.
If they're going to be changed to prevent anyone whatsoever arguing against a whole category of phenomena in this forum, I think that would be a big mistake. I think if someone starts a thread about - say - the so-called "electronic voice phenomena," it's crazy to have a rule that would prevent someone who is generally a proponent from expressing the opinion that they are an example of pareidolia. And in many cases it's impossible to discuss particular instances while pretending to ignore an elephant in the room in the shape of a general argument.
We'll take this into consideration, but there is still an ambiguity about the wording, we feel. Maybe what we could do is prepare a draft and then create a discussion here (not in this specific thread!) about what you guys think.