
How to win an online argument: lessons from Reddit - nreece
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/web-culture/how-to-win-an-online-argument-lessons-from-reddit-20160215-gmuwgw.html
======
RodericDay
The biggest mistake people make when arguing online is thinking that their
objective is to convince "the other person".

Convincing your adversary is possible, but not necessary, to carry an argument
to conclusion. The people likely to want to spend time defending their stance
are also likely to be a bit stubborn about it. However, quiet people by the
sidelines, reading without posting, hold their opinions much less fervently.

Even if you make a really convincing case, you may not get your opponent to
concede, but you may sway many bystanders.

edit: I see that a lot of us agree on this. A bit redundant now.

~~~
derpderpington
In my 15+ years of conversing online, migrating from usenet to slashdot, to
reddit, to eventually here, I've learned that online arguing by and large is a
waste of time - most of the conversations superficial, many of the thoughts I
express and agree with, or even disagree with, having little to no consequence
on anything tangible.

I've gotten lots of positive responses over the years, from sideline viewers
and even the people I was directly conversing with, but I've also received
more than my share of negativity, 'trolling' and hostility.

I agree with you, that one way to carry an argument to a conclusion is to
avoid aiming to convince the other person of anything, to simply illustrate
your point, and allow whoever is reading to be able to read your point without
feeling as though their own ideas and beliefs are under attack.

The slightly humorous thing is, the more people agreed with me and rallied
behind me, the less I wanted to converse. I neither sought debate for the
purposes of constructing heated arguments, but I began to fear that I had
learned some kind of argument algorithm, that made my perspective more
appealing to listen to and agree with. I felt as though I was combining
elements of logic and rhetoric in ways that seemed to directly reveal truth,
but when I walked away from my computer, I felt none the wiser for what I had
expressed. On top of this, I realized much of the time, I wasn't even really
thinking about what I was saying, and in retrospect, I wound up trailing down
paths of ideas that seemed to have more control over me, than I did over them,
just because the argument itself seemed to stitch itself together so
eloquently.

I pop my head in from time to time, place to place, but I think it's much more
enjoyable and valuable to learn what my opinions are, isolated, than what they
are, publicly. I have had far more questions about my own ideas, when I don't
feel compelled to distill them down to something easily digestible, easily
understood, and easily communicated.

There is a lot of loneliness in this, I will say that. And there was a lot of
growth I had myself, in conversing with so many people, so I don't discredit
it entirely. A balance between knowing one's own self, and being able to
effectively communicate one's own ideas is probably the ideal, but this itself
requires just as much, if not more time, to achieve directly, than it does to
experience life, observe it, derive opinions from it, and express them on any
other subject matter. It was that realization, that made me realize how
superficial my opinions were. These were ideas that I connected strongly to my
identity, and because of the response I received, I thought they were
valuable, deep, well thought out, worthy of holding tightly to.

I'd like to learn to converse again, one day, but I would hope that the things
I get to talk about affect both myself and the people who want to interact
with me, in ways that are not so short lived. Small talk can be nice, but I've
learned that even the most intellectually challenging subjects can find ways
to turn themselves into small talk. When I hit that realization, I felt that
every bit of knowledge I had acquired had just turned into one giant dump of
'stuff' that I had to sift through once again, to distinguish fluff from
truth.

With regard to bystanders though - I wouldn't be so quick to make assumptions.
In many internet contexts, I am inclined to agree with you, in theory and from
direct personal experience and observation. I don't know if it's some sort of
effect of psychological projection - when I used to quickly jump to agreement
while following along a well sustained and well worded conversation with
multiple participants, I thought it was obvious that everyone would be in
agreement easily, their minds skimming and snapping into the same places my
mind would. Even if they were in silent disagreement, that too was knowable,
capable of having something said about it, without it being directly revealed.
But the more time I spent in disagreement, in silence, the more doubt I have
on that kind of certainty. It has taken me years to learn enough self control,
such that I can still interact while disagreeing, without communicating any
sort of passive disagreement - and this I am sure I have yet to master. But
it's just possible that every mind is like that - there is no predictability
in knowing how anyone will respond to anything, and even through thorough
observation, there is no certainty that what is to be observed in the future
will conform to what was observed in the past.

~~~
smokeyj
This looks like an AI generated comment

------
rm_-rf_slash
Most people want to be right all the time. Most people on the internet have at
least one public viewpoint that is perceived as wrong by someone else. Having
your views challenged means you have to uncomfortably question yourself, and
in most cases, people would rather defend their views even if they know that
their opponent appears more well-informed, and maybe even more right.

You see this even more in person, when someone clearly lacks the information
to back up their claims but defend them nonetheless. It is astounding how
easily any of us can revert to the talking points that made us familiar with
our viewpoint in the first place, instead of facing the facts that we are
wrong and the other person - especially if we don't like them - is correct.

So in the end, the only real way to win an Internet argument is to have more
people on your side than your opponent. Because at the end of the day, people
are too set in their ways to let a username attached to a block of text change
anything.

~~~
ktRolster
"It doesn't matter who's right, it matter's _what 's_ right." I try to
remember that.

~~~
Splines
I'll add that sometimes being right doesn't matter.

~~~
ktRolster
I disagree with you, so I would continue this conversation, but it really
doesn't matter which of us is right :)

------
s_dev
What this suggests is that people put too much self worth in to their opinions
and that most people simply aren't suited the rigors of arguing because
they're too emotional (I'm no exception).

Being persuasive online requires people take the utmost care to the emotional
distancing the targeted individual will have to invoke as they change their
opinion but preserve their self worth.

pg touched off this in his essay
[http://paulgraham.com/discover.html](http://paulgraham.com/discover.html)

"The reason there's a convention of being ingratiating in print is that most
essays are written to persuade. And as any politician could tell you, the way
to persuade people is not just to baldly state the facts. You have to add a
spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down."

~~~
Lawtonfogle
From what I've seen, if you add only sugar and no facts you'll be better at
persuading people than if you mix the two, as long as you can hit their
emotions correctly.

~~~
oldmanjay
Calling it sugar also seems a bit disingenuous, since so much persuasion is
based on guilt and shame.

~~~
Roodgorf
Is that really persuasion though? I mean, it's used as a form of persuasion,
yes, but how often do you see guilt and shame successfully persuade someone to
another side? I think the prevalence of those tactics is what feeds the
attitude that any form of debate will do nothing but further entrench each
side in the initial opinion.

------
ihinsdale
I think a major reason that online arguments don't lead to persuasion much of
the time is their format. In the Change My View sub-reddit and elsewhere,
people tend to write in blocks of unstructured text--paragraphs--that allow
them to express whatever they want to, which may not be coherent or actually
respond directly to the assertions of the person they're replying to.

I'm now working full-time on what used to be a side project that tries to
solve this problem: [https://sequiturs.com](https://sequiturs.com).

Arguments on Sequiturs consist of a series of statements divided into premises
and conclusions. This format creates in the reader an expectation of
coherence, an expectation that there is a logical progression from some
starting point to some conclusion. In my experience this format is extremely
effective at causing the author of an argument to boil it down to the bare
essentials. If someone else thinks the argument is flawed, he/she can point to
a specific numbered step in the argument to identify very concretely what
he/she disagrees with. Here's an example of what this looks like, with an
example argument I wrote up about why backdoors around encryption are a bad
idea: [https://sequiturs.com/arguments/tech-companies-should-not-
be...](https://sequiturs.com/arguments/tech-companies-should-not-be-required-
to-provide-law-enforcement-with-a-backdoor-to-bypass-encryption)

I'm very hopeful about the prospects of this format for improving the quality
of debates online, and, compared to the unstructured status quo, I think it's
a lot more conducive to participants in an exchange understanding clearly
where they disagree with others and why.

There are some great insights in this thread about the nature of arguing
online, and I'd love to hear what you all think about the approach that
Sequiturs takes.

------
Joeboy
This assumes that the sole goal of an online argument is to a) change the view
of an individual and b) get them to publicly admit that that's happened.
That's an unlikely outcome of an online argument, or indeed any argument. What
you might more realistically achieve is getting third parties to see your
position as the preferred one, or getting the individual to rethink their
position in private, or at least be more reluctant to state it in public.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Online "arguments" only wear the guise of debate. In fact, their primary
purpose is for the participants to signal membership and loyalty within their
in-group

------
raldi
What if your goal is not to change the mind of the person you're arguing with,
but the minds of all the lurkers in the audience watching the exchange? Harder
to measure, but it's possible a totally different set of tactics works best
there.

~~~
brazzledazzle
When I read this thread the other day I was hoping you'd chime in. I don't
know what you can talk about but I'm willing to bet you saw people
manipulating discussions using sock puppets. I know using them to vote was a
bannable offense but I don't know if I ever saw anything about manipulating
consensus or building a straw man to be torn down by the main account.

~~~
raldi
At least during the time I was working there (2008-2011), it was actually
pretty rare. The most common use of sockpuppets was simply to be able to do
lots of fake AMAs. And every admin had at least one sockpuppet they would use
to troll people or otherwise say things they couldn't say under their official
account.

~~~
brazzledazzle
For some reason it seems even scummier than rigging votes so maybe that
discouraged it. But it's no surprise that admins would have a "work" account
and an "anonymous" account. You'd never be able to express a personal
controversial opinion without it being jumped all over and attributed to the
company.

Somewhat related: Did you have to comb through all of your past comments
before the interview and/or announcement? It must have been weird interviewing
at a place where you'd had a personal account prior to being interviewed. I
would have been filled with anxiety wondering what weird stuff (oh golly, and
porn...) I'd looked at while logged in.

~~~
raldi
Nope; it was different times in 2008. There are things you can get away with
when a company is small enough to fit into a Yaris.

------
panglott
There are lots of reasons to argue with people online. One is to run through
the arguments yourself with informed people and see how they stand up.

But in terms of persuasion, you're not likely to convince partisans to recant
their heresy, so much as to make a convincing case that the uncommitted can
buy into. A surprisingly large number of intelligent people watch online
debates on social media, and people who are observing but not participating
are much more persuadable. To that end, you have to be a decent, sympathetic
interlocutor, who is personally appealing and has a good command of the facts
and arguments. That means being fair, civil, honest, and straightforward.

------
logfromblammo
Arguments on the Internet are exceedingly rare. Rhetorical contests, on the
other hand, are appallingly common.

If you come armed with facts, and your adversary comes armed with knowledge of
human psychology and tactics proven to successfully manipulate it, you will
lose almost every time.

The typical engineer has a characteristic personality type, which is rather
uncommon in the general population. This type knows that technically correct
is the best kind of correct, and that a proof based on verifiable facts is
unassailable. If you limit the audience to only engineer-like personalities,
rightness and wrongness depends entirely upon accuracy, precision, and careful
calculations.

But the rest of humanity thrives on its emotional response to statements to
help determine whether those statements may be believed. As such, knowledge of
the common logical fallacies is useful, not to avoid them, but to employ them
intentionally, to generate the appearance of correctness despite a dearth of
supporting facts.

------
oldmanjay
We figured out a long time ago that arguing on the Internet was subject to the
Wargames conclusion. Maybe people should be forced to play tic tac toe about a
thousand times before Reddit lets them post a comment.

------
squeaky-clean
I had to delete my Reddit account because I have a tendency to try to hard to
correct or educate people, and after a while you learn that the orange mail
icon is never someone saying "Thank you for correcting me", but usually
someone flaming you, and it made me unnecessarily stressed. I try to stay off
Facebook for the same reason, 50% of my feed is friends/friends-of-friends
sharing ignorant or false posts. Only on HN and a few other small communities
do I actually take the time to do write something, because more often than not
I get pleasant responses, or at least an intelligent discourse in return.

This year, I've started something new though. Whenever I see something like
this, I basically begin writing my own essay of a response, and then try to
spot all the places trolls or other readers could tear it apart, point out
bias, or points where my knowledge is lacking (if I can't elaborate on
something further than the sentences few sentences in the essay, I probably
don't understand it well enough to be speaking about it in the first place).
And I either write a rebuttal, or rewrite it into the original essay, all
while researching and providing sources along the way.

Then I save it to a folder on my computer, and don't post it anywhere, or
sometimes just delete the whole thing. I learn a lot, improve my writing a
little, and neither party can get angry.

A recent example, multiple friends of mine shared an image on Facebook, with
text like "Isn't it bullsh^$t that you can be arrested and your only charge is
resisting arrest?!". I knew this wasn't true, but didn't know the specifics as
to why. I learned that Florida doesn't have a charge simply called resisting
arrest, but instead "843.02 Resisting officer without violence to his or her
person", which makes sense and sounds much more reasonable as a sole charge.
Also, you don't have to be resisting your own arrest, so you could be guilty
of only a "resisting arrest"-like charge if you resist someone else's arrest
:P

------
alexashka
If you look at the internet as an opportunity to clearly express yourself on a
matter you find interesting or ask clarifying questions, then there is never a
problem.

In other words, when you don't feel a need to change anyone's opinion about
anything (I imagine mostly because you've tried one too many times and learned
your lesson), then you are ready to have an interesting conversation :)

Everything else is just born out of emotions - boredom, being angry/sad/etc.
As you get older, you learn to recognize when people are coming from an
emotional place and you let them be. You reach out with minimal effort and if
they don't come to their senses, you move on. No problem.

------
Xcelerate
I've noticed an interesting corollary to these lessons; if someone argues
their viewpoint in a way that is highly vitriolic, I am more likely to view
myself as their "opponent", even if I share their perspective.

I'm not going to list any specific examples, but I've found that the more
"emotional" someone's argument is, the more likely I am to become disgusted
with them (personally), and unfortunately that sense of disgust translates
into disdain for their argument as well.

Articles and blog posts that contain a high number of swear words, exclamation
points, or ad hominem attacks (attacking a person's character rather than
their argument) frustrate me very quickly, and I'm not really sure why.

What's interesting is that I have friends who I disagree with on certain
issues, but despite that, we're able to carry on a friendly debate about the
subject. Neither person feels offended at the end of the conversation. On the
other hand, I also know people who share my own viewpoint, but when they start
debating with someone else, I find myself becoming irritated with the manner
in which they argue, and I'll join the opposing side just to play devil's
advocate.

It's peculiar that _what_ someone argues about frustrates me much less than
_how_ they argue.

------
singularity2001
>> "How to win an online argument?"

By not engaging in it (at all).

------
yodsanklai
I dream of some sort of set of rules, possibly enforced by a machine or a
collective intelligence, that people would agree upon before starting to
debate. Imagine how democracy would be if our political leaders were to
conform to such a system when confronting their points of view. This would
help us identifying rhetoric or logic flaws, and what pertains to ideology or
moral rather than logic or facts. Most of the time all this is mixed up and
debates go nowhere.

------
known
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you
with experience.

------
elcapitan
"Respond in groups"

Yeah, I see that kind of "swarm persuasion" work all the time.

~~~
gsibble
I don't think drowning out a person's legitimate opinion is a good way to win
an argument.

~~~
alanwatts
It is however, an effective way to appear to win the argument.

------
zodPod
Number 8 made me wonder if this was satire.

> Last but not least, try to base your arguments around points that your
> opponent didn't initially address

I may be misunderstanding this but the longer description didn't settle much
in my mind. This is one of the worst things about online battles.

"A: GMOs are BAD!" "B: GMOs aren't bad. They are very helpful and most crops
grown today are GMO in one way or another." "A: Nuh uh Monsanto blah"

I would call that an argument lost for A. The idiot just proved they have no
supporting evidence for their initial statement except a different subject.

~~~
sinxoveretothex
'Convincing A' is a different thing than 'convincing you' and different
approaches will achieve the one or the other.

Then again, the article notes that in a majority of cases, the OP wasn't
convinced, so there's that.

------
imgabe
Much like global thermonuclear war, the only winning move is not to play.

~~~
nikdaheratik
Exactly my thoughts. "A strange game" indeed.

------
srean
I don't see any voting buttons on this particular story. What gives ? I like
using them as a surrogate for bookmarking comments. In fact that's one reason
I miss upvoting old comments.

------
joncrocks
[https://xkcd.com/386/](https://xkcd.com/386/)

------
ddingus
It's not about the win. Other people, willing to demonstrate acceptance
online, is a rare thing. Almost doesn't happen.

BTW, if you want it to happen more, be sure and model this in whatever peer
group you are participating in. If others see you reach and acknowledge
acceptance, they are far more willing to do so themselves, and your overall
standing, credence, etc... within that community will very significantly
improve.

A while back, I did an experiment on this in a small, consistent community I
participate in. The control is a fair number of regulars, who have met in
person. I listed each strategy used to avoid acceptance on a point fairly
taken, and regularly published it. With each one, I put names on it, including
my own, and soon, we were watching for this and identifying how people avoid
acceptance.

That list grew to something like 20 items. Even though most of us were aware
of the dynamics, we STILL DID IT, only to be called out by someone not
invested in the argument.

BTW: Mere silence or choosing to make a lot of noise are by far the number one
strategies. Say a point is taken, and we've lost. Just wrong, or not very
defensible, whatever. If acceptance is recognized, that argument isn't useful
anymore. Now, one would and should recognize that it's not useful in the
rational sense anyway, but the key outcome of that experiment wasn't about the
rational.

It's all about advocacy.

Debate would see that point rendered moot, and the discussion moving on. As it
should too.

But, people want what they want. They will justify it however they think they
can, and that's the core difference between advocacy and debate!

Silence works by letting the record of the loss or invalidation fade over
time. A few months later, the same shit can be put out again, resulting in the
same dialog again, and it's going to resonate with the same people again.

So, it's not always about progress as much as it is mindshare and status quo.
Very enlightening. (to me, at least)

One other thing...

If I were to put those items in very general terms, they are:

silence

distraction (like mention abortion to derail the dialog)

the bible (discussion moves to competing bible verses)

character (you are an idiot, discussion moves to that)

qualification (I'm in a club, you are not in, so you lose)

noise (just be a big mess, people tire and leave)

Those are the heavy hitters online, IMHO.

There is this too:

Acceptance comes at a cost. If you reach it, and you make that public within
your peer group, you also then have some ownership of it. No excuses.

People want what they want and they want to do and say what they do and say.
Recognition of acceptance is also being bound by that same acceptance, and
that's a very powerful motivator for avoiding recognition of it. That's not
discussed much, and it should be.

Additionally, people may put off acceptance because they want to try again
too, or the matter is a value judgement. This is fair.

Model this by stating those things, and it has the same positive impact I
mentioned above. "Good points, I want to revisit this."

An example on the other extreme might be a flat out rejection of the whole
thing, and when it really is a value judgement, it works well! "I am OK with
poor people paying hard for being poor."

Do that, and your credence with like minded people will go way up. Your haters
will move to your character too.

Here is the interesting bit: so what? Everyone has haters, and a bold, honest
value expression carries a ton if weight with onlookers, while frustrating the
hell out of your opponents, who will often self marginalize out of anger,
rather than accept the value differences.

Acceptance is not always the goal. Remember that.

Advocacy is nearly always the goal, and you can get away with murder doing
advocacy, and that being confused with debate, and the pretense of rationality
allows it to happen.

I'll end with the idea that raising awareness of advocacy vs debate can raise
the level of dialog, but the cost is demonstrating acceptance when warranted.

Most people love the game and the release of online dialog a lot more than
they value improving somehow.

~~~
ddingus
I should add, Aaron Schwartz really understood these things.

He would identify rational people, have the talk, and then ask them a
question, rather than force acceptance. The outcome is they, themselves come
to acceptance, and when they do, Aaron was there to join in common, worthy
cause.

By doing this, and avoiding noise and irrationality as well as core value
differences, he built mindshare and motivation to act, both far more potent
than just being right is.

Miss that guy. Big.

------
theobon
This is very interesting. There is a common belief that you cannot persuade
anyone on the internet. This amazes me as the internet is the number one
source of information for most people and information does change beliefs.
Perhaps the reason for this is that we are arguing poorly, arguing at the
wrong time and not recognizing when we have made an impact. This article gives
some insight for how we can improve.

Argue when people are receptive to change. The first point was respond sooner,
however, this misses the fact that these were requests posted to board
dedicated to changing minds. When the poster submitted they were open to new
ideas. This is the best time to provide alternative view points and it is very
transient. The next question is how to identify this.

People don't like being the odd one out. When someone is open to changing
their mind it means they doubt their position. This doubt is amplified by the
more people that have an alternative view point. In practical application it
means that it is useless to go into a group of like minded people and attack
their core beliefs as is so often seen when people "raid" a sub-cultures
message board.

There are diminishing returns for each exchange and after a tipping point it
has a negative effect. Those long back and forth yelling matches are just as
useless as they appear. Respond a few times and then disengage. Any points you
have made are already done and continuing will undo that work.

Supportive evidence helps. I think this is part of the group persuasion point.
It shows that their is a large group supporting the idea. However, I've had
very poor results when linking to external evidence so this one is the most
interesting to me as it contradicts my views.

Quoting to person you are arguing with is aggressive. This shows you are
attacking them and their words directly and immediately puts them on the
defensive. You have now forced the person to admit what they said was wrong if
they change their mind. This is a much harder battle.

This theme continues in the "don't act too intense" point. Defensive people
are not open to change.

If you want to change someone's mind put effort into your response. A longer
more thoughtful response will have more effect than a pithy comment.

The last point was the most useful: provide new information. So often we
attack where the person is strongest. They have the information and have made
their interpretation of it. You can either say the information is wrong or
their interpretation is wrong. Both of these will make them defensive.
However, by providing additional information you give them an out. They can
now change their mind without ever being wrong, they were just not aware of
all the facts.

Core to all of this is having a definition of success. Too often arguments,
especially on the internet, have the goal of the person admitting they were
wrong. This leads to the poor arguments we see littering comment sections.
However, if the goal is to persuade a person to take a different action then
this article suggests a course of action.

Identify the action they are currently going to take: Voting for Trump. Dig
into why they are going to take that action: because he will help the economy.
Present additional information with supporting sources: Trumps stance on
Muslims. Disengage, further discourse is unlikely to be helpful.

------
bobby_9x
Win an argument online? Lol!

The real problem, especially on a site like reddit, is that there is no
winning.

Even if you have evidence and facts, if you go against groupthink, you will be
shouted down, down voted, and ignored.

If you really piss the wrong person off, you will be bullied and could lose
your job/career over it.

~~~
xlm1717
With regards to groupthink, one of the recommendations is to use the power of
groups to convince somebody:

>Respond in groups

~~~
bobby_9x
Might isn't right. There are groups for pretty much anything out there, even
when it's factually, morally, and ridiculously wrong.

