you need to be careful with what you say on this website

My bad for saying your instead of you're, silly mistake. Was it worth writing a paragraph on? Not really. You lack capital letters. Am I going to nitpick about it? No. Thanks for humoring me and starting first. Was it a 'bad' move on my part to make the debate fair? No, I think all debates should be fair, with equal speaking time. -------- Opponent's Case: 1) Section T doesn't explicitly state to be careful. It does say what you can, and can't do, but does it really require 'care' not to do these things? When these things occur in debate the users generally do not get in trouble, this is because it is on a debate context. These are things that you normally wouldn't 'stumble-upon' in conversation. You don't need to be careful in order to not use racial slurs, since people commonly don't make racial slurs (At least not out in the open.). You do not need to be cautious since this behavior is outside the normal scope of behavior, thus you don't need to use caution. Using profanity generally does not make the administration terminate a user's account; numerous debates use profanity, and talk about controversial things but its all in the scope of the debate and thus these accounts don't get deleted: - http://www.debate.org... - http://www.debate.org... - http://www.debate.org... - http://www.debate.org... In addition to this the User's Agreement does not say that the user will be terminated, but that the user may be terminated. The administration doesn't hunt down Agreement breakers and disable their accounts, they do if there are multiple infractions, or lethal infractions: Both of which you don't need care to avoid. The main point is that normal behavior doesn't require administration intervention. Many people break the User's Agreement, yet only people who break it multiple times, or lethally break it have their accounts deleted. You don't need to watch what you say unless you are outside the scope of 'normal'. 2) Onto CoronerPerry, funny you mention him. I happened to be the one who accepted his challenge, and I assure you he wasn't deleted because he said 'go to hell', as I accepted the challenge on the pro side and have to prove he should go to Hell, yet I wasn't deleted. From what I know there was animosity between them, and among other people, because what else causes people to debate about whether a member should go to Hell? First off this point doesn't work, since I wasn't deleted and I was debating that he should go to Hell. Secondly, we don't know for sure if this user deleted himself, or why the administration deleted him. Even if we did, we can't judge this based on extreme situations: we should view it within the scope of normalcy, and thus even if we did know he got deleted for saying 'Hell', then it still wouldn't prove that everyone else needs to be cautious. -------- My Case: Definitions: Need implies that it is a necessity. 1) Users of this site do not need to do anything. They do accept consequences for what they do. I don't need to be careful what I say, it is not a necessity. Following the User's Agreement is a qualification for debating on this site, and when the terms of service are broken I am disqualified for debating on this site. I can do both though, and many people do. Many use profanity, and are allowed to debate. To be more clear: I need water. It is a necessity to my life. I die if I do not have water. The pro argues that it is a necessity to be careful about what you say on this site. Yet, I am not careful about what I say and I am still a living, and debating human. If I was deleted I would still be alive, my life would go on: thus it is not a necessity to be careful about what I say. 2) Regular users do not need to watch what they say as they have proven their maturity. New members have a clean slate, and thus don't need to watch what they say. However, people who receive numerous warnings will obviously get deleted. Normal people do not need to watch what they say, as normal people don't have major anger issues, major racist issues, etc., and don't share them with other people. 3) Debating is educating. By trying to watch what we are saying we will be lessening the value of education. The pro proposes that we all watch what we say yet I see no reason why. Debating on this site isn't about winning, and losing its about benefiting from education. Sure, its nice to win but that's not why we debate. If we start being careful about what we are saying then it lessens the educational value of the debate. Ultimately it is the owner's of the site who have the final say. They can delete anyone's account, for any reason. Yet, knowing that there is a lot of effort put into managing the site I think we can safely assume that they are also passionate about debate. This being the case I would like to think that they would prefer an educational debate that breaks the rules, over a debate filled with just insults. Thanks for the round!