Evening all.
After lurking for quite some time, for my first thread proposal I would like to develop a new discussion, with the purpose of identifying the various stages of a thread in progress, involving discussion of how these stages interweave, overlap, and even flip-flop around.
Possible development regarding the stages, their number and order, and some of the aspects used to define each would be better, but commentary - provided it stays on topic - about the idea of the 'stages' or specific examples of each in existing threads would be useful in the later parts of the debate.
These stages are, in brief:
1) The initiation: the thread is established, the topic is defined. Those involved begin to post their initial thoughts about the subject, possibly overlapping into stage 2.
2) The claims: those involved begin to make their claims and assertions, either positive ("this is") or negative ("this is not"), proactive ("here is the idea: ..") or reactive ("that proposed idea is .."), tentative ("I think") or firm ("we know").
3) The support: sources are provided, analysed and discussed; evidence is presented, whether in support of a proposition or claim, or in denial/contradiction of it; facts are weighed by those concerned and assigned value as to reliability and veracity.
4) The rebuttal: people begin offering secondary evidence and opinions, and replying to earlier criticisms either to defend or alter the initial proffered claims.
5) The degradation: debate becomes heated and sometimes personal, with ad-homs more common, rationality scarce and everybody quite fired up in their posting. Moderator intervention is much more "aggressive", and the majority or blockings occur during this stage.
6) The closure: this may follow several periods of repeated stages 4 and 5, but generally precedes abandonment/"terminal drift"/moderator locking of the thread, and normally invokes summaries of the thread from each contributor's position and what results they feel came of it.
I am unsure of what forum this would belong in; whatever concerns the meta-consideration of the EvC debate as a whole, and pertaining especially to this set of fora in particular, sounds good.
edit: is there coding to make a bulleted list? It would tidy up the '6 stages are' part much.
Edited by Nij, : Bullets?