Posted by: x Foman123 x
Posted by: ash55
I find analogies to be quite irrelevant when arguing something; mainly because they have nothing to do with the situation at hand. Your analogy is over-simplifying the situation. Throwing your litter in the bin has no negative effects unlike this. Again, I refer you to my other example post where I would get quite pissed off if people were bumping spam instead of my well-thought-out legitimate thread.
Au contraire, mon amie, a well-placed analogy is never irrelevant. Indeed, you used two analogies in your own response directly after stating that analogies are irrelevant. 1) you rebutted the "janitor" analogy; and 2) you analogized to your own "example" (that was an analogy).
As someone who argues and advocates in adversarial situations for a living, I happen to love analogies (as do my colleagues in the field). An analogy can help to highlight why a situation is the same or (such as in the way you used it), how the situation is completely different. Analogies are used by professional debaters, lawyers who argue for a living, and political/social commentators alike. To say that they are irrelevant in arguments goes against the vast weight of what the pros who argue for a living think.
Just because an analogy may not fit does not necessarily make it irrelevant. Indeed, it makes it wholly relevant in highlighting why certain situations are different from others, and the analogies you made in fact helped you to solidify your point.
To be honest, whenever someone thinks of an analogy, it usually suffers from many flaws. I remember someone saying the analogy that "Optimatch is like going to a fast-food restaurant and being given the wrong order". Which is overlooking the reason behind Matchmaking entirely (for example, in matchmaking, you're not forced to share your food with someone else. You may want a chocolate milkshake, but your opponent may want strawberry).
An analogy can be useful for expressing your own view on something but most analogies I've seen can be picked apart because they're so fundamentally different (therefore irrelevant).
1) I didn't use an analogy to compare how similar the two situations are. I did the opposite, I picked apart an already existing analogy.
2) My "example" wasn't an analogy. It was an related example using a real potential situation in the forums. In fact, the only reason I'm arguing this is because I know people who are sick and tired of spam threads being bumped above their discussions.
ReZ. In your opinion, you don't think one reply is that bad? I disagree.
Perhaps I'm not being clear. I don't just disagree. I will hand out warnings (and have in the past) to people who do it. Use PMs, it's not a members responsibility to report what's in violation of the rules, however they can report threads that they believe to be violations.
Replying to a thread will not achieve anything that a PM doesn't.
[Edited on 03.26.2007 7:12 PM PDT]