Guidelines for Conduct in the Nirmukta Facebook Group

The following list consists of guidelines for participation in the Nirmukta Facebook Group. These guidelines are meant to promote a friendly and welcome atmosphere for rational discussion of ideas, towards building a vibrant freethought community.

1. Before responding to a post or comment please read and understand its gist thoroughly, asking for clarification if necessary.
2. Avoid personal attacks against individuals but practice criticism of ideas. The focus should be on increasing our combined knowledge, not on putting people down.
3. Disagree without being disagreeable. Defend your opinions without being defensive.
4. Avoid posting sexually suggestive material or using language considered impolite in public settings.
5. Avoid making racially prejudiced, bigoted or hateful remarks of any sort.
6. Avoid making assumptions about other people.
7. Be informed about common logical fallacies before challenging the arguments put forth by others.

Repeated and deliberate violation of these guidelines is strongly discouraged. Please do not discuss these guidelines, or the policy of the Nirmukta group admins, on the facebook group to avoid disrupting the group. Any grievances may be addressed in private. Failure to conform to this policy can lead to removal from the group.

Here is a list of the most commonly used logical fallacies, compiled by Don Lindsay.

• Ad Hominem (Argument To The Man)
• Affirming The Consequent
• Amazing Familiarity
• Ambiguous Assertion
• Appeal To Anonymous Authority
• Appeal To Authority
• Appeal To Coincidence
• Appeal To Complexity
• Appeal To False Authority
• Appeal To Force
• Appeal To Pity (Appeal to Sympathy, The Galileo Argument)
• Appeal To Widespread Belief (Bandwagon Argument, Peer Pressure, Appeal To Common Practice)
• Argument By Dismissal
• Argument By Emotive Language (Appeal To The People)
• Argument By Fast Talking
• Argument By Generalization
• Argument By Gibberish (Bafflement)
• Argument By Half Truth (Suppressed Evidence)
• Argument By Laziness (Argument By Uninformed Opinion)
• Argument By Personal Charm
• Argument By Pigheadedness (Doggedness)
• Argument By Poetic Language
• Argument By Prestigious Jargon
• Argument By Question
• Argument By Repetition (Argument Ad Nauseam)
• Argument by Rhetorical Question
• Argument By Scenario
• Argument By Selective Observation
• Argument By Selective Reading
• Argument By Slogan
• Argument By Vehemence
• Argument From Adverse Consequences (Appeal To Fear, Scare Tactics)
• Argument From Age (Wisdom of the Ancients)
• Argument From Authority
• Argument From False Authority
• Argument From Small Numbers
• Argument From Spurious Similarity
• Argument Of The Beard
• Argument To The Future
• Bad Analogy
• Begging The Question (Assuming The Answer, Tautology)
• Burden Of Proof
• Causal Reductionism (Complex Cause)
• Changing The Subject (Digression, Red Herring, Misdirection, False Emphasis)
• Cliche Thinking
• Common Sense
• Complex Question (Tying)
• Confusing Correlation And Causation
• Disproof By Fallacy
• Equivocation
• Error Of Fact
• Euphemism
• Exception That Proves The Rule
• Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy, Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation)
• Extended Analogy
• Failure To State
• Fallacy Of Composition
• Fallacy Of Division
• Fallacy Of The General Rule
• Fallacy Of The Crucial Experiment
• False Cause
• False Compromise
• Genetic Fallacy (Fallacy of Origins, Fallacy of Virtue)
• Having Your Cake (Failure To Assert, or Diminished Claim)
• Hypothesis Contrary To Fact
• Inconsistency
• Inflation Of Conflict
• Internal Contradiction
• Least Plausible Hypothesis
• Lies
• Meaningless Questions
• Misunderstanding The Nature Of Statistics (Innumeracy)
• Moving The Goalposts (Raising The Bar, Argument By Demanding Impossible Perfection)
• Needling
• Non Sequitur
• Not Invented Here
• Outdated Information
• Pious Fraud
• Poisoning The Wells
• Psychogenetic Fallacy
• Reductio Ad Absurdum
• Reductive Fallacy (Oversimplification)
• Reifying
• Short Term Versus Long Term
• Slippery Slope Fallacy (Camel’s Nose)
• Special Pleading (Stacking The Deck)
• Statement Of Conversion
• Stolen Concept
• Straw Man (Fallacy Of Extension)
• Two Wrongs Make A Right (Tu Quoque, You Too)
• Weasel Wording