Many arguments boil down to the definition of a word. Talking about definitions seems worthwhile.

We've all heard there are facts and opinions, but there's a 3rd category I think: definitions.

> Many arguments boil down to the definition of a word.

And this is awful :(

It's normally the Worst Argument in the World: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...

Arguing about whether a definition is particularly useful or outlines a cluster of similar things can be good, but it's rare.

The mods deleted the other thread, but basically what this guy was doing was Sealioning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

Certainly sometimes it's good to debate a word but this crossed the line into incessant requests for people to do work to come up with ever more definitions and citations.

My issue is with your style of debate, because it takes work to come up with these definitions and citations that you will inevitably disagree with. It's a waste of time. To imply that this means I am against civil rights, women's suffrage, and free speech... all I can say is go fuck yourself.

Flamewar comments like this are obviously completely unacceptable and will get you banned here. I'm not going to ban you right now, because you haven't been using HN primarily for this. Please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ouch, abuse? That usually means you have run out of arguments. Well, point proved, anyway.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily (exclusively?) for flamewar and ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of ideology, because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html