Is there a place like this on the internet? (see details)

Can you explain what #3 means?

Fluther can be good for this, but you need to be open to the feedback you get and you need to be willing to ignore the people who just snipe. But that’s true of just about any discussion site. There’s no way to open your doors to everyone without getting a few people who skirt the rules.

I mean, that can be any forum or question-and-answer site like this one or Reddit or Quora. You’re always going to have those who answer the question they want to answer, not the one you asked. You’re always going to have those who question your motives for asking the question rather than answering it. Best to ignore the noise and focus on what’s constructive.

“It is in a fairly neutral environment”

That won’t happen on the internet. I know that is pessimistic, but lots of Q&A sites are free to sign up, and anyone can contribute. There are certain topics a person can be neutral on, but you can’t guarantee that only those people will answer. You will always have someone with a strong view responding, in my experience.

Reddit, Quora, fluther are all good sites. But they aren’t neutral for the most part. Reddit seems to be more left leaning and I think Fluther is too. Not sure about Quora.

For point #3 an example would be “steelmanning”

https://constantrenewal.com/steel-man/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#steelmanning

I think the root of it is that I feel incredibly misunderstood here (thanks for trying @hmmmmmm); some of it feels intentional.

I think the Q&A format is wrong for what I want; especially Q&A for points. Too bad there isn’t a way to optimize for clarity and understanding.

@belisarius “For point #3 an example would be “steelmanning”

“Steelmanning” is also known as just adherence to the principle of charity, which is a basic tenet of rational discussion. But of course, it does not require one to adopt bizarre or obviously false interpretations of what someone has said simply to make it appear rational (e.g., we do not have to interpret someone who claims that the Earth is flat as just using an unusual way to express the claim that the Earth is round).

“Too bad there isn’t a way to optimize for clarity and understanding.”

Discussion is the way to optimize for clarity and understanding. There’s simply no way to state a claim or an opinion in such a way that everyone will understand it on the first attempt. We discuss in order to clarify our thoughts and better understand the opinions of others. Plenty of apparent disagreements turn out to be agreements in disguise.

You should:
1. Propose an idea for discussion
2. It must of course be in the form of a question.
3.Neutral is a meaningless concept. Otherwise, what is the point of discussion.

By “neutral,” @belisarius seems to have meant “able to create some intellectual distance from one’s own views when evaluating the claims and arguments of others.” That’s certainly valuable, but we don’t want to confuse it with “expressing no contrary views when responding to someone’s claim or argument” (neutral analysis does not entail a complete lack of critical response).

If you ask a question here in General, you can flag the answers that you feel are wildly off-topic or personal attacks but you can’t expect that people won’t offer differing opinions.