When someone in a debate (anywhere) starts name-calling, how do you respond?

I try to remain calm and confront the name calling for what it is, a childish diversion that either indicates the person doing it is unable to articulate a reasonably argument to convince others or is so crude they don’t see the point in bothering with such niceties.

Depends. It’s not easy to get “down and dirty” on Fluther because posts with name-calling are usually removed. However, if someone comes out of the blue with an insult here, sometimes I will insult right back knowing that both of our replies will be modded. I don’t do that all the time, but sometimes the person just pissed me off and I feel like getting back at them. That has happened to me a few times here. Other times I just say “if you’re going to insult, then we don’t need to continue” and then I stop. That’s ideal, of course.

The good thing about this site is that it forces you to not go down the bad road.

On sites where flamewars were not modded, I would often take the high road if I wasn’t in the mood for arguing or if the person was just pathetic and wasn’t really making me angry. Obviously, that’s the better choice. But sometimes, a few people have just pissed me off so much where I don’t give a crap about what’s the “right” thing to do and I just want to insult the shit out of them until they cry at me and then I call them a hypocrite for being able to dish it but not take it. It can be fun. :)

I don’t really get into debates IRL, so this is primarily about online.

I definitely stay civil.

I try not to make rash judgments of people, ever, so I don’t develop names to call a person (even if the ideas they express are classifiable and easy to criticize). Name calling tends to incite anger and leads a discussion off track.

If someone criticizes me rather than my arguments, I get pretty frustrated but usually just try to defend myself and continue to focus on the discussion.

I called someone something really terrible last week and didn’t get modded. But I can’t remember what it was. I was ashamed of myself.
But I was right.

I prefer to take the high road and encourage others to do the same.

I do not tolerate ignorant fools easily and will use my logic and language skills, combined with my research ability to crush someone who comes after me maliciously. I use their own statements to undermine their arguments and politely but persistently ridicule their ignorance and deceit.

It is generally unwise for the ignorant and closed-minded to lock horns with me by attempting to ridicule viewpoints I can support with empirical facts.

Few have tried. None have succeeded without damage to their reputation and credibility. Such bullies run away when someone stands up to their blustering demagoguery.

The Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly types survive by refusing to face their opponents on a level playing field where debates are won by facts and careful analysis not fiction and pseudofacts they trot out using circular reasoning.

Since I’m a moderator, I have to try to calm things down on Fluther. Of course, that’s pretty much the way I acted prior to becoming a mod, too.

I stay civil.
There’s no way I want to waste my time with those b*@#y fu*!#g bast***s

I don’t step in if it doesn’t involve me, unless it’s a friend. I might not be, but I do try and be mature if I defend someone. But otherwise fuck it.
If they insult me, fuck it too.

Fortunately, this hasn’t happened on Fluther.

I’ve had some heated arguments and I’m sure that plenty of folks don’t like me for being a psycho cannibal, but everyone is mature and informed, so it’s all cool.

In other instances, name calling is just as lame. I don’t sink down to it, unless it’s a joke.

Fucking butt knockers. :)

But yeah, if you really want to upset me, convince me that I should commit suicide or something. If not, at least, inform me, if you’re so much wiser and more intelligent than I am.

(You as in general you, and not the asker in particular.)

I enjoy the conflict actually. It is a test of my patience, and it reminds me of how I can be myself.

To see oneself through eye of foe, the greatest gift a man can know

give them more rope, they are damaging their argument more than i could hope to. thats the general rule. if its a formal debate i would just move to have them disqualified.

@augustlan My answer was specific to other sites. Here, it is rare indeed that I ever feel the need to defend myself from personal attack. Of course, my ideas and words are fair game and get slammed all the time, but that raises no hackles. I just might be wrong, and if I am, I would like to know it. But I’m not interested in someone’s opinion of the species my mother was. I do encounter that sort of trash talk all the time on Sodahead.com.

If I see it, I point out how weak ad hominem arguments are. Usually, when people use them, it means they haven’t got a leg to stand on. They are essentially admitting the person they are arguing with is right when they resort to that kind of argument.

That usually seems to shut people up. Sometimes they even apologize.

Except for this one SOB who used to tie his mother’s shoelaces together and then laugh and pour paint on her when she fell down.

You must make your opponent appear to be ignorant. When they start calling names your job becomes easier.

Ppppppbbbbbbssssssstttt! or I ignore it. Depends on how childish the name calling is. Sticking to the topic at hand is the best way of dealing with it.

Falling to name calling, to me, means you have lost the debate. You (the generic “you”) have to resort to that because you cannot win in an actual debate. You cannot prove your point so you try to derail. Or it shows that you have no control… again, loss of a debate.

Well, rarely am I derailable (yes, I know that is not a word). I point out the fact that by insulting me they just admitted defeat or I say that they have one more chance to continue the debate without insulting me, the next insult I walk off with the knowledge that I won.

My all time favorite times this happened was when I was on a Holocaust denier website and, after a long dukem-out debate with one of the deniers, him just skirting the insult zone (he was generally very skilled), he said it:

“I wish Hitler had killed ALL of your family!!” (part of my family was killed in the concentration camps… no I am not a Jew.). He had “filthy gyppo” or something along those lines in that post as well but I cannot remember exactly what he said other than that one line. I just remember the Hitler killing all of my family thing because it was so damned funny.

Classic losing a debate. That could have been “Losing a Debate 101.”

After I pulled myself together (I was laughing so hard I could not breathe), I screenshotted that, and just posted “thankyou for proving my point.” I started posting that screenie all over the board wherever he started denying because, as I knew he would, he edited that out once he realized what he did. I was banned but it was oh so worth it.