Issuepedia:Arguing/clarity

Rule: Responsibility for making an argument clear lies on the arguer, not the respondent.

Justification

Past experience suggests that if we allow any contradiction to suspend a position until the contradiction to be fully analyzed, this leaves the door wide open for spaghetti-throwing operations, e.g. arguments based on incorrect facts or bad reasoning where a great deal of time must be spent in research or analysis in order to figure out where they are wrong.

Corollary

This is also the basis of the "no required reading" rule. Links are useful as sources and for more detail, and essays can help convey a deeper understanding of the point being made, but requiring people to read and understand them (and derive their relevance to the argument) leaves too large a security hole in the process of rational discourse. It would basically be an invitation for trolling.