"Meaningless Phrase" is a meaningless phrase.

[Mike_G]

"Meaningless phrase" has become a meaningless phrase.

Once used to indicate phrases that actually didn't mean anything, it has come to be applied to useful phrases that serve as convenient shorthand in debate, anchor points that allow us to discuss issue efficiently by use of term that we largely agree on the definitions of.

I blame college students who majored in pre-law or were on the debate team. They have become used to an environment where the are not trying to inform or seek consensus, but to undermine an opposing position, often not because they disagree with it, but because they have been assigned to the other team, either that of the client or by the debate moderator. and the simplest way to do that to to obfuscate that argument by fixating on terms, and by taking those terms to the further logical extreme to "prove" that they don't mean things.

[Cosi]

This thread was inevitable, but not necessary. These debates are stupid, and people should stop having or caring about them.

[Kurald Galain]

So when does ""Meaningless phrase" has become a meaningless phrase" become a meaningless phrase?

[Lord Raziere]

Nope, we're not meta enough. We have to go deeper.

"""Meaningless Phrase" is a meaningless phrase." is a meaningless phrase." is a meaningless phrase :smalltongue:

I'm joking, but seriously yeah its tiring and dumb that people keep bandying about the concept of meaningless phrase to try and invalidate others arguments through semantics. Generally I stop caring for any debate where people start doing this or otherwise nitpicking the little details rather than discussing the actual issues that these phrases are supposed to help with. its enough to drive me back to my world of warcraft addiction or to play some other videogame, at least there I feel like I'm accomplishing something, rather than arguing in circles over increasingly abstract words in discussions that grow increasingly hair-splitting over the smallest stupidest thing.

[gkathellar]

I understand people's frustration, but bear in mind that the topics that are being referenced are troll topics. There is a formula to generating responses on GitP, and it goes, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, back it up with the semblance of an argument." This isn't some problem with the young'ns, it's a problem with the site culture.

[Cosi]

I understand people's frustration, but bear in mind that the topics that are being referenced are troll topics. There is a formula to generating responses on GitP, and it goes, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, back it up with the semblance of an argument." This isn't some problem with the young'ns, it's a problem with the site culture.

That's the formula for generating responses literally anywhere.

There are problems with the site culture, but "people argue with opinions they disagree with" is not one of them (or insofar as it is, it is not in any way localized to this site).

[Tanarii]

Egad, what have I done?
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[Vitruviansquid]

I understand people's frustration, but bear in mind that the topics that are being referenced are troll topics. There is a formula to generating responses on GitP, and it goes, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, back it up with the semblance of an argument." This isn't some problem with the young'ns, it's a problem with the site culture.

These days, it's more like, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, when it is challenged, seek to continually redefine the terms of the argument until you have been right all along. If others don't agree with the way you twist and stretch those definitions, accuse them of trolling."

[Tanarii]

The first thread, which I started, was straight up about me getting irritated and posting an overreaction / new thread as a result. Let me clear, I'm not proud of that.

What irritated me was seeing various posters repeatedly using a phrase saying it is what roleplaying games are about. In other words, people trying to project their play style as if it's a universal thing for all roleplaying games.

Edit: also, I'm totally aware that in doing so, I followed a time honored forum tactic of taking an argument and starting a new provocative thread title & OP about it. Like I said, not proud of that.

[Darth Ultron]

I don't get the meaning behind this thread. A meaningless phrase often employed in speech, but it's also popular with students who perhaps think that it makes their writing sound more academic by adding emphasis.

[Aliquid]

Damn, I was thinking of starting a “meaningless phrase” thread about something... now I can’t.

[Pronounceable]

yo dawg i herd you like clickbait so we clicked the bait on yo clickbait

[RFLS]

Life is meaningless. Death is inevitable. There is nothing but despair and regret.

Let Taco Bell be one of those regrets (https://imgur.com/gallery/x9OzT).

I think that's the OP for that img.

[gkathellar]

Life is meaningless. Death is inevitable. There is nothing but despair and regret.

Let Taco Bell be one of those regrets (https://imgur.com/gallery/x9OzT).

I think that's the OP for that img.

Naw, it comes from existential comics. (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/204)

[Knaight]

This title is reminding me a little of "Ain't ain't a word, so I ain't going to use it". The very formulation of the phrase indicates the meaning of the term in the phrase, while simultaneously denying its presence.

I say this as one of the two people most involved in creating this current spate of threads*, which spun off from Tanarii claiming that collaborative storytelling was a meaningless phrase and me contesting it.

*I'm willing to claim second place specifically.

[RFLS]

Naw, it comes from existential comics. (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/204)

Oh cool. Thank you.

[Mike_G]

This may have been a snarky, obnoxious way to respond, but the "meaningless phrase" threads are a huge pet peeve of mine.

"Colaborative storytelling" is not meaningless. It's a philosophy, and a way to describe RPGs, which may apply more to some games than others. You can dislike it, you can roll your eyes because you hear it too much, but it's not meaningless.

Mostly because WE ALL KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

A group of people all play characters and respond to plot arcs, which can be described a s a story. I absolutely can describe an RPG as improv with dice and you may hate that analogy, but you KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

"Sandbox" is not a meaningless term. We all know that it refers to a game where the players have a setting and can decide what they want to explore, rather tha meeting in a tavern and being hired to rescue the princess.

Yes, games exist on a spectrum from completely ad-libbed sandbox to completely railroaded dungeon crawls, but that in no way renders the term meaningless.

So stop making "meaningless" meaningless.

Just say you hate stuff.

It's ok. You can hate stuff.

But stop murdering my beloved language

[Faily]

This may have been a snarky, obnoxious way to respond, but the "meaningless phrase" threads are a huge pet peeve of mine.

"Colaborative storytelling" is not meaningless. It's a philosophy, and a way to describe RPGs, which may apply more to some games than others. You can dislike it, you can roll your eyes because you hear it too much, but it's not meaningless.

Mostly because WE ALL KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

A group of people all play characters and respond to plot arcs, which can be described a s a story. I absolutely can describe an RPG as improv with dice and you may hate that analogy, but you KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

"Sandbox" is not a meaningless term. We all know that it refers to a game where the players have a setting and can decide what they want to explore, rather tha meeting in a tavern and being hired to rescue the princess.

Yes, games exist on a spectrum from completely ad-libbed sandbox to completely railroaded dungeon crawls, but that in no way renders the term meaningless.

So stop making "meaningless" meaningless.

Just say you hate stuff.

It's ok. You can hate stuff.

But stop murdering my beloved language


Here, sir, have an internet!

[Lord Raziere]

Just say you hate stuff.

It's ok. You can hate stuff.

But stop murdering my beloved language

I agree, I may be lowly scum who hates optimization, but I don't go around saying its meaningless. Optimization has meaning, I just hate the meaning it does have and wish I could play things without it screwing things up. Point is: If your going to hate something, be honest about it instead of going around being this jerk who tries to make things not mean anything, no one likes those people. Words have meaning, either agree to a meaning or acknowledge that there is no useful discussion to be had and just do something else. This goes for all words not just the ones here, there are a bunch of terms people think are meaningless these days just because they are overused and biased in opinion and that is wrong, they are not meaningless even if people use them inaccurately, and we should endeavor to acknowledge meaning beyond personal ones. Because if we only acknowledge personal meaning, there is no useful discussion.

[Tanarii]

If you want to comment on why you think you can tell me how I play the game when I tell you that's not how I play it, there's already a thread for that.

To be clear: the objection I had was to "roleplaying games are about collaborative storytelling". That's a universal statement. In that usage, either it's either untrue, or being used to mean something where I have no idea what the person claiming it means. Thus, meaningless.

[Mike_G]

If you want to comment on why you think you can tell me how I play the game when I tell you that's not how I play it, there's already a thread for that.

Nobody's doing that by using a phrase they think describes RPGs. And even if they were, that phrase wouldn't be meaningless.

Maybe it doesn't apply to your game. That's fine. Maybe you think somebody who says that applies to all games is wrong, which is fine.

But for the love of Gygax, stop trying to make words not mean things.

[Mike_G]

To be clear: the objection I had was to "roleplaying games are about collaborative storytelling". That's a universal statement. In that usage, either it's either untrue, or being used to mean something where I have no idea what the person claiming it means. Thus, meaningless.

But it's not.

I know exactly what it means. And I think you do as well, I just think you don't feel that it's accurate or at least not universally accurate.

Inaccurate does not equal meaningless.

[Tanarii]

But it's not.

I know exactly what it means. And I think you do as well, I just think you don't feel that it's accurate or at least not universally accurate.

Inaccurate does not equal meaningless.No, I don't. Even less so since the thread in question.

As multiple people made clear in the other thread, which you appear not to have read in detail (and for which I don't blame you :smallwink: ), people gave many meanings for "collaborative storytelling". Some that are hugely broadened from anything I'd understood the term to mean and even from what you stated above. And many of which meanings I don't think are true statements themselves, since they were global claims to my behavior which I disagree that I do.

It's turns out "collaborative storytelling" is a great example of a phrase being tossed around without a particularly clear meaning. What people think it means varies quite a lot.

Whereas the statement "When I play roleplaying games, they are about collaborative storytelling" is definitely true statement for many people. But I still wouldn't know what they meant without clarification, specially now, given the variety of meanings people ascribe to the phrase.

[Mike_G]

Well, "collaborative" just means multiple people acting together and "Storytelling" means creating a narrative, so it's not much of leap to see how that can sound a lot like a bunch of guys around table playing fantasy characters going on an adventure.

We can disagree on the extent to which this applies to games, and we can nitpick any term to death, but the phrase means "multiple people working together creating a narrative" because English.

Ergo, having a meaning renders it not meaningless.

Again, because English.

[Vitruviansquid]

I think it is less a phrase being tossed around that has no meaning, and more that people never want to accept anyone else's definitions because that's inconvenient for winning an online argument.

The root of the problem is that we are on an online forum for discussing role-playing games. There isn't that much to talk about that's objectively true or false. You like your RPG's to be full of players making dramatic speeches about their character's feelings? Okay, that's fine. That's not objectively better or worse than someone who likes their RPGs to be full of rolling dice and adding up numbers, or any other styles.

But we're going to talk about which one's better because that's what this internet forum is for.

Now, it's never very rewarding, especially for these "debate team" types, or these people who are hugely emotionally invested in being thought of as the smartest person in any room, to leave an argument at "I prefer this style, you prefer that style, and that's all ok." So instead, people come up with these extremely convoluted ways to win the internet argument, like by turning to semantics.

People trying to control the terms of the argument is one of these ways to win the internet argument. You'll recognize who's not worth talking to in an internet forum by the fact that they are constantly trying to define terms to other people, constantly complaining that other people aren't using terms right, always protesting that people are misreading their posts without re-explaining what they mean. In the end, all the complexity they throw on a topic of discussion is not going deeper into the subject, it's just smoke and air designed to make them sound smart.

[Pronounceable]

ways to win the internet argument
Realtalk: Why'd you even be in an internet argument? You'd have to have absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with your life to be wasting it on trying to convince random internet dwellers about a thing, because what do you even gain if you somehow, against all reason and experience, convince a random internet dweller on some sort of point? At any time, about any subject, you find yourself posting more than 3 times in any sort or argumentative manner, you've already lost.

[Steel Mirror]

Realtalk: Why'd you even be in an internet argument? You'd have to have absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with your life to be wasting it on trying to convince random internet dwellers about a thing, because what do you even gain if you somehow, against all reason and experience, convince a random internet dweller on some sort of point? At any time, about any subject, you find yourself posting more than 3 times in any sort or argumentative manner, you've already lost.This is something that I have a real disagreement with, and I'm going to spend the next 4 posts detailing why.

[vasilidor]

MOOOO!
sorry, got nothing really. this just seems so silly to me.

[Max_Killjoy]

People trying to control the terms of the argument is one of these ways to win the internet argument. You'll recognize who's not worth talking to in an internet forum by the fact that they are constantly trying to define terms to other people


Over the years I've become so allergic to the "but definitions!" thing that my gut response to any demand for definitions is "no".

It's almost always followed by some asinine bit of sophistry and logic-in-a-vacuum that "proves" they were "right" all along.

[Vitruviansquid]

Realtalk: Why'd you even be in an internet argument? You'd have to have absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with your life to be wasting it on trying to convince random internet dwellers about a thing, because what do you even gain if you somehow, against all reason and experience, convince a random internet dweller on some sort of point? At any time, about any subject, you find yourself posting more than 3 times in any sort or argumentative manner, you've already lost.

I don't think argument's a bad thing in itself.

The problem is when the argument is conducted dishonestly, with semantics.

[RFLS]

This is something that I have a real disagreement with, and I'm going to spend the next 4 posts detailing why.

Joke's on you. I'm doing FIVE. And a paper. And a documentary.

[Vitruviansquid]

Over the years I've become so allergic to the "but definitions!" thing that my gut response to any demand for definitions is "no".

Note:

You can also conduct argument dishonestly by refusing to explain what you actually mean to people who ask, and speaking very mysteriously in order to constantly be able to tell other people they are wrong or have misinterpreted you.


It's almost always followed by some asinine bit of sophistry and logic-in-a-vacuum that "proves" they were "right" all along.

@Pronounceable: Here is another explanation for why people would be in an internet argument to begin with.

[Max_Killjoy]

Note:

You can also conduct argument dishonestly by refusing to explain what you actually mean to people who ask, and speaking very mysteriously in order to constantly be able to tell other people they are wrong or have misinterpreted you.


Which is why I try to find ways to explain what I mean without doing the "definition dance".

[RFLS]

Which is why I try to find ways to explain what I mean without doing the "definition dance".

Can you define definition dance, please?

[Knaight]

It's turns out "collaborative storytelling" is a great example of a phrase being tossed around without a particularly clear meaning. What people think it means varies quite a lot.

It turns out that when you really drill into the meaning of a phrase there's subtle differences across definitions. Welcome to language - apart from exactingly defined scientific terminology built to fit particularly well understood fields, or a lot of the terminology in math (which is well understood by being tightly defined and basically designed around exacting precision) this is pretty standard.

Take the word "chair". It seems easy to define, but soon you start running into "bench", or "stool", or "couch". Then when you start adding precision to try and find the exact borders between these words you find that people have different definitions, because those borders aren't being drawn consistently by different people.

At this point you have two options. One of them is to acknowledge that this is an intrinsic feature of constructing language, if not an inherent feature of imprecision in human perception. The other is to shy away from that acknowledgement/realization, and treat it not as a feature of language and instead as a weird quirk that just happens to apply to almost every single word you dig deep enough into.

[Cluedrew]

Building off what Knaight said, I think the issue here is the difference between "no meaning" and "an imprecise meaning". Collaborative storytelling has a meaning, and I think that we can agree it applies to a book written by 2 or 3 authors and does not apply to a frog. That being said, to me there are some role-playing games that are defiantly collaborative storytelling (like the All Guardsmen Party), others that are not almost certainly not (the purest of dungeon crawls) and many I'm not so sure. And that has a much to do with I'm not sure where the line is, rather than I don't know where those games fall.

And in those cases, I think it is better to just talk about the lower level features rather than try and go through this intermediate step of nailing down a high level concept to that level of detail. Arguing those details seems to be where most of that meaninglessness comes from.

[SimonMoon6]

The problem is that too many people are Humpty Dumpty:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

[Lorsa]

No, I don't. Even less so since the thread in question.

As multiple people made clear in the other thread, which you appear not to have read in detail (and for which I don't blame you :smallwink: ), people gave many meanings for "collaborative storytelling". Some that are hugely broadened from anything I'd understood the term to mean and even from what you stated above. And many of which meanings I don't think are true statements themselves, since they were global claims to my behavior which I disagree that I do.

It's turns out "collaborative storytelling" is a great example of a phrase being tossed around without a particularly clear meaning. What people think it means varies quite a lot.

Whereas the statement "When I play roleplaying games, they are about collaborative storytelling" is definitely true statement for many people. But I still wouldn't know what they meant without clarification, specially now, given the variety of meanings people ascribe to the phrase.


It turns out that when you really drill into the meaning of a phrase there's subtle differences across definitions. Welcome to language - apart from exactingly defined scientific terminology built to fit particularly well understood fields, or a lot of the terminology in math (which is well understood by being tightly defined and basically designed around exacting precision) this is pretty standard.

Take the word "chair". It seems easy to define, but soon you start running into "bench", or "stool", or "couch". Then when you start adding precision to try and find the exact borders between these words you find that people have different definitions, because those borders aren't being drawn consistently by different people.

At this point you have two options. One of them is to acknowledge that this is an intrinsic feature of constructing language, if not an inherent feature of imprecision in human perception. The other is to shy away from that acknowledgement/realization, and treat it not as a feature of language and instead as a weird quirk that just happens to apply to almost every single word you dig deep enough into.


Building off what Knaight said, I think the issue here is the difference between "no meaning" and "an imprecise meaning". Collaborative storytelling has a meaning, and I think that we can agree it applies to a book written by 2 or 3 authors and does not apply to a frog. That being said, to me there are some role-playing games that are defiantly collaborative storytelling (like the All Guardsmen Party), others that are not almost certainly not (the purest of dungeon crawls) and many I'm not so sure. And that has a much to do with I'm not sure where the line is, rather than I don't know where those games fall.

And in those cases, I think it is better to just talk about the lower level features rather than try and go through this intermediate step of nailing down a high level concept to that level of detail. Arguing those details seems to be where most of that meaninglessness comes from.

I was going to respond to Tanarii but found that Knaight had already done so with pretty much what I meant to say...

Language is fuzzy. We all use words differently.

All these "X is a meaningless phrase" threads should really be rewritten as "I don't understand what people mean when they say X", because that is essentially what they boil down to.

Tanarii found that people use the phrase "collaborative storytelling" in TRPGs in slightly different ways. Each of these people still mean SOMETHING with it, therefore it is not meaningless. The phrase HAS a meaning, but that meaning may change depending on the person speaking.

Still, after listening to enough meanings, you may start to see a pattern. Borders emerge, so that when someone say they want to run a TRPG as "collaborative storytelling", you can at least tell what it isn't. Same with "sandbox". People use it to mean different things, but that doesn't make it meaningless.

And, as we've seen in the forum, people say "meaningless phrase" to mean "a phrase I do not understand the meaning of".

[kyoryu]

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful

[Pleh]

I don't think argument's a bad thing in itself.

The problem is when the argument is conducted dishonestly, with semantics.

Even semantics themselves aren't the problem. It's the misuse of semantics to confuse a topic with details rather than clarifying with them.

A quick clarification of definitions can actually resolve conflicts so effectively that most of the time it usefulness goes unnoticed. This unfortunately leaves us with the bitter taste of all the times people abuse semantics to confuse an issue and society begins to view the argument of semantics in a negative light.


Building off what Knaight said, I think the issue here is the difference between "no meaning" and "an imprecise meaning".

A critical distinction.

Also, it's easy to point and say, "what you said makes no sense to me," it's ridiculous to then conclude "therefore it never had any meaning to begin with."

Just because you inferred no meaning does not mean they implied no meaning. They perceive meaning, therefore there is meaning no matter how much the communication of that meaning can fail.

[Tanarii]

Take the word "chair". It seems easy to define, but soon you start running into "bench", or "stool", or "couch". Then when you start adding precision to try and find the exact borders between these words you find that people have different definitions, because those borders aren't being drawn consistently by different people.
In this case, the problem turned out to be some people are using a phrase to mean "chair", others to mean "stool", and then yet others (the one's I'm objecting to) to mean "physical object made up of atoms". And calling them all "chair". Some very few even tried to use "chair" to mean "black cat". :smallconfused:


Tanarii found that people use the phrase "collaborative storytelling" in TRPGs in slightly different ways. Each of these people still mean SOMETHING with it, therefore it is not meaningless. The phrase HAS a meaning, but that meaning may change depending on the person speaking.I found that people use the phrase in drastically different ways. And many telling me I was doing something whether I wanted to admit it or not, despite me making it very clear I was not.

[Mike_G]

In this case, the problem turned out to be some people are using a phrase to mean "chair", others to mean "stool", and then yet others (the one's I'm objecting to) to mean "physical object made up of atoms". And calling them all "chair". Some very few even tried to use "chair" to mean "black cat". :smallconfused:

I found that people use the phrase in drastically different ways. And many telling me I was doing something whether I wanted to admit it or not, despite me making it very clear I was not.

I will submit that this is all evidence that some people are *****, not that the phrase is meaningless.

[Cosi]

In this case, the problem turned out to be some people are using a phrase to mean "chair", others to mean "stool", and then yet others (the one's I'm objecting to) to mean "physical object made up of atoms". And calling them all "chair". Some very few even tried to use "chair" to mean "black cat". :smallconfused:

And some people (you, Max) were vehemently opposed to the idea that the four-legged thing they were sitting on was a chair for reasons that are as yet unclear.

[Max_Killjoy]

And some people (you, Max) were vehemently opposed to the idea that the four-legged thing they were sitting on was a chair for reasons that are as yet unclear.


Asked and answered (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objections) countless times in that thread.

Short version, in order to make what we were sitting on "a chair", the definition of "chair" had to be expanded to "anything anyone ever sat on anywhere ever". So yeah, sure, technically, what we're sitting on is now a "chair", congratulations on your internet win points. Meanwhile, your definition of "chair" doesn't differentiate a horse from a barstool from a stump from a couch -- and when one person describes sitting on a horse, someone else immediately points and crows "SEE, you were sitting on a chair all along, even if you didn't realize it!"

[Cosi]

Short version, in order to make what we were sitting on "a chair", the definition of "chair" had to be expanded to "anything anyone ever sat on anywhere ever".

I mean, "cooperative storytelling" has always meant "roleplaying games" every time I have seen it used. I guess you didn't know that, which is fine, but this is not a conspiracy. This is just you getting really angry when people use terminology you didn't know for no reason.

[Max_Killjoy]

I mean, "cooperative storytelling" has always meant "roleplaying games" every time I have seen it used. I guess you didn't know that, which is fine, but this is not a conspiracy. This is just you getting really angry when people use terminology you didn't know for no reason.

Nice ad hom.

Bye.

[Max_Killjoy]

I will submit that this is all evidence that some people are *****, not that the phrase is meaningless.


Meaningless is probably the wrong word... it's just very open-ended and carries so many different meanings and implications that it's not a usefully specific term on its own (as detailed at length in the other thread).

But as for what Tanarii describes, yeah, that's largely just certain people being whatever's under those asterisks -- the term in question in that other thread is just a convenient way for them to try to assert "dominance" over other people's "how, why, and what" of gaming.

[Mike_G]

Meaningless is probably the wrong word... it's just very open-ended and carries so many different meanings and implications that it's not a usefully specific term on its own (as detailed at length in the other thread).

But as for what Tanarii describes, yeah, that's largely just certain people being whatever's under those asterisks -- the term in question in that other thread is just a convenient way for them to try to assert "dominance" over other people's "how, why, and what" of gaming.

Back a few years ago, when the optimization police were all over the forum, I felt that I was being told that I play D&D wrong. That just convinced me that they were terrible people, not that "optimization" was a meaningless term, even when they played semantics so that if you ever admitted to putting your highest score in Strength for a fighter, you were optimizing so--HA! GOTCHA!!

That doesn't make a phrase meaningless. It reminds us that the internet full of unwiped anuses in human shape

[Max_Killjoy]

Back a few years ago, when the optimization police were all over the forum, I felt that I was being told that I play D&D wrong. That just convinced me that they were terrible people, not that "optimization" was a meaningless term, even when they played semantics so that if you ever admitted to putting your highest score in Strength for a fighter, you were optimizing so--HA! GOTCHA!!

That doesn't make a phrase meaningless. It reminds us that the internet full of unwiped anuses in human shape


Right -- I don't disagree.

I kinda see the same issue with both terms, however. Again, not meaningless, but stretched out and distorted because someone wants to "win", and that "gotcha" is a big part of it. "Gotcha, you're an optimizer!", never mind that optimizing is a tool and the problems are in how it's used. "Gotcha, you're collaboratively storytelling!", even though to make that "true" the meaning had to be stretched way out in all sorts of ways.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: See, y'all, I *try* to have a weekend, and this happens.