Mission Statement for the room "Charitable Debates in Good Faith" -- formerly "Comedians in Chat Getting Coffee"

MISSION STATEMENT

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One goal of this room -- "Charitable Debates in Good Faith" -- formerly "Comedians in Chat Getting Coffee" -- is to have an alternative room in the Christianity section, other than hatter's room ("The Other Debate Room") and Andrew's room ("Religion Politics Science Debate Chat Central").

"Charitable" is basically a synonym for "in good faith".  It means you don't try to "win" by using dirty rhetorical tricks when you debate your interlocutor, you don't indulge in cheap shots, and you don't use various logical fallacies to get around a fair discussion.

"Charitable" also means you try to listen to your interlocutor and you don't misconstrue what they say in order to get the better of them.  Of course, some people don't intend to misconstrue; it may be an honest mistake. At that point, however, when your interlocutor tells you you have misconstrued, it is bad faith to refuse to take them at their word and to refuse to show them you want to try to understand what they actually meant to say.

Another goal of our room is to protect freedom of speech/expression as much as possible.  Room rules are created with the intent to limit their infringement on freedom of speech and yet still maintain room quality which some behaviors can threaten (example, spamming; jumping the mic; threatening other chatters too much and too seriously; etc.).

Disclaimer

Even though we strive to grow a chat community of charitable discussions/conversations -- even "debates" -- we cannot guarantee there will be no chatters who behave uncharitably in their discussions/conversations, and there will be no punishments of dots or bounces for those who fail to be charitable.

Also, in striving to be charitable, we don't want to put a damper on playful humor that may involve banter and ribbing of others.

Behavior that is "uncharitable" can, of course, include various behaviors that are indeed punished under the room rules (see room rules).