Drivel-barrageing, an abuse of open debate opportunities

I am here introducing the name drivel-barrageing for a phenomenon that did not exist before the internet enabled the introduction of open debate forums such as this here.

Others have already noticed this form of abuse but I forget what if any term they used to label it, and anyway I'm now here calling it drivel-barrageing.

An example of a somewhat similar phenomenon was the harassing "by right" of climate scientists by large numbers of time-wasting "freedom of information" requests.

Drivel-barragers superficially appear to be engaging in civil, reasonable, discussion. But in reality it is not reasonable discussion. They publish a barrage of sloppy questions or other challenges against their victim. They do not bother to spend the time to properly research and critically consider whether their challenges have any substance to them. Instead they put the heavy burden on the victim to answer all their sloppy confusions, to correct all their errors, as if the victim had some professional teaching obligations to them.

There is consequently a grossly unreasonable imbalance in the resulting "debate". The barrager has an easy time generating his drivel, whereas the victim has to labour at sorting out the critical thinking, the provision of evidence the barrager couldn't be bothered to find out for himself, and so on.

The drivel barrager assumes that a principle of reasonable debate is that their victim has some obligation to respond to every piece of their drivel. If the victim does not it will supposedly constitute proof that the driveller is right and the victim is wrong. But in the real world, people do have other things they have to get on with, such as survival chores and working on proper thoughtful projects and studying of their own. The driveller prevents this proper activity and disrespects the time and contribution of the victim.

I myself am very unusual in that I seek out debate with those of contrasting views. I have consequently become all too familiar with this sort of abuse, first noticing it on the (now defunct) Monbiot discussion list back in 2004. Frequently a whole load of drivellers gang up against the one victim (me).

A recent outbreak of drivel-barrageing can be seen from "daedalus" on the page linked here. It's rather normal for a drivel-barrager to be anonymous as there. You can see how he just cannot get the point of his unreasonableness and just goes on pigheadedly. He expresses concern that he cannot post comments to my autism site. I don't know why, as I can post comments easily enough myself. But actually his comments would not be welcome anyway. That's not because they would be wrong, or because I would disagree with them, but because they would be the unworthy drivel of an unrepentant, incorrigible, drivel-barrageing abuser of this opportunity for open debate.

People do not have a right to expect all their questions to be answered and re-answered ad nauseam. Respect may not have to be earned in the first instance, but that respect can rightly be withdrawn if a victim finds himself the subject of such drivel-barrageing abuse.