Quote Originally Posted by Answerer View Post
No, I'm not stating opinions, but facts
This is the usual claim to say "my opinion > your opinion."

The rest of your post actually says human beings are fallible (which is correct), so shall we assume you are not a human being?

Regarding the rest of your post:

Quote Originally Posted by Answerer
Further reading:
If you are pointing your fellow posters towards "further reading", you should be a subject matter expert in philosophy.

Unfortunately, you've already conceded you are not, and the sources you've linked indicate the same.

What is worse, however, is what you seem to imply here. The wikipedia text you linked gives two reasons for fallacious appeals to authority:

(1) "This occurs when an inference relies on individuals or groups without relevant expertise or knowledge"

--> this means that you deny the other gamers relevant expertise or knowledge.

(2) Inductive reasoning.

--> Note that a large part of scientific research is (still) essentially inductive. This just means that the researchers try to generalize from samples. Yes, it is fallible, but you'd not have medication otherwise. Fallibility is not the issue, humans are fallible. As researchers, as debaters, as individuals in general. You, me, everybody.

Also, this is no scientific experiment, and we're not talking of a representative sample here.

Andorax is gathering opinions to achieve an assessment. I don't think anybody claims that this is representative of "the playground". It is just the opinion of those who have taken part in the discussion. Perhaps the expressed opinion of twenty people might still be valuable as an indicator?

Finally, the amount of disagreement over RAW and the heated debates it still causes after all the years it has left print might serve as an indicator that we are not discussing RAW. We are discussing Rules As Written As Interpreted By Me vs. Rules As Written As Interpreted By You.

Working with text requires interpretation. When dealing with ambiguity, we interpret, and we use our judgment, and in part this process is even subconscious. There are parts of the rules that are seen as non-ambiguous, but these don't tend to spur the forum debates.