These included:

    
1. Getting Personal. If you can't win the argument with facts, you can always try to undermine the credentials of the person making it. None of us are perfect and we all have our vulnerabilities, particularly if it is known that we don't live in/come from/work in the area or have a known allegiance to a particular religion, party, or organisation. All, in the eyes of some, disqualify you from having the right to comment on a topic, render any comments you make on a topic suspect, and in general make you incapable of objectivity. There is a reason the main Slugger rule is "play the ball, not the man."

    
2. Deflection. If you're not doing well on one battleground, deflect the discussion onto something else where you feel more comfortable. Most bloggers will blindly follow your lead and the original argument is lost in a blizzard of commentary. A lot of sub-threads on Slugger bear little relationship to the original OP. Open Threads are there to host such discussion. Relatively easy to moderate, but people get annoyed when their brilliant off topic comments are deleted.

    
3. Distraction. "Oh look! There's a dead cat over there! The dead cat strategy, also known as deadcatting, is the political strategy of deliberately making a shocking statement to divert other bloggers' attention away from your failure in the current argument. It is associated with British former prime minister Boris Johnson's political strategist Lynton Crosby. The shocking statement may indeed highlight an important issue, but it has nothing to do with the argument you are seeking to avoid. If they complain, you accuse them of not caring about the important (but irrelevant) issue you have raised. Moderators don't have the time to crawl up every rabbit hole.

    
4. Appeal to Authority. I'm a professor of XYZ, I've worked in the industry for many years, what's your qualification for saying that? I have included some really erudite quotes from world-wide authorities on the subject. (Which may have only the vaguest relevance to the topic, but you are not bright enough to understand their relevance) Read: I'm a big noise around here, and who are you to challenge me? Often done by presenting a host of authoritative looking stats which may only be tangentially relevant to the point under discussion. The most extreme form of this is presenting a host of unsourced "evidence," and putting it up to others to falsify them. Their failure to have the time, energy, expertise, or inclination to do so means that - in your own eyes - you have won the argument by default - and annoyed your opponents to boot. A double win! How dare anyone moderate such an authoritative contributor!

    
5. The Gish Gallop. The most extreme form of the above is the Gish gallop most associated with Donald Trump, where he seeks to overwhelm an opponent by abandoning formal debating principles, providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments and that are impossible to address adequately in the time allotted to the opponent. Gish galloping prioritizes the quantity of the galloper's arguments at the expense of their quality. "During a Gish gallop, in a short space of time the galloper confronts an opponent with a rapid series of specious arguments, half-truths, misrepresentations, and outright lies that makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of the debate. Each point raised by the Gish galloper takes considerably more time to refute or to fact-check than the amount of time taken to state each one in the series. The opponent appears weak, confused, not in command of the facts, and the audience really isn't interested in detailed explanations. "When your explaining, your losing"

    
6. Weak Spotting. Someone makes a long well evidenced and researched post which demolishes your argument. But they included some minor comment not particularly relevant to the main thrust of their argument, but which is factually falsifiable. You point out the weak spot and declare their entire argument undermined by their obvious ignorance of the subject. In your own mind, you have won, and all discussion is focused on their weak point and failure to do their research properly. They're on their own there, buddy, and no moderation can help them.

    
7. The Straw Man: An internet favourite. Accuse an opponent of making an argument they didn't actually make and demolish it before they can get a word in edgeways. Exploit any looseness in their language, or ambiguity in their wording. Point to all the ridiculous people who have made that argument before and damn your opponent by association. Moderator response: It must be lunchtime...

    
8. "Humour." Sarcastic one-liners are often effective in sending bloggers down a rabbit hole and away from the argument you're losing. When moderated: "Who, me? I was only making a witty comment! You moderators have no sense of humour!

    
9. The Dunning-Krueger effect. Academic politics are often said to be more vicious than their real world counterparts. A whole language of seemingly precise scientific terms has been re-purposed as sly insults to get past any moderator detection. Chief among these is the Dunning-Krueger effect which began life as an academic study of cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. But it is often misunderstood in blogging culture as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence instead of specific overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task. It is also not unknown for people brilliant in one field to assume their brilliance must apply to all other fields as well. Basically, when you invoke the Dunning-Krueger effect against someone, you are saying they are an idiot, but how could my brilliant reference to a scientifically known phenomenon be moderated?

    
10. Godwin's law began life as an internet adage that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." (i.e. certainty). Dressed in statistical language, basically all it means is that comparisons to Hitler or Nazism are often exaggerated or vexatious and designed to provoke outrage. In some forums doing so is enough to get you banned. But the author never intended it to be an absolute prohibition. Some behaviours are comparable or at least reminiscent of Nazism. But calling out some behaviour as Nazi or Fascist is almost bound to get you in trouble. Moderators sometimes yearn for a quiet life...

    
11. Accuse others of manplaying when all they are doing is picking holes in your cherished argument or pointing out factual errors. Bullies often play the victim. Moderators get sick of this stuff.

We had a recent example of some of these tactics being deployed when Professors Shirlow and Coulson sought to discredit the ARINS' team methodology in conducting their surveys of public opinion in Ireland, north and south, and particularly on the subject of Irish re-unification.

The remarkable thing about that discussion thread was that almost none of their many comments was addressed to the ARINS team themselves, or the very detailed rebuttal the ARINS team had written in their Opinion Piece (OP) in response to two hyper critical OPs by Professor Coulson on their survey methodologies.

Instead, they directed their ire against anyone on the discussion thread who expressed any opinion mildly supportive of the ARINS team's work perhaps in an attempt to deter others, not professionally expert in survey design, from daring to enter the conversation. The thread quickly became so toxic the Slugger moderation team shut it down after only 87 comments. So arguably the tactics adopted had their desired effect.

In this OP I will focus not on the merits of the ARINS or Liverpool survey methodologies themselves - I will leave that discussion to the respective protagonists in the perhaps vain hope they will settle their methodological differences and come up with an agreed survey design for future surveys - and perhaps even agree to conduct future surveys jointly and thus save everyone the time and aggravation of the current dispute in the future.

What I will focus on here is the methods used to derail and ultimately shut down any discussion of the merits of the ARINS survey by applying the analytical framework developed in A Blog Policeman's Lot is not a happy one ,excerpted above, to the comment thread below the ARINS rebuttal.

The other people who commented on the ARINS OP are well able to defend their own contributions, so I will concentrate on those sub threads which involved my interactions with the good professors, starting with my opening comment, which was as follows:

It has often been said that "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low". But when those disputes are taken outside the realm of academic journals, it is often an attempt to raise the stakes at a political level.

Professor Coulter's attempt to publicly debunk the ARINS methodology to an unsuspecting audience not used to parsing the finer points of survey methodology can be more accurately described as propaganda - an attempt to influence perceptions - in a way which would not pass muster in the pages of a peer reviewed academic journal.

In the absence of much in the way of government action, the ARINS team are providing a valuable service: charting the drift in public opinion towards a united Ireland and trying to anticipate the problems any successful border poll will pose for all the communities on these islands.

No doubt the same voices now complaining about the ARINS project will be the first in line to complain if a United Ireland were to come about without adequate preparation and research. The thing about some academics is that they always try to have it both ways and are always correct no matter how often their pet theories are debunked by reality.

What will professors Coulter and Shirlow have to say if the 2025 ARINS survey shows a further drift in public sentiment towards a united Ireland?

To which Professor Coulter replied:

Always good to see that old Kissinger cliché getting an airing, Frank. At least you managed to resist mentioning angels dancing on the head of a pin...

There are a series of really quite critical issues with the ARINS survey. And it is entirely proper that these are aired in public. It isn't propaganda - and best that you avoid any further such insinuations - it is simply critical public commentary. I notice that you show no such concern in relation to the evidence-free attacks on the Liverpool survey series that appear on here with curious regularity.

As for your description of Slugger readers as `an unsuspecting audience' that is really quite condescending. There is no shortage of people on here well capable of dealing with quantitative data. I might add that you didn't seem to be quite as concerned as to whether your audience was `unsuspecting' when you were repeating every musing of the ARINS team as though it were the gospel.

Then there are your various comments on the protocols and sanctity of academic publishing. You clearly know a great deal about many things, Frank, but the process of academic peer review isn't one of them. It should also be said that you don't seem to be overly concerned about the ARINS team publishing in non-academic settings. Or perhaps you feel that the readers of the Irish Times are rather less `unsuspecting'?

There is, finally, your enquiry about what I might say should the next ARINS survey show `a further drift in public sentiment towards a united Ireland.' Assuming the poll is conducted properly, I would say there has been a drift in public sentiment towards a united Ireland. But I won't be using the word `further'. The first two ARINS surveys are so poor that you could not base any trend on them. So, if there is an adequate baseline, it is the 2024 edition. That means there can be drift but not further drift.

And what will you have to say, Frank, when the series flatlines in twelve months' time?

Note the man playing here (Method #1) in the `blog policeman's lot... typology above:

I am imputed to be a pedaller of clichés, an insinuator of wrongful motives, of lacking in any balance by failing to defend the Liverpool series surveys from an apparent Slugger conspiracy to subject them to `evidence-free attacks', of knowing nothing of the academic peer review process, of being condescending towards the Slugger readership, and lacking any independent critical faculty by doing no more than repeating `every musing of the ARINS team as though it were the gospel'.

Rather than addressing the comprehensive rebuttal to his claims in the ARINS's OP, Professor Coulter had obviously decided it would be easier to attack a commenter who is (1) not a professor, and thus obviously not as expert as him in the peer review process - but without stating where my ignorance lay, (See Method #4 above: Appeal to authority), who had (2) failed to defend the Liverpool surveys (See Method #2 above: deflection) Liverpool of survey methodologies had not been criticised in the OP or comment thread) and (3), had written an OP on the ARINS survey results without criticising their methodology (See method 3: distraction) - my previous OP had been exhaustively discusses in 638 comments and was not at issue in the current discussion of the ARINS OP. And finally, there is method #7 the Straw Man. No one is saying that the substantive findings of the ARINS or Liverpool surveys shouldn't be published in the Irish Times or discussed on Slugger. It is the arcane details of the methodological dispute between professors Shirlow and Coulter and the ARINS team that I suggested would be better addressed by direct discussions between the two teams, and failing that, in a reputable academic journal. Spats between academics are two a penny and generally not of wider public interest. But apparently it is condescending for me to suggest most people have other priorities.

I responded to Professor Coulter's comment as follows:

Firstly, you may or may not be aware that I have no association with the ARINS project whatsoever and have never so much as met or corresponded with the authors.

Secondly, far from "repeating every musing of the ARINS team" I found the many Irish times articles authored by the ARINS team and political correspondent Pat Leahy to be repetitive, excessively wordy, and beyond the scope of what most readers general, non-academic, or non-specialist, readers would want to wade through. At the request of a Slugger editor, I prepared what I considered to be a more readable summary based on what I felt were the most interesting findings and writing my own commentary on them taking the survey findings at face value. If my commentary echoes some of the points made by the ARINS team, it is because we are commenting on the same figures, not because I didn't come to those conclusions independently. Not having access to the detailed sampling, stratification, and weighting design decisions made by the ARINS team, I made no comment on their methodology whatsoever, limiting my discussion to their substantive findings.

Thirdly, when it comes to the credibility of polling companies like IPSOS and their sponsors, it is my understanding that they are in full compliance with the UK polling industry standards for transparency and accountability. I have on several occasions read in various publications that this is not the case for the Liverpool surveys. Perhaps you or Professor Shirlow could clarify whether this is the case. On the principle that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" I am curious as to whether the Liverpool surveys would survive critical analysis. That said, I have criticized neither the ARINS nor the Liverpool surveys on methodological grounds as I was not party to the discussions which led to their design and therefore cannot judge the reasonableness of their design decisions.

Fourthly, as regards your comment "I notice that you show no such concern in relation to the evidence-free attacks on the Liverpool survey series that appear on here with curious regularity" you will note I have made no comment on the methodological decisions made by the Liverpool team whatsoever, for the very same reasons I didn't comment on the ARINS methodology. Not being a Slugger editor, I regret I cannot take responsibility for what other commenters here might say.

Fifthly, I have for many years written about US Presidential elections, largely because they can be so consequential for all of us living on this planet. Not living in the USA and not being a US citizen, I have relied heavily on US polling aggregators who aggregate thousands of polls, for evidence as to how voter preferences and behaviours might be shifting there. On several occasions I have been badly stung by the entire US polling industry being several percentage points wrong in their prognostications as to how those elections would turn out. If that can happen to polling trendlines based on hundreds and sometimes thousands of polls, it can surely happen with one or a small series of polls. So, I am more sceptical of polling than most.

I am also sceptical of the influence opinion polls will have on any SOS considering holding a border poll. I am on record here as stating that the SOS will only call a border poll when he considers it to be in the interest of the UK government to hold one, opinion polling in NI be damned. So, I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but I am not waiting with bated breath for the results of any new poll, be in from ARINS or Liverpool, or any joint poll you guys might agree to hold in the future, to save us all from these academic spats, which I frankly find boring and not of wider general interest. Arguing about methodologies which produce differences of less than 1% in surveys with a declared margin of error of +- 3% strikes me as the height of futility. Did someone mention angels dancing on the head of a pin?

In the meantime, perhaps you would direct your ire to responding to the very cogent points made by the ARINS team in the OP above? In is not by job to defend their survey design decisions.

To which Professor Coulter responded as follows:

You mention in your response, Frank, that you have no `association' with the ARINS, nor have you met or contacted them. There was no suggestion in my comments that you had. But that's not really the issue here. The issue, rather, is that you are clearly well disposed towards a survey that is methodologically flawed and which is producing results that are way out of line with other contemporary surveys. And well beyond the margin of error.

You mention also that experience has taught you to be `more sceptical of polling than most'. That's a reasonable position to take. But you seem to abandon it when it comes to the ARINS survey. In the comments under your original summary of their latest poll, you append a letter to the editors of several newspapers across the island of Ireland. In that, you comment that the rate of change documented in the ARINS survey suggests `a majority for a United Ireland could emerge within the next five years.' You go on to speculate that `events and evidence' might make a SoS `obliged to call a border poll within the lifetime of the current Government.'

Those comments illustrate as well as any the political perils associated with the ARINS survey. Headlines about rates of change being found in no other contemporary survey are encouraging commentary that just does not reflect the contemporary political realities of NI. It is hard to see what good will come from that.

You might find the ARINS response `very cogent' but there are others who don't. I will be happy to share my critique of their reply - I'll leave the ire to you, it's more your medium - given the opportunity. Hopefully, that won't take long...

Having accepted my point that I have no association with the ARINS team he now claims my alleged uncritical acceptance of the musings of the ARINS team is just down to bias and ire on my part, followed by yet another assertion that the methodological errors of the ARINS team distorted their results well beyond the margin of error. We are still awaiting his promised critique of their reply, but I am intrigued by what he refers to as "the political perils associated with the ARINS survey". Apparently, the Professor is concerned that the Secretary of State might call a border poll based on their "flawed" results. I very much doubt that the results of any opinion poll will be pivotal in any Secretary of State's decision, but why is Professor Coulter so concerned that a border poll might be called, and soundly defeated, if his assertions are correct?

I responded as follows:

1. Well you certainly suggested that I was "repeating every musing of the ARINS team as though it were the gospel" which to me suggests an allegation that I was in some way acting in cahoots with them and not an independent commentator writing a summary of their key findings at the request of a Slugger editor.

2. Being accused of peddling clichés, condescension, not understanding the peer review process, and showing a lack of impartiality by failing to defend the Liverpool surveys from criticism when I never commented on the Liverpool methodology one way or another can reasonably be construed as an ad hominem attack on my integrity, in breach of the Slugger moderation rules, and an indication of ire on your part.

3. When it comes to the credibility of polling companies like IPSOS and their sponsors, it is my understanding that they are in full compliance with the UK polling industry standards for transparency and accountability. I have on several occasions read in various publications that this is not the case for the Liverpool surveys. Perhaps you or Professor Shirlow could clarify whether this is the case. On the principle that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" I am curious as to whether the Liverpool surveys would survive critical analysis. That said, I have criticized neither the ARINS nor the Liverpool surveys on methodological grounds as I was not party to the discussions which led to their design and therefore cannot judge the reasonableness of their design decisions.

4. I look forward to you producing your critique of the ARINS response, but really, as stated before, I would much prefer if academics could settle their methodological disputes and come to an agreement on how to conduct polling going forward. Comments such as Peter Shirlow's above,  "Regarding the public commentary point and to clarify. I was on the View and said the 9% shift was in a survey of 1k 90 [sic] people and therefore we should be mindful of that" are not helpful as they might lead an unwary listener to conclude that only 90 people changed their minds, and not 9% of a representative sample of the NI population as a whole with a pretty standard +- 3% margin of error.. This is where academic grandstanding could turn into blatant misinformation and propaganda.

5. I am glad that you referenced my Letter to the Editor out of all the 638 comments on my blogpost. (I pride myself on promoting discussion with my posts). For brevity and context, I reproduce all except the opening paragraph below. From it, it should be clear that my concern is less about survey methodologies (however dear to your heart) and more that Ireland, north and south, could be sleep walking into a situation where a SOS, for whatever reasons best known to him/herself, might call a Border Poll without adequate planning and preparation and we all could have a Brexit+ disaster on our hands. Surely it is the job of responsible academics to do some advance thinking about how such a scenario could be prevented from descending into huge public anger, confusion, and even violence?
   

For the past three years it [ARINS} has organised in depth surveys conducted by IPSOS into attitudes to Irish Re-unification throughout Ireland, both north and south. These surveys find that the gap between the pro-Union and the pro-Irish re-unification sides in Northern Ireland has declined from 23% to 14% in just three years.

At that rate of change a majority for a United Ireland could emerge within the next five years.

If I were a unionist I would be concerned at the trend and anxious to correct any factors that might be re-enforcing that trend. To me that means reaching out to non-unionists and trying to correct whatever is driving their disillusion with the status quo.

However, I see no evidence that the DUP, UUP, and TUV are currently trying to do so. Instead, they appear to be doubling down on anti-Irish language, anti-Casement Park, and anti-EU policies.

Neither do the difficult economic circumstances of the UK and the resulting austerity, including the decline of the NHS in Northern Ireland, look like improving any time soon. Even with Irish government support through the Shared Island Initiative, Northern Ireland's infrastructure is crumbling as we speak.

An Tánaiste has declared that the priority of the current government is to improve the workings of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, but what if they are overtaken by events and evidence emergences that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland may be obliged to call a border poll within the lifetime of the current Government?

The ARINS surveys show that what unites Ireland, north and south, is a concern that clear and comprehensive plans are developed for the re-unification process, and what a new united Ireland would ultimately look like. 65% in the south and 60% in the north agree on this, including 38% of Protestants in the north.

So, is it not now incumbent on the Irish government to begin consultations for such a plan and liaising with the British government on aspects which effect their civil servants, citizens, and residents in Northern Ireland?

Nothing could be worse than the Brexit referendum in the UK, where voters didn't know precisely what they were voting for or against

Professor Shirlow then joined the debate:

Frank why do you not apply some balance. Why do you not list what Colin has said and show how it is incorrect. That would be the academic way. Challenge and critique. If you think no survey is beyond critique that is plain foolish. So, what ae the criticisms made by Colin that are invalid? A very simple question.

Followed an hour later by:

I am still waiting for you to explain what you believe to be inaccurate concerning Colin's comments. I think it is important to have robust criticism before challenging a person's integrity

And shortly afterwards by:

I have spoken to people twice involved in ARINS. I have never been involved in longitudinal surveys that changed methods mid-stream. I see no evidence of you disproving Colin's comments. Public intellectualism is critical and when done without partisanship aids much in societal healing. Colin is organising at NUIM a Palestine cultural week. I am doing work with victims of the Troubles next few days. Everybody has their public differences but you suggest we hide away? How strange. I dispute uoi [sic] have responded with much detail at all. Either projects are done robustly or not. The key is proper design, risk awareness and testing. Push polling is a disgrace.

And then again:

Are you suggesting i am an academic who does not conduct impartial research? Careful now! How have I carried on on public? Please explain. [my emphasis)

We were, by then, well down a Gish Gallop (Method #5) of irrelevant issues all seeking to distract from the fact that not one of Professors Coulter or Shirlow comments had by that point been addressed directly at the rebuttal contained in the ARINS OP. Instead, we have had a mishmash of personal aspersions, deflections, distractions, and veiled threats all directed at a commenter who had dared to comment favourably on the fact that the ARINS team were putting pressure on the Irish government to prepare properly for the possibility of a border poll if a great deal of voter confusion, societal turmoil and even violence were to be avoided in the event of a border poll being called.

I responded as follows:

1. This is a thread on the ARINS response to Professor Coulter's criticisms, which they said he had not discussed with them beforehand, either as a professional courtesy or to clarify any misunderstandings which may have arisen.

2. If I wished to comment on Professor Coulter's criticisms, I would have done so on the threads below his two OPs. I did not do so because I believe the ARINS team are better placed to comment on their own design decisions. NB The ARINS team have not, to my knowledge, publicly criticized the Liverpool survey methodologies, and neither have I.

3. Personally I would be amazed if longitudinal surveys didn't adjust their methodologies as new census, electoral, or other relevant data became available to improve the quality of their sampling, stratification, and weighting on an ongoing basis. After all, potential voters are coming of age, dying, and migrating all the time. The target population to be sampled is never constant.

4. Any work you do to promote "societal healing" is much to be commended (as is Professor Coulter's work for Palestinian culture) but I'm not sure what that has got to do with engaging in rancorous disputes with other academics on methodological matters. Perhaps it's time to engage in some `peace and reconciliation' work with the ARINS team and perhaps produce and conduct a joint survey design?

5. I am suggesting that public confidence in survey work as a valid sociological tool to influence public debate would be enhanced if the relevant professional pollsters and academics got together beforehand to agree the best possible designs and methodologies. I am not sure how rival academics lambasting each other's work in public promotes such confidence or the reputation of those carrying out the work. Perhaps your next surveys should include a question on whether the respondents have much confidence in the accuracy of the findings of different pollsters! You may need to prepare for some disappointment...

The conversation became somewhat more civil after that, and actually began to discuss some design decisions taken by the ARINS team. Those interested in those issues can go to the original comment thread, as this OP is already far longer than I would like it to be. I was extremely disappointed the Slugger Moderators decided to shut down the conversation after just 87 comments, but they clearly felt the conversation had become too toxic to be allowed to continue.

For me, the conversation was more an example of the methods that are often used to personalise, deflect, distract, discourage, deter, confuse, and ultimately derail discussion of relevant public issues. The casual observer who reads only the headlines or half listens to the radio or TV might gain the impression the ARINS surveys are deeply suspect and the ARINS team mere political activists rather than serious academic researchers. That is when academic grandstanding can shade into misinformation and propaganda.

We are normally far better than that at Slugger. Let's hope this year's surveys, regardless of their findings, are discussed in a calmer and more civil manner in due course.