It all depends on your intention. Are you worried that the person might seriously damage himself or his dependents? Or do you just want to prove that you are smarter? The first is helpful; the second just annoying.
Although I fail at this, I try to stay out of p*ssing contests unless money is involved. As in, if I win, I get paid.
I can tell if someone knows something that I am interested in knowing by a careful reading of what he/she writes. Most of what we talk about is just passing time. Absolutely noble goal, but not worth arguing over.
Ha
Overall, my intention is to learn something. I value knowledge, often more than money. Call it my 'pay'. But that should not be one-sided, in fact it works better when it is an exchange, so if I can share knowledge in some cases I try to do that too. If my knowledge is challenged, and I am shown that I was misinformed, I learned something - I win either way!
So is it 'arguing', or 'exchanging ideas and information'? I think the diff is whether someone is willing to change their view when presented with new information. No willingness to change just leads to pointless arguing. A willingness to change, and an honest evaluation of information is an opportunity to learn.
To the point in my other post, I see 'arguing' as discourteous, and 'exchanging ideas and information' to be one of the purposes of this forum.
Maybe this is easier with a specific example: In that Gore/Nobel thread, when I point out what I see as inconsistencies between the IPCC and Gore's statements, it is not my intent to show how 'smart' I am. I have two purposes, one is to open up people's eyes to this posibility, the second is to put my thoughts out there to have them challenged. The report is complex, Gore does some dramatizing (which might be justified to a degree to reach a larger audience) - is it really the distortion I think it is, or did I miss something? I'll change my view if presented with reasonable information.
But I still don't like liver. That's my opinion, and I'm stickin' to it. Don't care what anyone says.
-ERD50