Nobody was arguing by definition. This doesn't apply to anything I have done either.
Reread this.
Your claim: (paraphrased)
A binary classification of people into "good" and "evil" is possible. I define certain actions as "evil", and classify people who perform those actions as "evil". Snape performs those actions, therefore, he is evil.
I seem to have missed this part, though:
That doesn't mean he must be on the enemy team, he could well be a bad guy that plays for the same side Harry does and otherwise does some positive things.
Which is more or less exactly what I'd anticipate, meaning that this whole debate is over semantics.
I'm just going to claim the Godwin's violation and leave it alone.
Looking at TVTropes, I find that Godwin's Law is defined more broadly than I'd thought it was. OK, you win.
Huh? So what on earth was this whole discussion about?
Something about badness, child abuse and Snape still being a @#$% no matter who he is secretly working for.
Why would you accuse me of a one-color view for accusing the OP of a two-color view?
Because The Fallacy of the Gray is an awesome point, applies to your accusation of Elmer and said accusation should be rejected as an inappropriate reply to what Elmer said. While having a surface appearance of sophistication your criticisms there and in the subsequent replies are based on incorrect applicat...
(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. There haven't been any chapters recently, but it looks like there are a bunch in the pipeline and the old thread is nearing 700 comments. The latest chapter as of 7th March 2012 is Ch. 77.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: