Okay Trevyn, we had a very extensive discussion, and any common ground we met on was unstable ground anyway. You had me on the ropes when you went away the first time, but then you come back you should have quit while you were ahead...because you were actually ahead. I'm not saying you're behind now, but the claim you made seemed pretty baseless to me.

"Items decide the outcome of the match".

You could be right or wrong, depending on how you put this into context. I don’t know how good you are with your writing and argument skills, but in a college English class you are taught how to clearly state your point of view in a properly structured thesis and provide adequate and convincing proof to back your claims up. I guess pretend you are writing a formal persuasive essay or defending a claim in court.

I'm perfectly willing to tell you that you're right, IF you are in fact correct in the specific claim you want to make. What I want you to do is not to spend like 5 minutes typing out some jumbled argument with misspellings and slaughtered grammar like we do in AIM chat or here in the site. I want you to take your time and write out exactly what your point is and why you see it that way, and back this up with hard evidence. When you are finished with your persuasive essay, copy and paste it here as a post. 

For example, instead of giving me something like this:
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"Items take less skill"
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you could give me something more specific like this:
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"I claim that on average, playing with items ON in a given set of matches will result in a higher percentage of "cheap" or easily-earned kills that would have required much more effort to achieve without items, versus the same test repeated, only with items OFF."
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If this, in fact, was your claim, I would have no choice but to consent that YOU ARE RIGHT. Here's why: For example, we conduct a set of 100 matches played with items, followed by a repetition of the same set; same players, same stage, same characters, same controllers, etc, only with items off. We all know that there WILL be cheap kills at some point or another, and, in a 100-match set, there will be plenty of incidences to skew the overall average of "skillful kills" earned in the items-ON matches to be less than that of the items-OFF matches. Even one incident would be enough to influence the data and cause the items-ON average to be lower than the items-OFF average. Therefore you win! See how it's done? I would have absolutely no excuse but to agree with you. Obvious facts. Done.

This is how I want us to conduct our arguments from now on. Obviously, the way we have been doing it all along, we aren't getting anywhere fast, and there are too many grey areas. This way, we will end up specifying the exact claim we want to make and supplementing it perfectly with facts and/or data to back it up. Stuff that can be PROVEN. Remember, draft your argument in notepad first or something, and then paste it here as a post once you are done revising. Make sure to state your thesis clearly first so we know exactly what your claim is, then back it up with either obvious facts or statements that can easily be proven and cannot be refuted in any way. Try to avoid opinion or general statements. Be as precise as possible. Refer to the example above again where I expanded the claim "Items take less skill" into an entire paragraph.

Here's another example:

If you want to tell us that you think items will always decide the outcome of a match between two equally skilled players, you might want say something like this:
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"Items will always decide the outcome of a match"
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...but not for this argument. This statement should be properly expanded to something like this to be more specific:
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"I claim that in a match between two equally skilled human players, whichever player happens to be more positively favored by the randomness of item appearances will be the victor in every circumstance."
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This claim is easily identified as false. Just because a capsule appears for you right after you knock your opponent from the ring, doesn’t mean the attacking player will throw it at the defending one. If he did, it doesn't mean that it will hit unavoidably, he could miss...remember these are human players, we make mistakes. The defending player could also nullify the capsule with his up+B recovery move. I could go on, but these examples alone are enough to refute the key point of the above argument: that items will ALWAYS give victory to the player who is favored most by their appearance.

You could, however change your claim:
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"Items CAN decide the outcome of a match"
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...which can be expanded to:
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"I claim that in a match between two equally skilled human players, a favorable random appearance of an item to any given player has the potential to alter the outcome of the match regardless of the current trend."
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This is obviously true. In this claim you aren't claiming that it happens all the time as a rule of thumb or a law or even a dominant condition. You are merely stating that an item has the ability to change the course of a match. This claim cannot be refuted. It is correct.

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If you feel that items are completely and 100% unfair 100% of the time, you can might want to say this:
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"Items are unfair"
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...expand this to:
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"I claim that items are completely unfair under any circumstance due to their random appearance and the unavoidable advantage they give to the player they favor."
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False. The only way that items could be proven 100% unfair 100% of the time is if the instant one player grabbed any item, it ended the match in their favor.

Now you could of course make a more modest and realistic claim like:

"Items OFF is more fair than items ON"

and expand that claim to:

"I claim that in a match of equally skilled players, that the player that is favored most by the random appearance of any given item, on average, receives a greater overall percentage chance of winning a match because of the item alone."

This is a tough call, but this more modest and down to earth claim is in fact correct ONLY because of the factors that come into play when an item is thrown or comboed unavoidably against the other player. Between two players of equal skill, an item would not make much difference if they were both on level footing. However, once one of them gets thrown off the edge or otherwise off guard, they can be stricken unavoidably by an item strike or throw. If the character is mobile, they may be able to influence the success of the attack to some degree, but if they are immobile or helpless at the time of the item strike and are unable to avoid, then this is where the factor of unfair advantage comes into play. This influence, measured over the course of a 100-match set with items ON would be enough to skew the average percentage of 'helpless kills' higher than that of the same match set with items OFF. The above facts would seem enough to make this claim correct, but then comes the factor of countering and itemset selection. If Sheik gets Fox off the edge and chucks a home run bat, Sheik might be caught off guard by a quickly reflected bat and in fact have her so-called advantage turned completely against her with double strength. If home run bats were turned off though, Sheik would be throwing a different item, likely a Star Rod, unless that was turned off as well. The Star Rod, Paper Fan, or Lip's Stick, all items which Fox and Falco cannot reflect, would kill them nonetheless unless they managed to avoid it altogether. This is yet another push for the 'unfair' argument. There then comes into play the fact that most characters do not have a countering or reflecting move, but nonetheless a savvy player may choose a character that DOES so he can compete against this threat. The selection of allowed items and their frequency also plays a major role as well as the attacking character's current held item and intentions with that item, not to mention their readiness to react to a counter-enabled character. The current position of the character suspended in air at the time of the item launch as well as their position and mobility when the item is scheduled to strike are also important. I could go on and on and on listing factors that both favor and refute the 'unfair' argument, but in the end I believe that the 'unfair' argument wins out by a small margin, but wins nonetheless. The statement is correct, items OFF is to a certain degree more fair than items ON. 

...and then again, this is only MY conclusion. John or Steve or even SuperDoodleMan may research the same topic and bring to light factors that we both failed to account for. Thus, the purpose of formal debate.

AAAAAAAAAANYWAYYYYYYYYYYYYY............

If you aren't that good at writing persuasively or creating formal composition, try and get someone to help you or something. I know some people struggle with that, and I do myself to some extent as well. This is the only way both pro-item and anti-item camps are going to get anywhere and be able to understand each other, as well as conceding defeat to each other when necessary. If we were businesses or any kind of professional or legal entities, this would be the only way to settle a dispute...and no I'm not going to take you to court over items, lol.

John, Steve, everyone else, you listen up too. Trevyn is going to write up his claims as formal proposals, and we need to address them as such. We need to give exact definitions and specifications of why we claim something is true or false. Get ready kids, 16th grade-level reading ahead!

...and that is all!

-Stealth