> Argumentation > Moves and Tactics > arghXiv:2604.05880
Expressions of Disbelief as Terminal Moves
Abstract: A turn whose entire content is an expression of disbelief carries no proposition, cites nothing, and cannot be answered on its terms; it can only be met by restating what has already been said. We coded 3,318 such turns across 47 channels. They account for 4.1 per cent of all turns and for 19 per cent of turns immediately following the provision of a source. The turn that follows one is, in 81 per cent of cases, a restatement of the immediately preceding claim by the participant who made it, at a mean of 1.4 times its original length. Exchanges containing at least one such turn are longer than those containing none by a median of 94 messages. We do not treat the move as insincere. A participant who does not believe something has said so, which is the whole of what the turn contains, and nothing in the medium requires it to contain more. These turns are coded risus pro argumento by arghXiv:2512.11487, and the restatement they draw is an idem clamosius. We adopt both terms.