For those that don’t know, steelmanning is the opposite of strawmanning.
It means re-stating your opponent’s view in a manner that they agree “yes, that is my view” and only then you express why you disagree with it.
Failure to do so means one of two things: either you don’t actually understand the stance you claim to oppose or you’re not even in the business of finding truth and changing minds to begin with.
Not sure if this is actually unpopular, but it didn’t feel like a showerthought either.
It’s not a matter of conflict, it’s just not what the word means. The point of steelmanning is not to make sure you’re talking about the same thing, it’s to argue against the strongest version of the argument. Technically they don’t even have to sign off on it, it’s possible that they might not actually support the steelman version of their argument.
Yes, making sure you’re talking about the same thing and not talking past each other is important in a debate, but that’s not what steelmanning is.