"Avoid attacking points that your opponent never made" is just the absence of strawmanning, it's not steelmanning.
Those two sentences seem contradictory. What definition of steelmanning requires ever ignoring weak points that have been made by one’s opponent?
If someone says something vaguely racist while arguing against, say, multi-family housing, the best possible form of their argument would probably involve dropping that -- even if it's actually a significant motivation.
If a point is so significant, then the result of dropping it would no longer be “their argument.” Doing so would not qualify as steelmanning by any definition I’m aware of—it would be a different argument altogether.
To steelman is effectively to practice the principle of charity, by not assuming irrationality when a plausible rational view exists that fits the same arguments. But if one’s opponent has made an irrational argument, no assumption is necessary!
> I think this may depend on what definition you're using
What definition do you use? It doesn’t match how I’ve ever seen the term used.
I think that's debatable. People do shift which points they bring up and how they frame things while still feeling that their essential argument is unchanged.
> What definition do you use? It doesn’t match how I’ve ever seen the term used.
That's probably the rub here: the idea of "best possible form of the argument" leaves a fair amount of room for interpretation. I don't have some single authoritative source for my conception of steelmanning, I've just seen people use the term and I've read it explained in various places a few times.
In my defense, here's a source that agrees with my conception: https://debate.fandom.com/wiki/Steelmanning
> Steelmanning involves arguing against the strongest possible version of the other side's argument, whether they made it or not.
And here's a definition that's rather ambiguous: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/steelmanning
> Steelmanning is the act of taking a view, or opinion, or argument and constructing the strongest possible version of it. It is the opposite of strawmanning.
> > Steelmanning involves arguing against the strongest possible version of the other side's argument, whether they made it or not.
How bizarre! I would agree that by that definition, “steelmanning” is much less attractive—not something I would never do, but certainly not a practice I would attempt to follow by default.
Steelmanning would be agreeing with my conclusion while disputing the incorrect salmon point via pointing out that it’s entirely irrelevant to the correctness of my overall argument, even though I directly said the incorrect thing.