It is easier to treat steelmanning as a hazy middle ground and pick examples that clearly are or clearly aren't.
Eg, the strongest pro-ivermectin argument was "There is all this evidence that lots of people who take ivermectin have much better outcomes after COVID. We should let people take ivermectin". Scott Alexander was literally the first person I saw to acknowledge the evidence before arguing against taking ivermectin to treat COVID. Which is quite an impressive first since I'd seen a lot of weirdly authoritarian people trying and failing to argue effectively against the drug up until then. Those people had failed to steelman the pro-ivermectin position.
Eg, the strongest pro-ivermectin argument was "There is all this evidence that lots of people who take ivermectin have much better outcomes after COVID. We should let people take ivermectin". Scott Alexander was literally the first person I saw to acknowledge the evidence before arguing against taking ivermectin to treat COVID. Which is quite an impressive first since I'd seen a lot of weirdly authoritarian people trying and failing to argue effectively against the drug up until then. Those people had failed to steelman the pro-ivermectin position.