One on One debate sign up sheet

[Core Imposter]

Yawn. I am used to going "one against the liberal horde". I'd find participating in this a bit like stealing candy from a baby unless I was limited to say, only, typing with my wife's big toe. In the dark. Uphill. Both ways.

 

[peter grimes]

Yawn. I am used to going "one against the liberal horde". I'd find participating in this a bit like stealing candy from a baby unless I was limited to say, only, typing with my wife's big toe. In the dark. Uphill. Both ways.

Welcome back, Mister Poe.

Or should I say, Miss' Toe? *snicker*

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yawn. I am used to going "one against the liberal horde". I'd find participating in this a bit like stealing candy from a baby unless I was limited to say, only, typing with my wife's big toe. In the dark. Uphill. Both ways.

Very constructive.

 

[Cutlass]

Yawn. I am used to going "one against the liberal horde". I'd find participating in this a bit like stealing candy from a baby unless I was limited to say, only, typing with my wife's big toe. In the dark. Uphill. Both ways.

So there's no part of you that's an American, is there?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, exactly, I had hoped for something different and more substantial here.

It will be substantial, I promise!
But it is a formal debate, not a typical thread.
And if it doesn't work out, do things differently.

 

[Earthling]

I really like the proposed rules, know there's a few threads for overall discussion of this but since that's the primary input I have this is the place to convey it. There could be minor quibbles over the length and system or points/rebuttals but the rest seem very good. In particular, I am also strongly in favor of the no quotes and no outside links or sources rules.

I think this will encourage goodwill efforts by participants and is a good barrier to the sort of topics that would completely fail for the one-on-one debate format. I can't imagine this format really succeeding in rehashing things like abortion, global warming, creationism where defending certain positions against facts and sources basically comes down to responding "No, you lie, these are the real facts!" Even worse if, say, a non-creationist was assigned to "switch sides" and vice versa, I'm not really sure about always encouraging that practice in the first place. Outside of the hot-button, most avoidable topics, I think this ruleset would still help if people must have debate on a lot of other contemporary political issues (which I personally admit I still am generally less interested in seeing here) because it's extremely easy to find "sources" that look legitimate on the surface and support any interpretation. I agree that would invariably lead to the debate becoming constant complaining about the validity of sources and facts in the first place.

If anything, I'm much more enthusiastic about encouraging a lot of fun, interesting debates on more trivial topics where people can show rhetoric skills without worrying about level of expertise. Just a few hours of research and a commitment to the debate should be the prerequisites if we want this format to actively succeed. The designated hitter rule and similar ideas are great, imo, and for those topics it can work to assign people to either side rather than the side they favor. We could even have, say, Europeans with very little familiarity with the sport in the first place step up for that, and have reciprocal topics proposed for Americans who are not familiar with different controversies in sports or entertainment.

I'm hoping the first debate works for everyone. I like the topic too, although I think it might have been a bit better off debating, ceteris paribus, something like manned space programs versus other avenues of space exploration, but don't want to step on toes on the issue. I am certain the two posters will have a good debate and set a good standard no matter how spectator sentiment works out.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@ peter and earthling,
Glad you guys approve of the rules!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Although I don't plan on participating anytime soon, I would just opine that sourcing facts would be different than sourcing arguments, and you guys could agree ahead of time on source material, e.g., only nationally recognized newspapers or peer-reviewed journals or government documents or something. I would not really appreciate arguing against someone who, for instance, makes something up or gets a fact completely wrong for which I would have no way of refuting the argument.

Sourcing facts is a good idea. I know it's been requested/assumed that all participants will follow the honor system and not make facts up from the ether. But if there aren't any restrictions/penalties for doing so, the temptation will always be there.

Honestly, if I wanted to watch a debate where people make up stuff, I'd watch the Canadian Parliamentary channel, or read the vegans' posts on Care2. I think CFC posters should be able to hold ourselves to a higher standard than mere politicians and vegangelicals.

It's about rhetoric and skill, not facts.

Whut? So if I were to engage in debate and took the affirmative that Earth is flat and I out-dazzled my opponent in rhetoric and skill, I'd win even though the "facts" I'd used were pure hokum?

Let the peanut gallery post articles in their thread that support or refute points. Let them argue about them. And then, at the end of that, they can use what they read from the debaters and the sources/facts/arguments that they talked about in their thread to make a judgement on who was the best debater.

Assuming the debaters can read the peanut gallery posts, this is basically asking the peanut gallery to do the debaters' work for them. Let the debaters do their own fact-finding and present them.

I know this all sounds counterintuitive on an online forum, but real debates don't usually have props and what not. I ran for office and had to debate and they weren't allowed there, nor are they in the ones I've seen on TV.

You're right; props are not allowed. However, including a sourced fact in your speech is not a prop; it's part of your speech (written instead of oral in this case).

Just because a poster says an obvious falsehood, you don't have to refute them. Let their silliness stand on it's own and make your own brilliant arguments. That's how real debates work.

It's not a 'nuh uh, you're wrong'. 'well your source is dumb', 'but your source actually says this' debate. We have those all over CFC to begin with.

One of the purposes of a debate is to sway people who were not on your side to support you. If your opponent makes a false statement and somebody in the "audience" doesn't know it's a false fact, that won't help you sway that individual to your side. You need to let people know what the correct facts are. As for "wasting a post" - just include it in the post(s) you're making anyway. There are concise ways to do this.

Pretty pictures that illustrate nothing and are just eye candy is one thing that could be banned, but if it's about stuff like your topic, sources for certain claims are unavoidable. What else would stop the anti space exploration side to claim it'll cost 400 bn dollars and the pro side say it's 40 bn? Am I then to research who's right, or is that the moderator's job? It's easiest and fairest when if you make a claim, you have to support it.

By "moderator" I assume you mean the debate chairperson, and not a CFC/OT moderator? Either way, research isn't that person's job. The chairperson enforces the rules and takes no part whatsoever in the actual debate. The chair must be strictly neutral.

 

[Leoreth]

By "moderator" I assume you mean the debate chairperson, and not a CFC/OT moderator? Either way, research isn't that person's job. The chairperson enforces the rules and takes no part whatsoever in the actual debate. The chair must be strictly neutral.

Yeah, I meant the chairperson, and these were rhetorical questions intended to show that it doesn't make sense to expect anyone else but the debater to verify his claims.

 

[JollyRoger]

Yawn. I am used to going "one against the liberal horde". I'd find participating in this a bit like stealing candy from a baby unless I was limited to say, only, typing with my wife's big toe. In the dark. Uphill. Both ways.

The assumption was that you were doing that already.

 

[metatron]

I'd be generally interested in debating.
I'd be ok with the rules outlined by hobbsyoyo in post #48. I feel that 2 or 3 rebuttals per claim would do too, but i suppose it doesn't make much of a difference.

I'm not that excited about the proposed topics though, since arguments on 2) and 3) can be largely based on one firm position regarding 1) or the other. Essentially these are three chances to debate economic theory/conviction.
Yes, sure, there are plenty of other arguements, but none the less: Why the lack of social hot-button issues so far?

I'd like to add an EU-focused topic,

Generally i'd be much more interested into debating something that is either universally applicable (at least in the "western world") or particular to the US.
Simply for reasons of EUomgboredompleasekillme.
On that note, if you have people debating an EU subject please let non-Europeans do it. That will be a lot more interesting to read.
If you let innonimatu and Winner do it, i might not even consider it worth the effort to click at the thread. They're both excellent posters, but, well, we (continental Europeans) have heard it all before in real life (or in national media).

 

[downtown]

So I haven't read the past few pages of back and forth, since this was the sign up thread and all. We had another thread for rules discussions. Please use this thread to sign up for topics.

The space debate thread has been approved and will open either Friday or Saturday, per the wishes of the participants. I will get the other threads approved as soon as we have participants.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Sourcing facts is a good idea. I know it's been requested/assumed that all participants will follow the honor system and not make facts up from the ether. But if there aren't any restrictions/penalties for doing so, the temptation will always be there.

A few questions -
1) Do you plan on debating the kind of posters who make things up?
2) Do you plan on reading any debate that has those kinds of posters in it?
3) Do you think someone will go to the trouble downtown has gone to moderate such a thread?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then why do you care?

Also, you can still debate under whatever rules you want.

I'm not so much defending the notion that sources should always be disallowed. Rather, I'm trying to drive the point home over why we chose this format. You don't seem to have given any merit or even thought to what I've posted on the matter, instead, you keep jumping back to 'they're going to post the sky is green and win!'; which honestly, misses all of the important points I've made.

Whut? So if I were to engage in debate and took the affirmative that Earth is flat and I out-dazzled my opponent in rhetoric and skill, I'd win even though the "facts" I'd used were pure hokum?

No, you would probably lose. Dressing up obvious falsehood in pretty rhetoric is not good debating. It isn't even really rhetoric, it's just lying. Do you think the people who call the debate (the Peanut Gallery) is going to vote for the guy who says the Earth is flat just because he writes good? I don't.

I don't literally mean that debates aren't about facts. They are, I'm simply stating that on a forum where you can pull up any article on google to support any claim, the facts themselves are always in doubt. And again, this is a formal debate, not a typical CFC thread where you are free to do pull in any silly source you want. That's one big problem with sources you miss - you can post a misleading source just as easily as you can post an obvious lie. The ruleset as-is sidesteps that whole issue.

Assuming the debaters can read the peanut gallery posts, this is basically asking the peanut gallery to do the debaters' work for them. Let the debaters do their own fact-finding and present them.

(bolded emphasis mine)No it isn't. Do you not see that if a debater posts crap, they lose?

Why spend the posts/time/effort to refute obviously lies when you could keep on subject and drive your message home?

This is what I mean:
If a debater tells blatant falsehoods or silly arguments, the peanut gallery will obviously take note and vote accordingly. A debater will not win by posting garbage. Also, doing so is against the entire nature of a serious, formal debate. It's reasonable to assume that people will self-select to participate, that moderators will not take part in a debate with crap posters and crap debates will get no attention or fall apart. If garbage debates destroy the entire concept, then it simply wasn't meant to be on this forum.

Having source/quote wars over trivial or non-factual points happens all the time here on CFC. The whole structure is designed to keep that from happening. I've said it before, the notion of disallowing sources and quotes seems anithesis to this forum. But I feel you haven't given any consideration to the points I've raised. You keep going back to crap posters and made up arguments and haven't listened at all to what I've said about how this structure keeps that from happening.

Debaters don't have to or need to refute obvious lies and BS - the debater who resorts to this loses the debate.

And even when falsehoods slip in, again, this gives the peanut gallery something to chew on and argue over. Allowing a falsehood to be debated over or sources themselves to be debated in the debate thread over distracts from the debate. We already can argue about lies all day long, but now you don't have to. You win if the other guy brings them up and you don't have to waste time on it.

And the very structure of the debate itself helps keep this stuff out.

You're right; props are not allowed. However, including a sourced fact in your speech is not a prop; it's part of your speech (written instead of oral in this case).

The rules allow someone to talk about a source, they just cannot directly

quote

or link to it.

So I haven't read the past few pages of back and forth, since this was the sign up thread and all. We had another thread for rules discussions. Please use this thread to sign up for topics.

The space debate thread has been approved and will open either Friday or Saturday, per the wishes of the participants. I will get the other threads approved as soon as we have participants.

Downtown I'm sorry I started this whole debate over rules here. I wasn't thinking when I posted them, I just wanted to get them up by the deadline I gave to you. I will refrain from further debating of the rules here.

Sorry

THE RULES ARE UP IN THE OTHER THREAD WITH ONE TINY CHANGE ABOUT TIMEZONES

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Update:
The debate is probably postponed until early next week. Life happens, and we both want to make sure that we have the time to do this right and put on a good show.

It is definitely happening though!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

So any other signers up?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Not really. I don't think so anyways.

Warpus and i will be debating ASAP. Sorry to put it on hold, we're both very busy.

 

[Quackers]

I'm refraining myself from signing up because i really don't want to embarrass anybody

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Namely yourself?

 

[Takhisis]

No, I assume the pro-British Imperialism crowd are running scared after good old Dave-o's American shenanigans.

 

[Leoreth]

If you let innonimatu and Winner do it, i might not even consider it worth the effort to click at the thread. They're both excellent posters, but, well, we (continental Europeans) have heard it all before in real life (or in national media).

I'd read a Europe-focused thread with either of you. It would certainly be highly enlightening and definitely above the usual level of debate as it presents itself in the media and at least in my opinion not at all trite.