One on One Thread Debate Topics, Participants, "House Rules", and more

[civver_764]

I'm definitely interested.

 

[JohnRM]

1) a) How to fix the US economy.
b) US Foreign Policy going forward
c) One world government?

2) Not right now. Fall ssemester+FT job = little time

3) Limited post length, limit total posts, turn-based, questions from moderator

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I think its a great idea and would love to participate. However, I remain rather pessimistic of how the peanut gallery would rule given the healthy lib bias and overall agnst felt by some towards a few.

My suggestions: Keep the discussion limited to a set number of posts/replies and/or length. There has to be a finite end somewhere and if you cant make your argument prior to that you're sunk.

Also, I would think it interesting to assign topic sides non-traditionally. That is to say for example, assigning me the task of arguing a pro-atheist position, or Formaldehyde a pro-military one if such topics come up and the participants are willing. I think it takes a much more capable debater to argue a position he doesnt traditionally have any faith in, and such reversals will reveal much and also should be entertaining.

What about links/proof, etc? Do we want to clutter it up with that, or just rely on pure oratory?

MobBoss, I would LOVE to see you argue a pro-atheist position! Absolutely, people should have the opportunity to argue something they don't personally believe is right. During my high school years I went through several debates in my English and social studies classes. The most ridiculous one was when I had to debate in the affirmative(!) that history should not be taught in schools. I went to the teacher and protested. I told her I couldn't possibly debate such a stupid resolution. She told me that a good debater can debate anything. So I gave it my best shot... must have hit a nerve with this teacher, since SHE jumped in during the question & answer period when she asked if I thought the Bible shouldn't be taught in schools either. I told her the Bible was not history; this didn't sit well with her personally, since even though this was a public school, she regularly made us read and do assignments based on the Jerusalem Bible.

And then she assigned me to be one of the judges for another debate in that class - creation vs. evolution. I'm sure it's no secret to anyone on CFC which side I personally believe... but I sat through that debate gritting my teeth and mentally swearing at the pro-evolution side for screwing up what should have been easy points to make but weren't, since they hadn't done their research properly. Purely on mechanics and the ability to communicate ideas clearly and answer questions, I had to give the nod to the creation side.

And if I can do that... I can pretty much judge anything in an unbiased way, disregarding personal beliefs.

Could you chair a political/economic debate without interjecting youself too much? In the sense that you probably know more about these things than those debating them. I could see your corrections leading to big derailments!
Take this as a compliment, not a backhand insult.

Anyone who chairs a debate MUST NOT interject opinions AT ALL. The chair is someone more like a moderator - somebody who enforces the rules. The chair's personal opinion is irrelevant.

What if people want to comment on who they think is winning and why?

That's what the Peanut Gallery thread would be for.

Oh please. It'd be perfect for the tavern. As to your concerns about trolling or personal attacks, i'd leave that up to the chairperson(s) to decide. Not everything interpreted by you as a personal attack actually is one, and that being the case i'd be perfectly willing to have a third party adjudicate that.

The Chamber. It has to be, or the OT mods won't bother making sure things don't turn into a huge mess (thereby giving them the excuse to say, "see it didn't work"). Formal rules, formal setting.

No to quotes

I would agree, except in cases where it might be necessary for clarity. But verbal debates don't have the luxury of written quotes, so the participants need to have good memories of who said what.

I would be willing to serve as a chairperson. I've got RL experience doing that.

 

[Ailedhoo]

If there has to be one on one debate then let it be in the Chamber. That way we may discourage... anything that is... not fit for debate purpose like stating "I win you lose" or anything that attacks the debater as oppose to the idea.

 

[Dachs]

The Chamber. It has to be, or the OT mods won't bother making sure things don't turn into a huge mess (thereby giving them the excuse to say, "see it didn't work"). Formal rules, formal setting.

If there has to be one on one debate then let it be in the Chamber. That way we may discourage... anything that is... not fit for debate purpose like stating "I win you lose" or anything that attacks the debater as oppose to the idea.

The reason the chairperson is there in the first place is to ensure adherence to the rules and report any posts that are out of line, so that constant moderator oversight won't be necessary. Placing the debate threads in the Chamber would unnecessarily place limits on an acceptable set of ground rules - some people might prefer to have a straight-up debate that's not completely totally srs bzns all the time - while not significantly changing moderators' ability/willingness to respond to problems in a given debate thread.

 

[Borachio]

This 1:1 debate thread is a stunningly good idea. I wonder if it will work.

 

[Antilogic]

While I'd be interested in watching, I'm not interested in being a debater. Chairing is possible if it's not too much of a time commitment, I tend to be short on that nowadays.

 

[Camikaze]

The Chamber. It has to be, or the OT mods won't bother making sure things don't turn into a huge mess (thereby giving them the excuse to say, "see it didn't work"). Formal rules, formal setting.

Only if enforceability is actually required is there a need for moderators, though. I would've thought the Chamber would be the obvious place to put such debates, but if these threads actually end up working without the help of staff, and if people are nice enough to play by the thread rules, there really isn't any need for the Chamber. I mean, if someone crashes a debate in the Tavern, don't expect OT mods to come and clean it up, but if people abide by community expectations anyway, what is there left for OT mods to do? Anyone can chair.

 

[Ailedhoo]

The reason the chairperson is there in the first place is to ensure adherence to the rules and report any posts that are out of line, so that constant moderator oversight won't be necessary. Placing the debate threads in the Chamber would unnecessarily place limits on an acceptable set of ground rules - some people might prefer to have a straight-up debate that's not completely totally srs bzns all the time - while not significantly changing moderators' ability/willingness to respond to problems in a given debate thread.

But a one-to-one debate needs to be sure it is not a mere verbal fight as oppose to a challanging talk. The Chamber is needed. We not want someone to go off-topic or not give anything to the argument only for "Tavern rules" to overrule the rules.

 

[LucyDuke]

I think its a great idea and would love to participate. However, I remain rather pessimistic of how the peanut gallery would rule given the healthy lib bias and overall agnst felt by some towards a few.

My suggestions: Keep the discussion limited to a set number of posts/replies and/or length. There has to be a finite end somewhere and if you cant make your argument prior to that you're sunk.

Also, I would think it interesting to assign topic sides non-traditionally. That is to say for example, assigning me the task of arguing a pro-atheist position, or Formaldehyde a pro-military one if such topics come up and the participants are willing. I think it takes a much more capable debater to argue a position he doesnt traditionally have any faith in, and such reversals will reveal much and also should be entertaining.

What about links/proof, etc? Do we want to clutter it up with that, or just rely on pure oratory?

I'm not too worried about the peanut gallery. I think bad rulings could themselves actually spur some interesting conversations. Besides, we're pretty well aware of which topics various posters can't be objective about, and which posters' judgments are valuable, even if we can't say the names in public.

A post number limit is a good idea. Some kind of timeframe could be useful, too, so folks like me don't walk away from the thread to digest for a week, and to clarify forfeiting. Any such rules should be decided beforehand by the individual thread's participants.

Sourcing rules should also be decided by the individual thread's participants. Squabbling about facts is garbage to read, anyway.

And I love the idea of arguing positions you don't hold, it's educational for everyone involved. I'm up for whatever.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I'm going to be a killjoy and predict that this may not be as successful as hoped for. Most of us would be considered fairly opinionated and not shy about expressing said opinions. I can imagine that for many posters, myself included, the inability to to shout "But.......!" will prove to be very painful.

And surely I'm not the only one guilty of jumping on here and first of all finding out what other people have to say about what I said.

Maybe once the debate ends there can be some kind of "post debate wrap up" where we can have our two cents worth on how it went, venerate the victor and trample on the carcass of the defeated.

 

[Borachio]

Don't you need two polls for this to be effective? One to measure opinion before the debate and another for after. And the winner is decided on who has managed to shift "public" opinion.

You could structure this on the lines of:

a)Opening poll

b)
2x Opening remarks
2x Thesis
2x Rebuttal
2x closing remarks

c)Public mayhem
d) Closing poll.

(I am, probably unrealistically, optimistic)

 

[Quackers]

I quite like the idea. I would like to see Winston Hughes Vs Traitorfish

 

[Ajidica]

Could be interesting.
I would be interested in this if it was a subject I knew a fair bit about, such as the Soviets.

 

[Zelig]

And I love the idea of arguing positions you don't hold, it's educational for everyone involved. I'm up for whatever.

This feels awkward; I dunno how most people would approach this, but I'd just assume that whatever is the single weakest necessary condition for me to support my position is actually not the case.

Don't you need two polls for this to be effective? One to measure opinion before the debate and another for after. And the winner is decided on who has managed to shift "public" opinion.

You could structure this on the lines of:

a)Opening poll

b)
2x Opening remarks
2x Thesis
2x Rebuttal
2x closing remarks

c)Public mayhem
d) Closing poll.

(I am, probably unrealistically, optimistic)

I don't really have time for that sort of structure on an internet forum, that would require at least a couple days per post for me.

 

[Dachs]

But a one-to-one debate needs to be sure it is not a mere verbal fight as oppose to a challanging talk. The Chamber is needed. We not want someone to go off-topic or not give anything to the argument only for "Tavern rules" to overrule the rules.

Nothing about the Chamber Pot rules forces anybody to make good arguments or to not post inane drivel, and nothing about the Tavern rules forces anybody to make crap arguments and respond entirely with inane drivel. Hell, insofar as I make posts worth reading in OT, I do them in the Tavern and almost never in the Chamber Pot, because to hell with that crap. The Tavern's "rules", insofar as they exist, effectively amount to "don't be a dick"; a complaint that this would invalidate the ground rules of a debate thread is ridiculous.

The point of having the Chamber Pot is to have a smaller and lower-activity forum that's easier for the mods to police so they don't have to really conduct regular sweeps into the Tavern. (The Chamber Pot's also there to hugbox people with outrageous views, but that's incidental to this discussion.) So the Chamber Pot/Tavern distinction for one-on-one threads is irrelevant because, under the current formula, the chair of the thread would be responsible for making sure nothing gets out of hand and for reporting unruly posts - the mods wouldn't have to be regularly involved anyway.

By comparison, placing these threads in the Tavern offers two salient advantages. One, there'll probably be more participation and interest in them; I can see more people both showing up to debate and getting involved in discussions about how the debaters are doing. Plus, the thread for how the debaters are doing would practically have to be in the Tavern anyway by virtue of its content alone. Two, placing the threads in the Tavern allows for some of the things that are prohibited in the Chamber Pot to be potentially incorporated into a thread's ground rules. If whomever you're debating against takes what is, in essence, a racist position, for instance, you might want to call that person out on that instead of tacitly accepting the position. It is a debate thread. You do want to win.

 

[LucyDuke]

Don't you need two polls for this to be effective? One to measure opinion before the debate and another for after. And the winner is decided on who has managed to shift "public" opinion.

I've seen debates where the wrong side won. Didn't change my mind, but presented their case better.

 

[Azale]

1) A topic worth debating

is the Washington Consensus a net good? (or any tangentially similar topic about free trade)
should more be spent by the world on space exploration?
is China a true "rival" of the United States?

2) Your willingness to participate in such a thread, either as a debator, or as a chair (and if you have a particular favorite topic, etc)

I don't mind participating, but maybe as a chair if one is needed.

 

[GhostWriter16]

This, and i am being honest and frank here, would be something that i believe would be used mostly and mainly by mobby and formy

Or me and you

IMO the comments should not be allowed except during designated comment times or else people will start debating for other ppl. And the debaters shouldn't be allowed to comment on the comments - for civility sake and to keep people from bringing up arguments for the debaters to use.

My original vision was actually for every debate to have two different threads. One for solely the debate, and one for solely comments on the debate/discussion on who won the debate, and, even though I never said this, I don't really think the debators should be able to post there AT ALL. So, one thread for the debators, and another thread for anyone else to comment on who won, but not for the debators themselves.

That actually sounds really fun. Any of our atheists or conservatives wanna have a switcheroo with me?

This would be entertaining to watch, but I'm personally not interested in debating any positions that I am not in agreement with (Or at least neutral on.)

Only if enforceability is actually required is there a need for moderators, though. I would've thought the Chamber would be the obvious place to put such debates, but if these threads actually end up working without the help of staff, and if people are nice enough to play by the thread rules, there really isn't any need for the Chamber. I mean, if someone crashes a debate in the Tavern, don't expect OT mods to come and clean it up, but if people abide by community expectations anyway, what is there left for OT mods to do? Anyone can chair.

I personally think, barring a subforum, this belongs in the Chamber. Otherwise people WILL comment while the debate is in progress and the mods couldn't do anything about it. The chairperson couldn't either since they have no real modding powers. I would only want to debate in the Chamber.

I could see the Tavern for a "No holds barred" type debate that's more frivolous and more "Personal attack" oriented/being a jerk but I wouldn't be interested in doing it myself, so I see no need.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The idea of arguing a viewpoint opposite to your own is a celebrated ancient Greek practice, first started by Socrates. I think doing this here would be awesome and very enlightening for everyone involved. A little empathy never hurt anyone.