After participating in a recent, shall we say, 'spirited discussion' about the value of a certain firearm for various tasks, I decided that it might be interesting to have some organized debate threads.
I'd love to participate in one (or several, if the idea takes off!), but just creating something interesting to me isn't going to be a recipe for success, so I thought I'd open the floor to suggestions on format.
Some guidelines I have been mulling over:
- Topics are pulled from a pool of user suggestions and assigned at the beginning of the debate. Ideally these would either be about aspects of current events that are still under discussion, controversial issues with no general consensus, or somewhat obscure or neutral topics, so that people's winner votes are based on the debating, not the opinion, and so that each side has a viable chance at providing a well-sourced position.
- Negative and affirmative are assigned randomly, after participants agree to participate. I'm initially picturing one person per side, but if it succeeds, am totally willing to explore expanding the format to 2v2 or NvN.
- Finite time limit of, say, one week.
- Peer voting for 'winner'....I don't care about this so much, but it would still be interesting to see who was most persuasive.
There are two basic styles I think we could pursue this with:
1. 'Forum style' debate.
I would define 'forum style' as approximately what went on in the
Desert Eagle Sucks thread. The topic goes on as long as it has to (within the time limit) with no maximum post count from either team, freedom to embed supporting content and media. Supporting articles should be primarily restricted to links, and all synthesis should be done for the audience so that the point is clear. That is, if you're going to quote an article, only quote the most relevant portions, link the rest, and then explain why it's relevant.
2. 'Formal Debate'
A formal debate would eschew line-by-line quotes of your opponents positions, and instead be basically a transcribed version of an oral debate, except with linked sources. That is, you'd refer to opponents positions in your rebuttal/response without using the "quote" tags. ("While we just heard that Willravel maintains that the impact from the spill is insignificant, relative to the global aggregate amount of oil contamination, I can show you that is not accurate.") Brief quotes of a sentence or two would be acceptable, but primarily we'd be looking for information synthesis. Each side would be restricted to no more than 10 posts in the thread, starting with the affirmative.
Next step is to start a sign-up sheet for interested participants, and a possible topic pool list. Baraka Guru volunteered to help organize (picking topics and randomizing sides, keeping the threads clear of peanutgalleryism, and opening and closing threads and polls, for example), and Willravel to participate, so I know we have at least enough momentum to get ONE of these off the ground.
Is anyone else interested in any form of this?
Anyone have any other rule or guideline suggestions, or opinions on which format would be most entertaining/enlightening? Both participants and viewers will hopefully come away from threads with a new appreciation of both sides of whatever issue is presented.