Formal Debate

[Ryft]

Just wondering how one goes about proposing a formal debate (including challenging someone directly). I went to the Debate Area forum and tried to start a New Thread but was promptly denied access, so evidently that is not the way. Is there a different area of the forums where that sort of thing is posted?

Dankeschön.

[Tiberius]

The Debate Area has rules that are clearly outlined in the forum:

This is not a forum for posting random debates where anyone is able to comment or argue for or against the topic.

In order to post in this forum you must outline your debate motion, and name the people who will be debating. These are the only people who will be allowed to comment, unless everyone in the debate agrees to another member joining in. Nobody else is allowed to comment on the things being said (as in a standard debate). You may contact the contributors by PM or create a thread in off-topic if you wish to talk about something they have said.

Debating is to be civil, and can either be a point for point debate or one where many points are raised and discussed, with rebuttals from either side coming in at various times.

As finding a neutral moderator is going to be near impossible, there will be no declared winner of any debate, unless any team admits defeat.

So you organise the debate with a person (or team) that you wish to debate with via the PM system. When you have settled on a topic / teams, you ask on of the admins know of your intentions, and they will create the thread and give you access.

The idea of the debate forum is to only allow those debating to post, meaning it is a proper debate, and nobody else is allowed to comment (you wouldn't have people yelling out and joining in in a real debate).

[Ryft]

Yeah, obviously I had read the Debate Area rules—they were staring me in the face. However, I couldn't figure out how you "outline your debate motion, and name the people who will be debating" without first challenging someone to a formal debate and them accepting. Although I realized that a debate challenge can be sent privately, I was hoping for a more public way of proposing a debate challenge, so people can see debate challenges that go unaccepted (assuming any do) and what the challenge was.

At any rate, I have sent off my debate challenge. Now I wait... and hope.

[Tiberius]

If you don't have a specific person in mind, you could post an announcement in the off topic forum asking for people to debate you I suppose.

[Eilonnwy]

Or you can challenge in off-topic, or you can challenge in any thread. Some debates can be started by ongoing conversations that turn into a debate challenge. It doesn't just have to be in a PM. However you challenge your opponent is up to you, as long as you don't disrupt the forums. It's only once the challengers have been decided that you deal with rest in PM with the admins.

However, I see Arcanus's point Adrian, it doesn't specifically point out in the Debate area that you need to PM an admin to actually get the debate going. You might want to correct that and clarify.