Standards for Forum Debates
It's apparent that there are details that need to be agreed prior to commencing a debate. Here's a thread in which to discuss the associated issues.
The purpose of a debate the context of this Philosophy Forums seems to me to be to allow the debaters to engage in extended uninterrupted chains of discussion, of the sort that are not easily achieved in an ordinary forum were chains are subject to constant interruptions by others, making it difficult both to write and to follow.
Here's the list from the most recent debate:
That's been pretty standard for a while here and in the previous incarnation fo this forum.
This was added:
Previously there were limits to the length of a debate, either thee or five posts for each proponent.
Recent debates have included a moderator, not a bad idea since it gives an independent arbitrator to decide matters of form.
The sequence of posts should also be considered. Standard format in my part of the world would be three posts to each participant; First Affirmative, First Negative, Second Affirmative, Second Negative, Third Affirmative, and finally Third Negative. This gives equal weight to both participants. It is a simpel mater to make this five or more posts rather than three.
In other parts there is an assumed right of reply, so the sequence might be First Affirmative, First Negative, Second Affirmative, Second Negative, Third Affirmative, Third Negative. reply from the affirmative. Effectively the affirmative receives an extra post. That strikes me as odd.
In any case, the things that need agreement before a debate include:
For future consideration.
The purpose of a debate the context of this Philosophy Forums seems to me to be to allow the debaters to engage in extended uninterrupted chains of discussion, of the sort that are not easily achieved in an ordinary forum were chains are subject to constant interruptions by others, making it difficult both to write and to follow.
Here's the list from the most recent debate:
- Posts will be no longer than 500 words.
- If in the moderator's opinion a reply is not provided within 24 hours, at the request of his opponent the recalcitrant will forfeit the debate.
- There shall be no links to previous TPF posts.
That's been pretty standard for a while here and in the previous incarnation fo this forum.
This was added:
- The number of posts is not limited. The debate will end with a final post from each participant, after the moderator is satisfied that both parties agree to finalise proceedings.
Previously there were limits to the length of a debate, either thee or five posts for each proponent.
Recent debates have included a moderator, not a bad idea since it gives an independent arbitrator to decide matters of form.
The sequence of posts should also be considered. Standard format in my part of the world would be three posts to each participant; First Affirmative, First Negative, Second Affirmative, Second Negative, Third Affirmative, and finally Third Negative. This gives equal weight to both participants. It is a simpel mater to make this five or more posts rather than three.
In other parts there is an assumed right of reply, so the sequence might be First Affirmative, First Negative, Second Affirmative, Second Negative, Third Affirmative, Third Negative. reply from the affirmative. Effectively the affirmative receives an extra post. That strikes me as odd.
In any case, the things that need agreement before a debate include:
- Post length.
- Number of posts
- Time between posts.
- Permissible links and images
- Sequence
- Right of reply
- Moderation. If a moderator is used there is an implicit agreement to abide by their decisions.
- including or concluding or excluding a poll to decide winners and losers.
For future consideration.
Comments (88)
There should be no recourse to quoting other philosophers or making your points by referring to the specific concepts of philosophers.
Both debaters should defend and explain their own positions as well as trying to refute the others.
Moderator should suggest debaters to quit stalling and to answer questions fully.
Last two debates have been terrible,because 180 didn't follow simple etiquette.
And there is a presumption of an audience. Writers ought write in the understanding that this is a public performance, and part of their duty is to entertain.
Well there weren't much entertainment. More like 180 was too gun shy to engage.
The writing style is poor and unconvincing.
Look at the comments on the debate.
Demonstrably wrong, since the discussion thread is several hundred posts long.
Yes,that was the entertainment,not the debate!
Demonstrably wrong? Have you lost your marbles?
therefore debating often descends into fighting
and there is nothing wrong with that. wake up and smell reality you silly idealists
Still a poor debate.
@MikeListeral
In the debate, I did argue that 180"s style wasn't acceptable, but since no specific rules were prearranged, those objections could only be evaluated by the observers and not the mediator. All was to be considered fair game except to the extent a spectator might disagree. It's a chaotic approach to be sure, sort of like letting the players do whatever they want to get the ball in the goal and the spectators can decide if they think fouls, handballs, and moving the goal off the field ought to count. An exaggeration of course, but just to make the point.
Moving forward, and I say this from sitting in debater chair (not an observer nor a moderator), it's frustrating when you really are present in the moment, trying to develop your thoughts, get meaningful feedback, respond, become more educated, and provide something of value in exchange for having been granted the spotlight to feel you're not being given a meaningful chance to do that.
I'm not chastising anyone here. Banno did reliably as asked and 180 honored what rules there were, but I expected something different, reasonably or not. I do believe our closings were on point, so I do think eventually we got there.
I'm wondering if there is just a standard set of debate rules that can be adopted for future use, with the moderator having the duty to know them and enforce them. Just saying "play fair" has been proved to have its limitations.
@Banno
I'm not in favour of mandating a standard set of rules, but instead, keeping track of issues that might arise and providing precedent rather than legislation. Guidelines for future debates.
I would encourage more debating hereabouts.
I don't think that the contents of PM's ought be divulged without consent. I was seeking to keep the discussion here impersonal, but that seems to have gone by the way.
Well, I believe in transparency, especially as it relates to public matters. The comments weren't of a personal nature. So we disagree there. It is common that private moderator conversations are quoted publicaly by other moderators when disputes arise. Sunshine rules are a good thing, not a violation of confidence.
This is a legalistic suggestion, demanding a procedure of its own. Typically precedence doesn't begin ground up from just pure judicial rulings (except in very ancient common law examples), but from statute or rule and then prior judicial interpretation matters.
That is, step 1, we pass rules, step 2, we interpret those rules, step 3, we use past interpretations for future cases. To skip step 1 makes original decisions interpretations from the judge"s view of personal fairness and it binds all future decisions. Under such a system,, the first judges become legislators as opposed to a more democratic method of original rule passage.
You method also defeats your confidentiality concerns because precedent must be fully public under such a system.
Mine is a jungle, planted with everything that comes to hand. Some survive, some don't. I prune and weed in an ad hoc fashion.
:up: I would like to see this format standardized.
Quoting Hanover
Agreed. What do you think of Banno's suggestions quoted here?
Likewise. Thanks.
Quoting Protagoras
Fair. Consider it done (since, no doubt, you're referring to me. "A broken clock" (troll) etc ...)
Debate moderators are not forum moderators.
Would you add to the burdens of the forum moderators?
Or do you see some sort of "separation of the powers" going on, in which the forum moderators commit to enforcing judgements of debater moderators while removing themselves form judgement.
And perhaps we should call debate moderators "arbiters" so as to save on typing.
Would you add to the burdens of the forum moderators?
Or the forum moderators commit to enforcing judgements of debater moderators while removing themselves form judgement?
Debate moderators should not be the regular moderators,but should be someone both debaters accept.
But the main crux is the debaters themselves should have some sort of goodwill and charity just as a point of pride.
And how will you enforce that?
I can ask the mod team.
Three each; roughly, introduction, consolidation and rebuttal.
Another idea could be to have debaters submit their opening positions blindly and then have them start a debate. But this has benefits and disadvantages. Main benefit will probably be that differences in definitions and usage of terms will be laid bare early on.
Again, I didn't start this thread in order to specify a must-follow set of rules. The idea was just to track things that come up and which might be best dealt with in the initial agreement.
Quoting Benkei
I quite like that.
Edit.* Or the BDSM version Strictly Come.
Good title. Didn't wanna see it but with a title that good..
Quoting Benkei
Having watched two debates in which the first affirmative did little or nothing to affirm anything, leaving the first negative to request the actual affirmation, I suspect the more stringent the number of posts, the fewer debates will go anywhere. Can the arbiter not just use their judgement? Or could posts that fail to affirm/negate not be struck off somehow?
Also, a lot of time is wasted arguing over definitions which, ideally, would be known to both sides prior to their agreeing to defend or attack them. Could the debaters agree on the key definitions before the arbiter introduces the debate? Even better, could the arbiter provide those agreed-upon definitions in the OP for the sake of the baying crowds?
An arbiter actually decides an outcome, or is someone whose opinion in a matter is considered preeminent, unsurpassed (e.g. Petronius, who wrote The Satyricon and was called elegantiae arbiter, the judge of elegance), So unless that's the role being taken by Hanover or anyone else in his position in a debate, I wouldn't use it. How about another nice Latin word, magister? The magister ludi was the master, or chief or director of the game(s), gladiatorial and otherwise. The magister didn't compete, but ran the show; matters of propriety and decisions on rule disputes were his to make.
I do like the judicial approach of submitting an argument, a response then filed, and then a final reply. The judge (or, better yet, a panel) then holds a hearing, peppering both sides with questions, followed by a ruling. If not a unanimous ruling by the judges, the dissenters may also file their opinion.
This, of course, will result in a decision that isn't entirely determined by the debaters, bit also by the objective strength of the position.
That decision is then appealable to me, at which time I'll let everyone know who was actually right.
I'll accept your decision as long as you danced around a fire all night long with a rattle.
What about enforcing the rules. The debate moderator is the judge and executor?
Who are "we" that pass rules? and who are "we" in the subsequent steps?
The Logical Positivists said all could, using this method. Wittgenstein showed it can't be done. Hence, Post-Modernism.
I think philosophical problems of different opinions would only get resolved if words had the power of action. For instance, "FU", or "go to hell" stuck. Barring that, no go. No end of debates. Debates end when a question successfully becomes the topic of science... enough evidence to not doubt an opinion by humans.
Your requirement is unorthodox, but reasonable.
This is so true! But I shan't embrace it, because it impedes me in my quest to garner power.
In the Darwinian sense, truth is strangely less conducive to survival than power is.
------------------
Those who make rules will make rules that help maintain their power, or help them attain it. If two debating opponents are asked to make rules, the debate will never end over what rules to make and how to apply them.
Truth can't be debated. Theoretically.
What about when that doesn't happen, like when rules are agreed upon and then there's a debate?
There are only two empirically true statements that have the strength of a true a priori knowledge: 1. Cogito ergo sum, and 2. Geometrical space, which is the same as the space of which a part we occupy, is infinite. There may be a third but intuitively I think it's false: in an infinite space, all configurations of possible non-infinite existences must occur infinite times.
Then it was a third party that made the rules and the debating partners agreed to heed to them.
Unless it wasn't.
By detecting prior to the debate if the debating candidates have pride. If they lack it, they are not a good match in a debate, and shan't be allowed to participate in one.
You are doing an Apollonius. Or however he spells his name. Reducing an argument to bare naysaying.
I'm only pointing out that debaters aren't always so disagreeable that they can't even agree to a debate. It's not always that hostile. It really depends upon the personalities.
Post-modernists would just deconstruct everything - even reasoning. To me they are not philosophers. Post-Modernists are art critics. Their interest is not in truths, but in desconstruction. When you deconstruct something, indeed truths vanishes, and things end up in some possible world.
Deconstruction is a method of isolating the assumptions and biases of a text. Are you suggesting that we get closer to the truth by neglecting these, or rather that it feels like we do?
Maybe your definition of deconstruction is different from mine. I understand it as interpreting thoughts, texts and systems from many different aspects. It is not act of "isolation", but rather interpretation.
Quoting Wayfarer
In two years, with almost as many repeated requests for an explanation that have been ignored almost as many times as Wayf has merely stated this canard, I've heard nothing that remotely warrants asserting "philosophical / scientific materialism is fallacious" – certainly nothing from the resident woo-mongering idealist himself. :smirk:
So in the spirit of this thread and recently less than adequate debates which have given rise to reforms proposed (mostly by @Banno) on this thread,
"Magister" (MC, arbiter, whatever s/he is now called) & other format details tbd.
What say you @Wayfarer? Versus me or some other anti-idealist / realist (I can recommend a few in my place if that'll be helpful). Negotiations via PM of course.
:up: :100:
The p0m0s traffic in stylized, rhetorical, "observations" (or polemical anecdotes) in lieu – at the expense – of conceptual analyses, valid arguments & defeasible reasoning as a matter of course. Onanistic sophistry, or (more generously) bad / pseudo philosophy.
Nonsense. I have answered your objections on a number of occasions, only to be told that my response is 'woo', when from my perspective, you've simply failed to grasp the point. And no, I have no interest in debating you.
I suppose I might be willing to give it a go. At worst, it will make me do some work.
[quote=Wikipedia]Deconstruction... only points to the necessity of an unending analysis that can make explicit the decisions and hierarchies intrinsic to all texts.[/quote]
The idea is that by studying a text, we can determine which side of a dichotomy the author favours. This is usually favoured by treating it as a singularity, not as a dichotomy at all. It's not a bad thing, is in fact a necessary thing as writing goes, but means that understanding a text necessitates this "unending analysis", otherwise you are reading from within the same preference, those silent assumptions and biases that the author adheres to.
Or alternatively in Hegelian synthesis, either the thesis or antithesis is implicitly preferred, leading to a synthesis biased toward one or the other.
There's a nice list of quotes about deconstruction on the same Wiki page (deconstruct my laziness there):
(and you should listen to him because he's de Man).
The thing you should take from the last three of those is that 'Rorty' is a perfectly good name for a baby girl.
Sorry to derail the thread, but I'm the sole defender of postmodernism on this forum, gotta put the hours in. :)
Yeah, but to what end or purpose other than deflating all claims, implicit or explicit, in a text to mere biases or empty rhetoric? Sure, all discourses might be nonsense – thus, 'power-play relativism' as p0m0 suggests – but, by rejecting even the pragmatic distinction of latent nonsense & patent nonsense (Witty), "deconstruction" refutes itself (like Dada or nihilism or global skepticism).
Don't get me wrong. I think Deconstruction is great. Aesthetics is of of my favourite subjects. But I have a funny feeling that postmodernism and deconstruction wouldn't go very well with God debates.
I read some Derrida, and in the deconstruction process, they would even bring in the Paraconsistent Logic (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-paraconsistent/), which denies the Law of Contradiction. So an object can be both white and black at the same time. It is actually a very realistic system for representing the real world - such as in the country you have a population who are for the policy and at the same time, against it. There is no definite truth to say this is it.
And according to the deconstructionist, the Bible is definitely irrelevant for modern times, because it had been written thousands years ago. Everything has changed. Historicism doesn't work for the present time ...etc. Interesting thoughts and methods, I would say. Great system for art critic analysis of course. The traditionalists will not approve of it of course for obvious reasons.
Quoting Corvus
Indeed. I wouldn't say Feyerband invented post-truth, but his "science fails, therefore God it is" brand of pomo oughtn't to have been difficult to deconstruct. Derrida himself said that deconstruction is not an equaliser. There's a lot more to unpack in a work of theology than in a scientific paper.
Anyway, now we really are derailing the thread. I'm waiting with baited breath to see who Wayfarer and/or 180's seconds will be now that Wayfarer has declined the invitation.
I so want to do it, either side, and my posts on this are scattered all over the forum. But I just don't have the time, I can't even log in to the forum every day, sometimes even for several days in a row.
I have an enormous amount of work in the garden, and while I pull weeds and dig over the soil, I think of witty retors to the forum posts I read, although by the time I'm able to long in, the moment's long gone ...
Like ...
I have a question:
What is the purpose of a debate? What is attempted to be accomplished by a debate?
I couldn't find any God mentioned by Derrida in his books I own. He seems constantly interpreting texts even in his lecture notes "Life Death".
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Sure, we did veered from the topic a wee bit right enough, but our discussions were to demonstrate and stress on how clarifying, establishing and agreeing on the abstract concepts prior to embarking debates could help the debaters avoid some harsh sophistry dog fights, in the essence, was related to the topic (deconstructively speaking).
For example, before going into debates "Does God exist?", perhaps they should debate first, "What is God?"
I joined the Elks Club because my wife and I wanted to use its location for our wedding reception (it was unusually nice and even had a golf course). I've always liked the title of its leader--Grand Exalted Ruler. No doubt the Masons have something even more silly, or perhaps the Shriners.
Quoting unenlightened
As to these two comments, I agree that the competition can be distracting, leaving open the question of why we'd do that to ourselves. Perhaps the debate should contain a preamble stating its purpose, declaring it should be to elicit interesting points, increase the understanding of the audience, and to do all such other things you might expect an educator might ask for, as opposed to do what a man in an arena might bring forth.
Are you not entertained!
Is this not why you are here!?"
Wow, I forgot about the Shriners.
Materialism of either sort is a position, not an argument. It can be true or false, but not valid or fallacious.
Are those the panhandlers in the roadway with the funny hats?
You are marrying the right concept with the wrong one. Deconstruction is the truth. There may be other truths as well, but at the present state of science and philosophy, this is what we got. Maybe down in history this will change.
I believe in the supremacy of logic. If logic proves or supports overwhelmingly that deconstruction is valid, or move valid than god-worshipping or Buddhism or Platonism or a thousand different theoretical constructs, then I go with deconstructivism, provided, again, that it is the most logically sound of all available ones.
I'm going along the lines of pure reason. If the debaters have different versions of truth, and that's why they debate; and their different versions are superstructures of earlier logic or premise(s); and if they both reason (use logic) well; then their premises must be different. If their premises are different, then their other superstructures will be different, such as definitions. If definitions are different, then they will argue what definitions to use. Hence, the rules that are DEFINED are suspect to never reach a common ground between the two debaters.
I grant that this above would not work if the defined rules do not violate the premises used by either debaters.
That's just a front. The acquisition of petty change is a long con; they melt it down and turn it into gold. They're an ancient order of alchemists. Their leader is known as The Supreme Immortal Magister of West Virginie, coincidentally my vote for debate moderator title.
Useful is a very low bar to clear for any position. Even self-contradictory positions might be useful from time to time. Unless you mean 'useful' in the more technical context of pragmatism.
"Is the useful, the true?" might be a good debate topic.
I'm not distracted by the competition. It's hard to fight when it's not clear what the weapons to be used are and what counts for victory.
And we'd need an emperor to decide, of course.
- - -
Any of the opinions expressed here would make a good debate subject.
So after this discussion, what would you change on this list?
I'd add these:
MC (instead of "Arbiter" or "Moderator")
List of topic-relevant key terms with agreed upon definitions (terms with definitions not agreed upon are indicated with "?")
Number of posts** (minimum of 5: first 3 posts stating position, next 2 posts are replies, more posts or not???)
Noble Dust's proposed rules for debate are as thus:
The moderator shall be named Supreme Magus Yaldabaoth
The first interlocutor shall be named Pistis
The second Zoe
They shall perform a blood rite before commencement which shall bind each to the other until the death, either by argument or by the use of bare hands (should they discover one another's physical location)
Post length shall be limited to 3 quatrains per post and shall be judged by the depth of philosophical content able to be exhumed from each line of each quatrain, and down to the very word
Time between posts shall be limited to 30 days, in accordance with the constraints of international mail
Right Of Reply will be solely determined by the judgement of the Supreme Magus Yaldabaoth
Hear ye hear ye