<Big Pawn> A debate forum that follows a proper academic structure is a good idea, but I think that you would have to moderate it?

It's your forum so you can't really have a "guest moderator", because some posts would have to be deleted according to the formula you posted.

If you became the moderator, I don't see how you could also be a participant? When <pinned piece> created the <61 Games Investigation Forum>, he only wore a moderator hat. He had been one of the most active participants in the investigation, but he stepped down from that role when he became moderator.

Yes, there does seem to be a conflict of interest there, but I've got a solution I think. Suppose I am debating an unclean, godless lib, and I make some kind of argument that support a main premise. In response, if the lib fails to rise about a DH3 response, I can point that out, and if, say, 3 readers acknowledge that my opponent's response fails to meet the guidelines, then they can vote to have his comment deleted. That way it's out of my hands and sort of has a democratic spirit to it.

The key is to have the guidelines for responses clearly laid out.

Take someone like the <tuna>. His responses in most of his debates are of the form, "I disagree" and "I don't believe that" and "what about when so and so did it?"

If you look at the <Pyramid> of Grahams Hierarchy of Disagreement, you can see that such responses do not rise about DH3 and therefore they are a waste of time. That is, the debate doesn't actually move forward. It's just a quarrel and that is nothing but a waste of time. In almost 80,000 posts, the <tuna> has almost never risen above that level.

So you see that I'm trying to make debates more clear cut and shorter. I want each response to move the debate forward, and the writer has to be able to grasp the central issues of the debate. This cuts down on the "noise" that is so often generated when one side feels he is about to lose too.

<Big Pawn> Yep if you used the <Graham> template as a constitution you might be able to moderate and participate, but I still think it would be easier for you to just wear the moderator hat.

I think you would do at least as good a job as <pinned piece> wearing that hat.

But there are many rules and they are a bit complicated.

<(The Moderator cannot participate in any of the debates)>

He/she will become frustrated, reading posts and not being allowed to comment.

You, or the moderator, (might be one and the same), must choose what comments to allow and so forth. Folks stopping by to make an off-hand comment will feel rebuked (a la Pyke)

Look, I support you. What can I do to help?

I just think, from what I have seen on cg.com, you have a tough row to hoe.

<Bro Sugar> Yes <pinned piece> is missed. He was an honest and intelligent member, and he really did something worth preserving with his investigation into <Ed Trice's> forgery eh?

Bottom line - there are many rules to read.

But at this point, why not? Rogoff is an idiot-filled disaster. At least <BP> is making an effort to come up with a forum for high-level discussion.

Even bottom-feeders can benefit! They can try to raise their game, to make their comments worthy of inclusion here.

This is the reason even the libs, who hate my guts, aren’t congratulating you on finally being the one to defeat the moral argument.

Won’t be clicking your link as I’m feeling quite satisfied with myself and with the debate, confident that your link is <nizzle> level.

How will you decide what the first topic will be, and how will you recruit the first debate pair?

Will there be mainly one on one debates, or will there be team debates?

Debate topic idea, probably best suited for two Christians who hold opposite views on this question:

<Is self-appointed apotheosis blasphemous, or not blasphemous?>

It's a serious question. At least, it would be, if debated by two serious people who knew their Christian theology and weren't actually insane.

<Schwartz's results from a series of studies that included surveys of more than 25,000 people in 44 countries with a wide range of different cultural types suggest that there are fifty-six specific universal values>

Thanks for the invitation. But I already won the OMV debate in Rogoff forum: moral values are subjective. >

Don't take this the wrong way, but you ran off without answering the rebuttals.

Running away does not equate to victory.

I believe that values are cultural, or subjective if you wish. If some of these values are universal, I choose to think it's because evolution has made us so, not God. I'm sure there's more empirical evidence for that than it is for the existence of God.

This is not a serious response.

How will you decide what the first topic will be, and how will you recruit the first debate pair? >

I think the best way is to let it happen naturally. If everyone just goes about their business as usual, and argument will develop somewhere, as it does daily. Then, instead of wasting time in a noisy, unstructured, back and forth food fight, they can take it here to hash it out definitively.

The advantage to debating here instead of rogoff or eslewhere is that no one can interrupt here, and if they do I delete the posts and all posts that piggy back off of it, thus preserving the flow of the debate.

On another note, I'd like to be able to drop off posts that I delete for not meeting the standards on another forum for reference. That way if anyone thinks I've been unfair, they can go to that page, find the comment I deleted and analyze it. Basically, I think of it as a way for me to show that I've been fair. Otherwise, I'll delete comments that don't meet the guidelines, and butthurt posters will forever "recall" that I acted like Little Hitler, deleting everything I didn't like, left and right, just because.

No, sorry, this is wrong. There is no mention of God here:

Kenneth S Rogoff (kibitz #347761)

Or here:

Kenneth S Rogoff (kibitz #347779)