Thanks for the suggestion. I guess my concern (as the person who would have to do most of the monitoring, lol) is that having a "debate forum" may be seen as a license to engage in flaming, ridicule, and other inappropriate ways of expressing yourself, because people have "been warned in advance."
There's no problem with having a discussion of personal viewpoints on most topics, either in the Cafe or anywhere the topic is relevant. And I know there a few sparkteams set up for the purpose of debating different issues. As long as the title of a thead makes it clear what the subject is, people who prefer not to hear opposing viewpoints on that subject can just stay out of the thread. Hopefully, people who know that this subject pushes their buttons to the point they can't maintain a friendly and supportive attitude towards the "opposition," and those who feel duty bound to convert people to the "truth," will also choose to avoid the thread (yeah, sure, lol).
But wherever the discussion happens, the Community Guidelines still need to be observed--calling it a "debate" won't change that. Those guidelines are not inconsistent with standard debating practices and rules. In my previous incarnation as a college philosophy and psychology teacher, I served for a little while as faculty advisor for a philosophy department debate team, and the biggest part of the work was to help students understand that waging a good debate was about the quality of your own information, logic, and presentation, not about the ability to use ridicule, sarcasm and condescension to put other people down. Those things are usually what people do when they don't know their own position well enough to present it on its merits, or when the position doesn't have much merit, or when the debater is too emotionally involved to take the time to listen to the other point of view and think about what might be the best way to respond.
But wherever these problems come from, they don't make for good debate, imo. The best way to share information, expose yourself to other points of view, and improve your ability to express yourself without giving offense is to do it in a place where that's what's expected, I think. If people need to vent or rant or preach, there are lots of places they can do that online, and in my opinion, we don't need to provide that here.
What do you think?
Coach Dean
KADYJAO 4/18/07 12:11 P
Hola! I think that spark should create a debate board like many other communities have. It could be monitored more easily and people could participate with full knowledge that they would be partaking in a debate. I find that some times debates happen (I take part in them too) on threads that I don’t think were actually intended for a debate.
Also when people debate in a group that is fine, but many people are not going to join a group just to debate with people but will debate openly in the café.
Also if there is a debate board, people who do not like to debate will not have to even see it, and debates that start on non debate forums can be directed to a debate board.
I think there are a lot of highly intelligent people with a variety of different opinions on these boards. It would be nice if there was a forum where they could express those feelings without hesitation and without offending people who did not come to debate.
