I think there are several big problems with this that make it a lot less useful than you might hope as a way of telling which side better understands the other side’s arguments—leaving aside the big problem with picking a “side” in an argument. Nonetheless, I think it’s likely to be informative and worth a go!
As stated, it sounds like everyone is expected to be on the same IRC channel. That doesn’t seem like such a good idea—the imitators can for the most part simply listen to the genuines to work out what to say. What you really want is a way to ask the panel a question and have their answers revealed only once they have all been submitted. However, I can’t immediately think of an existing software platform that makes this convenient.
I don’t know how best to minimise the shibboleth problem. At the very least, we could remind panellists and judges that shibboleths may be more easily imitated than real winning arguments. Bear in mind that the judges are effectively all Blues pretending to be Greens, in that they want to test how well the panel understand the arguments against Green positions.
I think there are several big problems with this that make it a lot less useful than you might hope as a way of telling which side better understands the other side’s arguments—leaving aside the big problem with picking a “side” in an argument. Nonetheless, I think it’s likely to be informative and worth a go!
As stated, it sounds like everyone is expected to be on the same IRC channel. That doesn’t seem like such a good idea—the imitators can for the most part simply listen to the genuines to work out what to say. What you really want is a way to ask the panel a question and have their answers revealed only once they have all been submitted. However, I can’t immediately think of an existing software platform that makes this convenient.
I don’t know how best to minimise the shibboleth problem. At the very least, we could remind panellists and judges that shibboleths may be more easily imitated than real winning arguments. Bear in mind that the judges are effectively all Blues pretending to be Greens, in that they want to test how well the panel understand the arguments against Green positions.