One note, based on my experience in across a variety of organizations, including holding a leadership role in a small political party, is that when a debate is “Free Flowing”, if it is taking place verbally (usually in-person or over video-call) the lack of definite structure and time-boxing can often lead to domination by whoever of the two or more interlocutors has either greater prowess in rhetorical skill, or is more willing to simply steamroll over the opportunity for the other to speak, or both. I think a balance may be struck by having structured rounds, with a pre-established limit for the number of claims each side may argue for or against, and then also allowing the debate to last some arbitrarily large number of rounds.
Much of the rest sounds desirable, though (as is also true of “Fact Checkers”) difficult to accomplish in a way which will satisfy all parties involved. Choosing someone or some group with a genuine openness to whatever the truth may be (or as close to that ideal as any person can have) is the most impactful action.
Does anyone here know of good examples of such forums for debate, either (recent) past or present?
Structured time boxes seem very suboptimal, steamrollering is easy enough to deal with by a moderator “Ok let’s pause there for X to respond to that point”
One note, based on my experience in across a variety of organizations, including holding a leadership role in a small political party, is that when a debate is “Free Flowing”, if it is taking place verbally (usually in-person or over video-call) the lack of definite structure and time-boxing can often lead to domination by whoever of the two or more interlocutors has either greater prowess in rhetorical skill, or is more willing to simply steamroll over the opportunity for the other to speak, or both. I think a balance may be struck by having structured rounds, with a pre-established limit for the number of claims each side may argue for or against, and then also allowing the debate to last some arbitrarily large number of rounds.
Much of the rest sounds desirable, though (as is also true of “Fact Checkers”) difficult to accomplish in a way which will satisfy all parties involved. Choosing someone or some group with a genuine openness to whatever the truth may be (or as close to that ideal as any person can have) is the most impactful action.
Does anyone here know of good examples of such forums for debate, either (recent) past or present?
Structured time boxes seem very suboptimal, steamrollering is easy enough to deal with by a moderator “Ok let’s pause there for X to respond to that point”