# Formal Debate Proposal



## 2Broken (Mar 1, 2015)

I cannot speak for everyone, but I really enjoyed the formal debates and I want to bring them back. I did however notice two main problems with it when we held them.

1. The debate could become so long no one could be bothered to critically analyze both arguments.

2. Everyone in the OPBD community that wasn't a debater or a judge could not really be involved in the debate.

I believe that if we fix both problems than the debates can be something worth doing again, so here is my proposal on how the debates would be organized.

First a sticky thread will be made in order to set up debates. The first thing to do in the set up will be to determine a match. To do this posters will post a match they want to debate and what side they would be on. The first match that appears with three debaters on each side will be the match that is done.

Next five judges will be picked to vote in the debate. In order to pick the judges posters will volunteer. After a set amount amount of time or a certain number of volunteers (these values depend on the success of the debates) a raffle will be held and those chosen will be judges. 

The last thing done in this thread will be to pick an arbiter for the debate. The arbiter will be responsible for directing the course of the debate and potentially voting at the end. To pick an arbiter posters will volunteer for it for a set amount of time. Then once that time is up the individual debaters and judges will vote for who they think would be most fair from the volunteers. In the event of a tie whoever volunteered first between those who tied will be the arbiter.

Once all this is done the debate will start with the arbiter making two threads. One thread is for the debate and the other is for general discussion about the match. Everyone can post in the general discussion thread and it is simply for posters in the community to discuss the match if they want. Only the teams, judges and arbiter can post in the debate thread and only at specific times.

As soon as the debate thread is posted the teams will have a set amount of time for one member of their team to post an opening argument. This opening doesn't have a word limit, but it does need a main focus. The main focus is the central argument a team will work around to make their case. For example; Jinbe would beat Vergo because he is a superior martial artist could be a main focus for an argument.  The main focus should be bolded, underlined or "highlighted"  in some way. 

After both teams have posted an opening argument the arbiter will mark the end of that phase with a post. Then both teams will have a set amount of time to have one member (one that didn't post the opening) of their team post a rebuttal. Their is no word limit to this rebuttal, but it will be the only rebuttal made by both teams. This way the debate wont be ten pages long and impossible to digest in time. It will also force the teams to be more analytical in their rebuttals.

Again the arbiter will mark the end of the rebuttal round with a post where afterwards both teams will have the last member of their team post their closing statement. This post is to state why their position is correct despite their opponents rebuttal. This post like the others has no word limit, but there will only be one per team.

When both teams have posted their closing statements the arbiter will make a post to start the judge question portion of the debate. Judges will direct questions to specific posters on each team and judges are allowed to ask as many questions as they want until it is time for them to vote.

To finish the question phase the arbiter will post to start voting. During the voting portion of the debate the judges will make a vote for each team. A judge cannot vote undecided and every judge must give reasoning behind their vote. At the same time a poll will be added to the general discussion thread where everyone can make a vote for a team. (Besides the debaters, judges and arbiter of course)

After a set amount of time the voting period will be closed by the arbiter and whichever team that won both the judge and general vote will win the match. In the event of a tie the arbiter will break the tie with their own vote. After that the next debate topic is chosen and the cycle continues.

This is the outline for a formal debate that I think can work very well. I didn't include the length for phases as I think it will depend on the support for the debates. I was thinking that two debates a month sounded pretty good though. I also want to do prizes for the winning team and maybe StrawHat4Life can help with that.

So tell me what do you guys think?


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## Jeep Brah (Mar 1, 2015)

Luffy
Zoro
Dolflamingo
Kidd
Law
Vergo
Sanji



Why can't we all get along?


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## 2Broken (Mar 3, 2015)

I really do think the formal debates would be good for this section, so I'll go ahead and bump this thread one time.

However if it is true that virtually no one even wants to even discuss them I guess the debates might not be worth doing.


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## Admiral Kizaru (Mar 3, 2015)

I'm personally not a fan of them. Too rigid and restrictive in their format.

Usually the best debates I've seen on here are the ones which have spawned and flowed organically in a thread. And the key factor in them is having the right posters involved ................ posters who are intelligent, have good analysis skills and can articulate themselves well. They're clear and straight to the point, know the meaning of brevity and have a good command of English. 

And the number of posters capable of doing that on the current OL lies in the single digits tbh; most of them are the ones who've won OL MoTM already.


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## Unclear Justice (Mar 3, 2015)

I enjoyed the debates as debater, judge and observer, but I wouldn't be willing to participate in another one if it would be as time consuming as the previous ones. I simply don't have the time for that and I'm probably not the only one with this problem.

I think your concept is good, but we would need something that is organized and fast paced. Sadly the latter isn't always easy to achieve if you want to make high quality posts. This is the big dilemma.


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## MrWano (Mar 3, 2015)

As an observer I loved them. Sadly I neither have the skill nor the time for participation. 

You have thought up an interesting concept and I hope it gets attention.


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## Grimsley (Mar 3, 2015)

too much effort, time consumption problems and shiz

nothx

maybe in the summer when most people are free


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## 2Broken (Mar 3, 2015)

Thank you guys for responding and giving your opinions about the formal debate in general. I see that the # 1 thing that makes the the debate unappealing for most of you is the time and effort it takes to make it happen.

I agree that in the formal debates we had last time that was a huge problem. In the format I am proposing however I think it will be substantially better. 

First off in my proposal picking a match is simple and requires no voting or time pressure.  Matches will happen based of the section's desire to make them happen. 

I also created a format that is fair, but doesn't allow for several pages worth of debate material for readers to go through. This makes arguments magnitudes easier to digest and judge.

On a further note if we do the debates the way I proposed everyone can participate, but no one is obligated to. If you like to judge and not debate, no problem just volunteer for judging. If you like to read them and nothing else again no problem you can do that and if you do decide you want to participate later you can post in the general thread and/or vote in the poll there when the match is over.

I really did try to make a format where you can put as much or as little time and effort in the debates as you want. If you are not a fan of formal debates like AK and don't want to put any time and effort into them that is fine, but this way the option is there.

In my opinion the debates could practically run themselves and be great for the section. I can see them encouraging an improvement for how to debate in this section as well as bringing more traffic here.

Is anyone else interested in at least trying it out?


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## Dr. White (Mar 3, 2015)

This was a Good one


I'd be down to participate in one pending the topic was good.


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## Admiral Kizaru (Mar 3, 2015)

Dr. White said:


> This was a Good one
> 
> 
> I'd be down to participate in one pending the topic was good.



It's cos it's the only one I participated in. 



Admiral Kizaru said:


> My decision
> 
> 
> *Spoiler*: __
> ...



Jesus, I can't believe I found time to write all that shit back then. 

But yeah I do agree a lot of it depends on the topic at hand. The whole Strong World canon issue was a major thing back on here at that time so it lent itself really well to a formal debate. Plus as I was alluding to in my previous post, there were some good posters involved there such as yours truly (), Great Potato, Pyro, Louis and you yourself Dr White. There aren't many of posters of that calibre still posting these days on here I'm afraid.  

Also, in the recent ones there was way too much focus on power related issues which are already over litigated on the OL and the OPBD already (e.g. Marco not being Admiral level, Mihawk vs Shanks etc) and it becomes an issue of dressing up and regurgitating arguments already expressed a dozen times by various people who are known fans and haters of certain characters. 

With that being the case, I'd be up for contributing and participating for some more general One Piece topics though. For example, Has One Piece been declining since the Time Skip and Is Zoro first mate etc etc


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## 2Broken (Mar 4, 2015)

Do you guys think I should just make another thread where everyone can pick a topic and the side the want to be on so we can test this system out?


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## Dr. White (Mar 4, 2015)

I feel like the OPBD isn't the place for this. Battle related Objective Debates? Lol yeah right. It'll pretty much garner the same results as making a thread. If you want judges, just ask certain people to detail a response if they would. If you want critieria add it to the thread title.

However in the OL this might be able to work, as we could critique different aspects of the story, from multiple angles (characterization, Worldbuilding, Art, etc) in a more objective and substantial way. So my personal advice would be going with this option, and making a thread in the OL. Asking people for topics, and possible participation, etc.

If all else fails just make a thread yourself and give people the topic an criteria, and hope for the best.

However if you still want your fix of battle debates, just join the Davy Back


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## Jeep Brah (Mar 5, 2015)

Admiral Kizaru said:


> I'm personally not a fan of them. Too rigid and restrictive in their format.
> 
> Usually the best debates I've seen on here are the ones which have spawned and flowed organically in a thread. And the key factor in them is having the right posters involved ................ posters who are intelligent, have good analysis skills and can articulate themselves well. They're clear and straight to the point, know the meaning of brevity and have a good command of English.
> 
> And the number of posters capable of doing that on the current OL lies in the single digits tbh; most of them are the ones who've won OL MoTM already.



It'd help if you could try to become one of them.


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## Admiral Kizaru (Mar 6, 2015)

Jeep Brah said:


> It'd help if you could try to become one of them.



Oh no, you certainly got me there.


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## Freechoice (Mar 6, 2015)

I would participate if there was a limit to one paragraph per post

I'm too dumb


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## mr sean66 (Jun 6, 2015)

we should have a debate about pacifistas. ever since they were introduced and luffy one shotted one. every pre timeskip character was considered fodder.

Its ridiculous to think every supernova increased their strenghth by like 2000+%


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## Canute87 (Jun 6, 2015)

mr sean66 said:


> we should have a debate about pacifistas. ever since they were introduced and luffy one shotted one. every pre timeskip character was considered fodder.
> 
> Its ridiculous to think every supernova increased their strenghth by like 2000+%



There is none to have. Once you pierce the armour they are no good.


Two + Years of training and battles for talented pirates is common,  regular new world pirates were defeating the combat weapons with ease.


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## mr sean66 (Jun 6, 2015)

My point is that the forum underage pre skip characters.

I think marineford luffy can give post skip franky a hard fight.


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## Canute87 (Jun 6, 2015)

pre-skip is now in the past.

Luffy in marineford could barely keep down a high ranking marine officer,  now he's taking on guys of flamingo's calibre.


pre-skip is a distant past now I'm affraid.


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