To improve my public speaking and critical thinking skills, I spent a year with a debating society. The members of this society had several years of experience behind them. So I was not all that successful in winning debates. But it was still a great life experience.
Towards the end of my sojourn, the society cast me as a judge for debates. Judging was actually harder than debating as it required great listening skills — if I was to be a fair judge. I found it difficult to keep up with the pace of experienced debaters, who were so efficient with their rhetoric. Lots of concentration was required.
The Seed
About a year ago, Luke Macmichael and Martin Rezny interviewed me and the TDG (my alternative democracy). They put that podcast on their website. If you want to see me in a podcast hotseat, here is the link.
Martin was an active formal debater in his formative years. He enjoys teaching young people about this verbal craft. He seemed to be looking for angles to help bring more “civil debating” in the online world. Initially, I declined his invitation; I just had too many other things going on in my life.
Martin’s idea stuck with me. When preparing another Medium article on debating, the pieces came together as to how we could do this on Medium.
Formal debating on Medium
Here is my brief summary of how we could do this:
The moderator sets up the debate, creating the resolution and finding two debaters and three judges. So six active participants will be required hold a proper debate.
One debater will take the “for” side. The other will take the “against” side. Each debater will write three points to argue their side of the resolution. The moderator will publish the two essays simultaneously, as the first round.
In the next round, each debater will refute the three points made by their opponent. The two refutation essays will be published simultaneously.
In the last round, each debater can choose between enhancing the original points or refuting the refutations. These two essays will be published simultaneously.
Then the judges will analyze the six essays. I have a rubric in mind for the judges to score the debate. The judges will also provide some commentary for the debaters to improve their debate skills. The verdicts from the three judges will be published simultaneously.
Why be a debater?
First, this Medium debating society will give part of the score on civility. We need to learn to be more civil, especially with people we disagree with.
Second, the debater puts his/her logic in front of judges. The judges will likely not be thinking the same way as the debater, so a debater gets an honest perspective of how the public would be evaluating his/her logic. The verdict of the judges can provide so many life lessons to any debater willing to learn those lessons.
Third, there will be a word count limit. We get more practice making our wordage more efficient while making our logical points.
Why be a judge?
First, judging will train us to move away from our confirmation biases. While we might have a preference for the eventual victor before the debate starts, judging fairly means looking at the six points the two debaters made and basing our scores on who made the better arguments. We will learn how to move away from our emotions and toward the logic that is presented.
Second, our comments will be moving debaters forward. When they figure out how to better present their logic, they will be more capable in the real world.
Third, we will better our sense of fairness, which we can take outside of this debating society.
Structure of this Medium pub
Debaters and judges will be “writers” for this pub. I will be the “initial owner” and its first moderator.
When we get the rules refined, I will be asking certain people to be moderators — and they will become co-owners of the pub. They will set up and manage their own debates.
My Requirements
I would like to have at least 10 people express a big interest in being a debater and/or a judge. If I get this number, I will spend the 20–30 hours to put this pub together. After that, my goal is to moderate two debates a month.
If you want to participate in this future pub, be forewarned that I am still a bottom writer on Medium. My work does not get many readers or much time on feeds. It is doubtful that this article, by itself, will find the 10 people needed for me to justify the time.
In other words, if you want this debating society, you should do some promoting to your Medium network. So consider writing an article to help this debate pub come into fruition; and link to this article to let your network know how to find me.
BTW, Martin has agreed to be a judge. His experience will be useful to teach us more about civil debating.
Published on Medium 2024
Addendum
I got six people saying they would like to start this society. Not enough.
I approached Medium introducing this idea. I got a quick email back with a link about "following the Medium rules." Not exactly supportive.
I decided to not take this project any further.
