User blog:SkyGreen24/Weekly Debate Lounge

Welcome to the Weekly Debate Lounge!

On an occassional basis, I will host debates that will last for a week (hence the "weekly" in the title). These debates can range from entire philosophical worldviews to a simple political statement. The participants will be divided into two (or more) teams. Each team will then be provided a stance on the question (regardless of each participants' actual stance) and argue for it. By the end of the week, I, or another appointed judge, will choose one user from each team as the team winner.

How to participate

If you want to participate, just say so in the comments. After the teams are constructed, you will be provided the topic and which stance you are to take. Each team must make an opening case, after that the floor is open to tear each other's arguments apart.

Rules and Regulations
 * Participants:

All the site rules apply, apart from that you may not do the following: Thus all posts from non-participants will be deleted.
 *  Switch sides. 
 * This is a devil's advocate challenge. You don't need to approve of your own arguments.
 *  Poison the well. 
 * Whatever stance the participants of the other team held before the debate is of absolutely no consequence.
 *  Post if you aren't on a team. 
 * New participants may be accepted, but they will need to be sorted into a team before posting.

Judging Criteria

100% of the winner will be decided by the appointed judge. The questions will mostly put so that the individual stance of the judge is of no consequence. It's all fun and games, there's no need to be upset if you aren't picked. It's just about flexing your debate muscles.

The criteria can be summarized with this:

There are many ways to debate.

There are also many ways to miss the point, attack someone who is agreeing with you, provide arguments against yourself, make analogies that are unrelated or don't carry over the aspects meant to be demonstrated, respond without providing a counterpoint, deny or fabricate facts, attack the character or reliability of others, or just in general say things that Do Not Follow.

Straying from your provided stance, arguing based on logical fallacies, not following the topic, etc. will be considered impurities.