Guides/Debatable

Dreasimy's Guide to Running a Tolerable DP Debate

These are some thoughts, it is a work in progress.

Step 1 - Become a mod for the mics

Step 2 - Offer to be a debate moderator so you can be added to the victim list

Step 3 - Come up with a boiler plate document with:

• questions suitable for every debate
• questions suitable for this specific debate
• responses for people who submit comments instead of questions
• responses for people who submit personal attacks instead of questions
• opening statements
• closing statements
• statements to the candidates
• anything else you don't want to type more than once

Step 4 - Open chats with all the candidates and get them to tell you when they CAN and CANNOT do a debate with their timezones ASAP!

Step 5 - Pick a time and run with it even if not everyone can be there because rarely can everyone be there, you might as well just get it over with. If a candidate can't make it. Do a separate 'debate' with them if you can. If not encourage them or help them to make a wiki page version of their answers.

Step 6 - Not everyone voter can make every debate as a listener, part of making up for this is giving people lots of chances to give you questions ahead of time and reassuring them they will get an easily accessible log soon after the debate (not like, after the election is over.)

Step 7 - Some questions are completely 'fair' to give candidates ahead of time to let them have some well thought out answers. This also gives the debate some speed where you will need it. We really don't need to reinvent the wheel each and every time on 'what is the role of DP' live on the air. But some other questions we do, so let's have them sweat it out on those questions and float them the good old fashioned ones early so everyone can be on the same level playing field with some 'prepared' answers.

Step 8 - Use that chat you have with the candidates (now there is a guild: It's Debateable at MV 904, 4916 specifically for easing communication between candidates and debate moderators) to hear from them when they are 'done' answering a question during a debate. If you want to, you can use it to let them know what question is on deck so they can be ready to attack it and thus have less dead air.

Suggested Guidelines:

• Questions can sometimes devolve into arguments or discussions between a questioner and a candidate. That is not what a debate is for. The format is question/answer. Once the question has been answered I generally let everyone know that since the question has been answered we are moving on but they are free to discuss the topic further in L2PBS outside of the debate. This doesn't mean follow-up questions are bad. But just make sure they are questions and are not repetitive. Just because someone doesn't like the answer they received doesn't mean they are about to get a different answer.

• Read questions carefully before putting them through. If you see a question that is poorly worded ask them to rephrase it via chat. Here's an example:

    Question "Will a known griefer, so-and-so, have access to your password?"
    Suggested rephrase: "Will so-and-so, who did such-and-such action, have access to your password?" 
    or "Will anyone have access to your password?"

By changing the question in this way, making it more factual and less judgemental, it heads off turning the debate into a debate about whether or not so-and-so is a griefer and back into the direction of what we are really after with the question; whether or not someone would have access to that candidate's password if they were DP.

• Anonymous Questions - Pros and Cons: I (Dreasimy) have allowed anonymous questions while I have modded but not everyone agrees that it is the right way to go. My feelings on it are that A) questions should be valid regardless who asks them and the mod is there to keep invalid questions themselves from being asked. B) sometimes you can get a more honest answer from a candidate when they don't know who is asking a question, in theory. C) some people may have very valid questions to ask but also have very valid fears of retaliation if they publically ask them. The cons are that it ends up having the same problems with communication as you get with a game of telephone. I get asked the question and I relay the question but since I often can't get live feedback from the questioner once the candidate has answered, I am unqualified to interpret the answer and follow up or not, on the questioner's behalf. I've tried this and it's harder than it looks. ;)