Sometimes I wish I could debate someone one-on-one on a particular topic. It happens in some threads spontaneously but other times intervening posts break the flow of thought.

Today I had this brainstorm. How about letting people have a two person ( or perhaps more) debate?! This could be overdone if too many people request it. But, I believe if you limit this option to posters who:

have proven their posts are of high standards (rate them by moderators or the board community),
have a minimum number of posts,
a minimum length of time on AmericasDebate,
are a sponsor,
have no marks against them,
are committee members or moderators,
or something else

this would not be a problem. Heck, just try it as an experiment with or without restrictions. I would also recommend the original debates have a fixed time to have their debate at which time the topic is made open to the entire board community.

This could be a way to get a good foundation for a topic upon which further debate could be built.

It will take time to administrate and set up these topics which is a big disadvantage. That is why they should be limited somehow. Even getting requests for such debates could be a hassle. If there was a workable way to do this on a limited basis without creating much extra work, I think this will result in constructive debates.

Knowing you two, this is probably an old idea. I have not thought through all the ramifications of such an idea yet but throw it out as a brainstorming idea.

I think this has been answered here: Formal Debating

While these suggestions sound really good in theory, they are not feasable at the current time.

It would not take as much work as the Formal Debate, but it would take time for sure. The forum would have a password which the two debaters would be given. After a week (or whatever), remove the password and move the topic to the appropriate general thread. This part would not be too time involved if it was just a single debate here or there but a lot of requests or topics having to be moved would be a pain. These disadvantages are addressed in the mentioned thread. There is plenty to do running AmericasDebate without this added hassle.

GS - You can have a one on one debate using pms.

ACTUALLY I THINK I REMEMBER JAIME SAYING THAT dont take it there i think. But if it was possible at the time I would agree with Gray Seal, it sounds like a very very good idea, or how about this... One Password protected forum area, and Well never mind i have another idea, (Wow 2 in one night ) but why not allow people to do one-on-one in regular chat only in ths subject type in the user name you would like the debate against

Some times people cant donate so i would rule that part out

We STRONGLY discourage debating by PM. The PMs should be used to get to know one another better and to say, "Hey, don't take things personally out on the forum." We can not moderate PMs.

We REALLY like the idea of one on one and timed debates. We hope to do something like this in the future. Right now, we simply don't have the resources to support that.

I suppose this could be done on an ad hoc basis. If, say, Gray Seal wanted to debate Juber one-on-one, they could just start a thread entitled Gray Seal vs. Juber3 with the topic as the subtitle. Then open the debate with a request that no one else contribute to the thread for four days, a week, whatever. At the end of that period, one of them would post "Okay - this thread is now open to everyone!" or something. Of course there's no guarantee that other would honor the request - or that the administration would endorse what could look like the private use of a public forum. Jaime? Mike?

i strongly agree... Sounds fun and entertaining