Debate boards have to be the most unmanageable entity on the internet. It doesn't matter what you're debating from video games to chicken pot pie recipes, they all tend to get out of hand rather quickly. Political boards are the worst of the breed in my experience. Yet this here site has stayed remarkably civil even when people despise each other's views. Also personal attacks and idiotic blurbs are remarkably rare.


So heres a question, what makes America's Debate work?


Please don't just say "The Rules" every debate site has rules. Some even have large moderating forces that comb through all the posts looking for offenders. But sad to say if 200 13 year olds showed up tomorrow and started shouting "You suck! No You suck! No YOU SUCK! DO NOT! DO TOO! DO NOT! DO TOO! DO NOT! DO TOO! DO NOT! DO TOO!" you couldn't ban them fast enough to make the discussion worthwhile. Believe me I've tried in forums discussing much more mundane topics.

Also Mods can easily kill a board while trying to save it. Its been my experience that over time Mods tend to ban more and more of what they find personally offensive. If this goes on long enough it usually kills the board. Again not much evidence of that here.

So frankly I'm jealous. I mean the net is such a bizarre universe where even the boring can incite passionate hate filled flame wars. Yet somehow this place handles most of the touchstone issues of our day and manages to stays civil. It can't just be "The Rules" or else we'd be able to debate Religion. But hey I guess even asbestos will melt if you make the fire hot enough.

So is it the reader base? The mods? Does the spell checker burn the eyes of k3wl dvd3z who attempt to post? B/c honestly I'm amazed the site has lasted this long as well as it has.

Mrs Fanklin said it best my friend: R E S P E C T

That is what separates this site/forum from all the others. We have respect for each other and each other's view points.

Plus Mike and Jaime know how to lay the smack down to unruly participants .

It's got to be Mike and Jaime.

My first few days on here, I felt the "firm administrative hand" of Jaime right away, and realized I better understand how things work and look before I leap if I was going to be comfortable here.

I don't know if it is "policy" to really scrutinize the newcomers, but I've already observed several possible "troublemakers" rapidly turned away - voluntarily - because they couldn't hack criticism.

M & J have obviously molded a culture that has attracted very good minds and has engendered loyalty among them.

I would imagine that every site has the same mix of people breeze through. The trick is to encourage the kind of people you want to stick around and encourage others to keep moving right along. That's obviously going on here...

Anyway. Whatever it is, keep doing it!

I think it's two things in combination. One is...you guessed it...the rules and enforcement thereof. The other is a critical mass of users who care about good debate and are capable of participating in one. We have a few dozen active participants who are pretty good at shredding any half-baked argument that someone might try to pass off as debate. While that can make life here pretty disheartening for people who are used to getting away with suspicious data, faulty logic and bluster on other sites, it does help to keep the standards high. Newcomers quickly learn to elevate their game, or else be outnumbered and outgunned on every single thread - including by those who share their basic ideology.

As for respect, I think it's a matter of respect for the rules and/or the atmosphere, not for people. There are some senior members who seem to have practically no respect for any person anywhere, and who earn no respect in return, but they respect the environment and that's good enough.

It is a combination of things, obviously.

First and foremost, Jaime and Mike: their intelligence, their diligence, their commitment, their fairness, and their low tolerance for uncivil debate. The fact that they have encouraged a wide range of opinion and a diversity of participants from the very beginning has been an important factor as well. They see the opinions of middle school students as being as worthy of consideration as those of college professors (which they are) - and the tone has been distinctly egalitarian from the word go. Indeed, they deliberately encourage as wide a range of views as possible. A board on which Amlord and I can peacefully coexist - never mind work together as members of staff - is doing something right. This is all part of the vision of two of the most liberal conservatives I've ever met (I meant that as a compliment ).

The contributors, individually and collectively, would also be a major factor. Many people here are veterans of either contentious flame wars elsewhere or those who grew weary of preaching to the choir on partisan boards. The fact that so many here are interested in discourse - in reading as well as posting, in engaging the other participants - is a major key to the success of the site. The members themselves also help "police" the site and many make efforts to reach across the aisle in an attempt to keep the tone civil and even playful, however great the divisions of opinion. Many also help encourage newcomers to adopt a more productive style of debate. Without active, concerned members participating in the climate which the administrators encourage, America's Debate wouldn't have lasted more than a few months. Many people have found a "home" here - and many friendships have developed, often between those violently opposed ideologically.

Obviously, the rules and guidelines - and their enforcement - are another contributing factor. From something as simple as encouraging correct spelling to something as serious as monitoring hate speech or moderating personal attacks, every aspect of discussion here is directed toward constructive, informative discourse. Looking back at earlier threads here, one can easily see how America's Debate has evolved, becoming (unlike most discussion boards) progressively better. One of the main reasons for this is that the rules themselves have undergone almost constant revision, adapting to new situations as they emerge and, hopefully, preventing certain types of behavior which have arisen from reappearing. And, again, the membership has evolved along with the rules. While some have had issues with both the rules and their enforcement, most of those who become "regulars" recognize that the intent is to maintain a higher level of discussion and, at all costs, to keep those discussions as friendly as possible, well-founded, and on track.

The staff which Jaime and Mike have assembled would also play a part. As one of the first members to have been coopted onto the members' committee, I can attest to the fact that their intention from the outset has been to keep the staff as politically balanced as possible (for the first few months, Cyan and I were the moderate to liberal foils to the moderate to conservative admin). While I doubt that either Jaime or Mike could allow ideological differences to affect their judgement, they have nevertheless taken the precaution of establishing "checks and balances" even in the structure and selection of the staff as it, too, has evolved. In discussing moderation problems, personal challenges, the development of the site, special projects - in discussing anything - we try to bear the best interests of the entire membership in mind and make a concerted attempt to be as non-partisan as possible. Jaime has set an example for the entire staff in terms of moderation: considered, yet swift - and as just and consistent as possible.

The programming of the site itself has played a part in the board's success, too - and here, many thanks are due to Mike who is constantly adding new features, improving on old ones, and exploring various bells and whistles which will make the user interface more appealing and easy to use - with cool features appearing at an alarming rate. His technical expertise has also enabled him to root out spammers, people attempting to register with multiple identities, and other problems to which such sites are prone.

Finally, I think that the structure of the site (the topic breakdowns and so on) and some of the "content features" have contributed to its success. The scheduled Live Chat sessions, for example, or the encouragement of Casual Conversation (especially things like the pinned introductory threads) - as well as, in my experience at least, a fairly lively PM system - have helped create a sense of community and a way for newer members to familiarize and ingratiate themselves into our ever-growing "village". Even features like the annual awards, the NFL pool, or something as simple as birthday greetings, have helped make this what is probably the most amenable arena for engaging in political debate on the web.

Jaime and Mike are the geniuses, but we all make it work.