Debate Forums

[Levusti]

So what I personally think would be really nice is a debate board where controversial topics can be discussed in a civilized and mature manner. My opinions are heavily influenced by the people around me, but I would love to see the opinions of others who have grown up in different circumstances, in different places and with different people.

Anybody else fine this idea appealing?

 

[Ochalla]

A whole forum? Why not just post a topic you're interested in in General? Not everything is silly in there. Or are you just thinking of starting a Group? If so you'd need to set up basic rules of decorum beyond normal site rules because passions heat up on some topics where sense would suggest using less inflamitory words.

 

[LogicfromLogic]

I think General Chatting is really the debate central. It has to do with how you phrase a topic that starts it as a debate.

 

[Zen]

I saw another roleplay site - I think RpNation - who had both a General Discussion Board, and a Debate board. Like your idea, it was where controversial topics could be brought up. The board had specific rules about how to conduct yourself and what not, and while I found discussions about religion/politics/marriage/life, there were other topics brought up that weren't so passionate. Some of the other ones I saw were about whether members were comfortable with zoos, what made you American, and a host of other intellectually stimulating topics.

The forum handled the board rather well from what I saw and I was impressed by it. But again, that depends on how well our members conduct themselves and if our Staff wouldn't mind the extra workload of moderating.

 

[Diana]

When we consider adding something to the site we have to think:
- Do we NEED this? Is it superfluous? Is it something that can't be done another way?
- Is this going to appeal to our mass demographic, relate to our topic and add to it? (Our demographic/target is Roleplaying)
- Do we have the resources to manage and maintain this addition?

With all of that in mind, a Debate section is always a fun addition for a community, but it's not something we can do right now. Iwaku is understaffed and we currently in the middle of a massive member-base growth and having a hard time keeping up with just the basics of site maintenance. We had to cut OUT a lot of our non-rp related projects for the sake of keeping things going smoothly. D: So we're avoiding any site additions that aren't directly roleplay related until we can handle that.

HOWEVER, this reminds me that people have been requesting prefixes for General for a long time now. >> Now sounds like a good time to add those! We can have a Debate prefix amongst other things and you could lable your serious discussion topics to keep the lolrandom people at bay.