I’m asking specifically what the rules for a “Witnessing” forum would be. If it had the same rules as any other forum it wouldn’t be necessary, and if responses were restricted to those that generally agreed with the OP it wouldn’t be fair.
I think witnessing is an odd fit for GD, mainly because it’s not really open to debate. Ever tried to engage a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon door-to-door missionary in debate? It can’t be done. They don’t engage with your arguments at all, it’s as if they don’t even hear them. Any points you make go sailing over their heads unobserved and unanswered. They …
Wait a minute, that describes exactly how some of the posters in GD on politics, current affairs, etc behave! I guess witnessing is right at home in GD. 
Edited to delete double post.
Exactly. Can someone define “witnessing” in such a way as to not empty Great Debates of a large number of threads?
Testify!
Back when the board was started, there wasn’t a Great Debates forum. And we started getting a spate of witnessing posts, phrased as questions, in General Questions. And people would generally respond to these posts so they led to arguments.
At the same time, we would get repeated threads on various topics (usually political) that would have subjects that had already been argued about. But again, there was no specific forum for arguments like this so people would post them in General Questions or MPSIMS.
It was annoying people so a separate forum was created for these posts: Great Debates. It’s called Great Debates but generally it was just a place to dump all the argument threads. (I suggested calling it Under the Bridge but this was back when we avoided using the T-word.)
So witnessing isn’t something that just happened in GD. It was one of the things that caused the forum to exist.
Probably the same as the rules for GD, but those of us who have no desire whatsoever to listen to someone blather on about their religion with no interest in actual debate would be able to avoid the threads more easily. Let the OP determine whether they really want to debate, let them choose where to put the thread, and then let the rest of us know in advance what the participation of the OP is going to be like. Bam! Witnessing Forum.
As it is, you can’t know until you engage whether the person intends to engage back.
Most witnessing posts don’t just give an opinion (like chocolate ice cream is best) but state or imply something about how the world works. That is where the debate comes in. I see where IMHO might be a reasonable place, but do you think that there would be less debate there? Some people want to stay away from GD - putting witnessing posts in IMHO would drag the debates to an audience who might not want them.
Eh, I’ll join you, though my support is lukewarm ;); I agree that witnessing should be separate from debates, but I don’t care if things stay as they are.
Witnessing is the exact opposite of debating; the person is absolutely confident they are 100% correct. By definition, they CAN’T debate; there needs to be a genuine attempt to at least understand the other argument. Ideally you’d be at least theoretically open to changing your mind if the argument is strong and convincing (though this isn’t required and changing your stance after a single debate isn’t likely to happen.). Witnessing is diametrically opposed to debate.
That being said, I understand why TPTB decided to assign witnessing to GD. Generally if someone feels strongly enough about something to witness, it’s extremely important to them. Choosing GD instead of IMHO or MPSIMS extends the courtesy of respecting that (regardless if you agree or not).
I belong to a “Big Issues Debate” group on another website. They implemented a categorization policy for debates because some topics are naturally more divisive. The OP can choose between “MAYHEM” or “ORDER” (topics are considered to be Order unless the OP specifically labels the thread as Mayhem in the subject). Order is the default and what debate “should” be like - focused on arguments, no insults, etc. Mayhem is kind of like GD + The Pit - anything goes as long as it doesn’t violate the TOS. It’s served as a great release valve, because people who don’t WANT mayhem know immediately to not bother with those threads, and those who do can let loose in mayhem threads and are less likely to explode in Order threads. There can be separate mayhem and order threads on the same subject simultaneously.
Perhaps Witnessing could be like that here. In the other group, the OP can flag a mod to add MAYHEM to the subject if they forget. Here, it’s less likely a witnessing OP will label their thread, but they also often choose the wrong forum and the mods have to move it. Adding {WITNESS} to the start of the thread title would let posters know up front.
Would a Witnessing forum be devoted exclusively to religion? Could I post a thread saying I think Barack Obama is the greatest President in American history?
And would there be a rule against arguing the point? The only acceptable responses under the rules of that particular forum are that you have to agree with the OP. If you think George W. Bush is the greatest President you can start your own thread and only Bush supporters can post there.
Personally, I wouldn’t go so far as to give it its own forum, though I see a certain attraction to the idea. If witnessing gets its own forum, we could end up with dozens of forums.
But if there WAS a witnessing forum, then I would say that “Barack Obama is the greatest President in American history” belongs in it.
I would say it belongs there if you aren’t interested in debating.
And the acceptable responses would be identical to those in GD. The difference would be that the people reading would know that you don’t give a shit about their opinion right up front.
I would be fine with OPs putting a “WITNESSING” notice at the front of their titles, but they won’t do that. They might notice a separate forum, though.
This idea deserves its own thread. As I see it {Mayhem} would retain “Attack the argument, not the poster” guidelines, while {Order} would proceed according to “Jon Chance rules”. Mods could change the categorization at their whim: it would be bogus to post a vitriolic OP and append the tag {Order} to it for example.
I suppose the sorts of questions that {Witness} might appropriately prompt would be, “How do you integrate those beliefs in your life?”, or, “Do you also believe X?” MPSIMS stuff, possibly with a tad more edge, albeit in a different forum. Nothing wrong with that.
Maybe the witnessing threads can be relocated to the cornfield the Mods send spammers to.
Indeed. I for one do not understand the point of “witnessing”. If you post all about your beliefs, why do that if not trying to convince others? And if you don’t want to hear debate, then surely you are not trying to convince others. So: why? If you just want a soapbox, get a blog. Don’t come to the Dope. We’re not about that.
If we have one, I propose we call it /dev/null
Agreed.
Agreed.
Not that it’s a huge deal, but how could there NOT be a better forum for witnesses than MPSIMS or IMHO? Combining GD and witnesses doesn’t make much sense.
If not in its own witnessing forum, put witnessing in the pit where people can more fully express themselves.
Is there a bright line between theological discussion within the religious community and witnessing? (Actually, I think there is conceptually. What works in practice is a moderator issue.) I concede that “I have seen the Lord and He is purple,” seems more like MPSIMS or IMHO.
I googled for witnessing examples in GD prior to 2005 and didn’t cull many threads, oddly. Here’s what I’ve got:
Heaven or Hell for Non-believers?. The OP wonders whether C. S. Lewis’ views have solid scriptural backing. GD?
I feel the need to witness: “I want to state that boards like SDMB where different ideas and theology are discussed and debated is quite helpful, particularly for folks still trying to discover truth.” Heh. That was posted in 2001 by Homebrew. The board was more theo-friendly back then.
Why do you believe? “My question,in more detail,is this: Why don’t you believe in God, and if you do, why?” That seems like an invitation for witnessing.
I pulled those threads in the hopes of making the discussion more concrete. I opine that the views of believers and non-believers should be taken into consideration. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was consensus across those two groupings.
I like the tag approach as indicated upthread. Another consideration is which set of mods want to handle witnessing.
My opinion is …well frankly I don’t care. I suppose I like bundling all religious discussion in GD, but that’s a pretty weak preference.
To me, based on your description, 1 and 3 are not witnessing. They are asking for discussion and give-and-take. 2 is witnessing.
For me, it’s all about the OP’s intent.