# Baseball prize and talkshow hosts - why are these great debates? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 17, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885 "2001-11-17T03:50:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wiwaxia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Wiwaxia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wiwaxia)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/1 "2001-11-17T03:50:01Z")
A question regarding “Great debates”: How come the Baseball rookie price and a talkshow leader’s change in attitude towards GW Bush, are in Great debates? The description “great questions of our time” seems not to fit neither of these two threads. Or am I missing something here? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2001, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/2 "2001-11-17T06:54:23Z")
It’s the moderator’s judgement call. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2001, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/3 "2001-11-17T07:20:06Z")
There’s really no other place for debate here. IMHO is more for just asking people’s opinion, and debate is frowned upon in the pit because things can get out of hand there. Or at least that’s been my experience. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2001, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/4 "2001-11-17T14:40:29Z")
Well, IMHO is also a sort of “Great Debates Lite”. “For frank exchanges of views on less-than-cosmic topics.” [In My Humble Opinion? NOW OPEN!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=25554) > [@](#): > > _originally posted by TubaDiva:_ > \*\*It’s a forum for all those things that are not quite General Questions but more than MPSIMS, maybe leaning towards(Not so)Great Debates. > > It’s also a place where people can have polls, run little contests, vote for what they like and dislike. You can be Prom Queen every day over there if you like (and enough folks vote you in). ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2001, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/5 "2001-11-17T14:49:24Z")
To some of us, the Rookie of the Year debate _is_ of cosmic importance. 🙂 But really–GD tends to lend itself to a different style of debate than IMHO. Also, there are a group of GDers whom you can count on to really get down to the nitty gritty. Whether the OP chooses IMHO or GD probably depends on where he/she wants the thread to go. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2001, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/6 "2001-11-17T22:51:56Z")
I seem to remember the Great Debates forum description incluing as an example “Kirk vs. Picard” or something like that. But now that I think about it, that was probably before IMHO existed, so nevermind. Ignore this post. ---
**Author:** ![Wiwaxia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Wiwaxia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wiwaxia)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2001, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/7 "2001-11-18T04:50:27Z")
Thanks for your replies. It seems GD is a little different than I first thought. Rather than focusing on the topic, I should perhaps focus on what type of discussion I’d like when I choose to post a topic. I actually think it’s a bit of a pity, I sort of liked the idea of a forum exclusively devouted to global issues affecting a large part of mankind. But as **Green Bean** points out - what is of “cosmic importance” is of course highly subjective and also determined by what society and culture we live in. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2001, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-prize-and-talkshow-hosts-why-are-these-great-debates/93885/8 "2001-11-18T18:51:20Z")
Also, the talk show example you gave seems to be rather political in nature, and anything political has a strong tendancy towards Great Debates. It’s a short step from “What views do talk show hosts have of Bush” to “What views **should** talk show hosts have of Bush”.