No it can’t. A debate is a collective series of statements to establish a definite proposition.
We could rename The Pit, “Abuse”, or “Getting Hit On The Head Lessons”
Love it.
or “Argument Clinic”
You’re not wrong about formal debate, but we clearly define it differently here for GD and currently we’re going with the definition in the rules for GD. So might as well try to let it go and adjust to our abuse of the word.
I’m a bit surprised that you think a debate forum doesn’t need debate rules. That’s what would make it different from every other forum we have. As it stands now, almost nobody posts there and there has to be a reason. I think that reason is that people have never wanted to actually debate anything here. It’s always been all opinions all the time.
Instead of trying to hang on to an underused forum out of nostalgia, just change the name to something appropriate and use it for all the breaking news and poster bad news threads threads. Doing that will put an end to the continual complaints of having serious subjects involving life and death in a forum that’s headed Mundane. It would also help threads from being crowded off the front page in MPisms, which is an actual thing, unlike GD.
I think it could also be because it’s already too rigidly-structured. That’s one reason why I rarely post there.
Renaming MPSIMS would be a better solution IMO but we have a different active ATMB thread on that subject.
The opinion of someone who has posted some 20 times in GD over as many years is not terribly interesting or relevant to those who actually use and enjoy it regularly.
Yeah, I suspect that enforcing official debate rules (however that would work, if it could even be done) would reduce posting in Great Debates even further.
As for why “almost nobody posts there,” I suspect that the existence of the Politics and Elections forum is a big reason. But some other things that may or may not be true and, if true, may or may not play at least a minor role:
- Many of the posters who used to frequent Great Debates have either been banned or drifted away.
- Many of the Big Questions (in philosophy, religion, etc.) have been debated often enough in the past that nobody can think of anything new to say about them that hasn’t already been debated there in the past 20+ years.
- The SDMB has become more monolithic and less welcoming of opposing viewpoints than it used to be.
- Board culture and/or society in general is less tolerant nowadays of offensive opinions and contentious claims, so people are less willing to (or in some cases forbidden from) debating some of the hypotheses they might have in the past.
And/or probably some other things I haven’t thought of. I do think that some of the things that once would have been posted to GD are now showing up in IMHO because that forum seems less formal and intimidating, but I don’t know why that would have changed over the years.
For what it’s worth, I went and looked at a couple past snapshots of the Great Debates forum on the Wayback Machine, to see what kinds of threads we used to have there. I’m not sure how enlightening that was, but if anyone’s curious:
Except that doesn’t do anything about having mundane stuff and serious stuff mixed together, no matter what you name the forum. Splitting the serious stuff off seems a better idea.
I already pointed that out. I think that’s the vast majority of the slow down. The Politics forum is very active and doesn’t have the rules laid out for GD.
I think one and two could be ruled out. Not that many people get banned and there seems to be no lack of repeating topics in any of the other forums.
Three and four no doubt contribute some, especially three.
Occams razor and all, I think people just don’t want to have to cite everything they post, which we can see by how few click throughs there are in other forums. Sometimes you even see a post that starts “I haven’t read the article linked in the OP” or even " I haven’t bothered to read the rest of the thread."
People just want to voice their opinions without cites so a GD forum that is barely used is just empty real estate that could be used to solve what seems to be the #1 complaint about forum names: Mundane and Pointless isn’t appropriate for a lot of subjects that get stuffed in there.
Keep in mind that if someone opens a cite in an anonymous tab, it doesn’t get counted. I usually do that as it may get around a paywall.
This is incorrect. In fact, the rules for both forums are exactly the same since 2020:
You’re an ex-sailor, aren’t you? When I first started at Sears, there were people who thought my supervisor (active duty, working part-time at the store) tended to be an arsehole. I thought he was one of the best sups I’d ever had – because I understood him.
Why? I don’t see how that matters. The threads aren’t infecting each other. The only reason I could see for separating them is if you needed special rules for different kinds of threads and so far that hasn’t been necessary. I think breaking that forum up is causing disruption for no reason. It’s a solution in search of a problem, and a solution that is itself a potential problem.
I wouldn’t want that. It sounds like a pain in the ass. I like how it works now; your opinion is just your opinion, and if you want to lend weight to it, add a cite.
But I guarantee you that people read cites. For evidence, see what happens to posters who provide bad cites or misrepresent what’s in them. We have multiple Pit threads for those individuals. If people didn’t check them, then that wouldn’t happen.
Guilty as charged, a Snipe no less.
I did not know that. Seems weird since a click is a click. Not sure why Discourse would care if it was incognito or not. Thanks!
They are certainly not moderated the same. Politics threads are often started without a solid point and wander all over the place.
Because that is the forum that most posters have a problem with and want to be separated. They don’t want to have a forum where someone’s cancer diagnosis is right next to the MMP. Surely you’ve noticed that?
Then you don’t want a debate forum. Debates are about facts, not about off the cuff opinions. Allowing a bunch of opinions in GD defeats the purpose. We already have a bunch of forums for opinions. Having another one is redundant.
We actually have a poster who is a long time debate teacher. Call him up and see if GD would pass muster for his high school kids.
And I guarantee you most don’t. Just pick a random thread, see how many have read it and compare that to how many times the links have been clicked. It won’t even be close.
I’ve read over 720,000 posts. I think I’m well qualified to offer an opinion on board use. You have posted all of five times to GD this year. Which is a perfect example of people not using GD.
Ironically enough, that’s your opinion which I’ve countered with cites. 
Untrue. GD requires a clear premise to discuss, and responses need to be on topic, all of which is rigidly enforced. Literally no other forum is done that way. (Except P&E, but that’s a narrow focus, it’s almost a sub-forum of GD.) I don’t think you understand how GD works.
Problem is, your cites fit almost every other forum we have here, again making GD useless. I’m pretty sure we’ve argued this to death tho.
Of course not, it’s completely lacking moderators and judges.
The only scoring to be had there is to run up internet points by frustrating others. Which is exactly why that is such a common tactic. The “winners” of most of those debates would be the first to be disqualified in a formal high school style debate.
If you want to make “rules” for the forum, then I’d say that you can only post three times in a thread. You make your opening statement, you have a post for a rebuttal, and a closing statement. There is no back and forth in a formal debate.
Then I don’t know, have a poll to see who won?
That sounds dreadful.