In this thread asking about what forum the board should get rid of, I amazed at the number of people saying we should get rid of Great Debates. I think that would so fundamentally change the board as to make its existence pointless. One poster in that thread said that “the rest of us” (meaning everybody but me, I presume) wpould enjoy the board just fine if there was no debating allowed. Is this true? I’m only going to make this a binary poll because I think it’s a binary question. Please do expound on your answers or offer your qualifications in the thread, though.
I don’t post there much, but it’s one of my favorite forums to read. It reminds me of Thanksgivings when I was a kid, listening to the grown-ups talk. 
Currently, I’m really enjoying the thread about offering drug addicts money to get sterilized. It sounds like a great idea to me. I’m willing hear the other side and change my mind, but no one’s convinced me yet…
Here’s my somewhat contradictory answer to your question as asked:
No, debating shouldn’t be prohibited.
Yes, Great Debates is a wasteland, and as currently constituted if I had to eliminate one forum that’s the one I would pick.
It’s a difference between the theoretical and the real situation on the ground. Debating is fine, and fits right into the mission of the board. But that’s not the reality of GD.
I’m surprised to read Dung Beatle’s comment about it being like listening to the grown-ups talk. I feel almost exactly the opposite. It’s probably the most sophomoric forum here, and in my opinion its primary benefit is to sequester the most unreasonable and disagreeable posters into one place where they can occupy one another. It’s the SDMB version of sending the children down to the basement to play so the adults can relax in peace.
No. Prohibiting “debate” would just result in dozens of posters getting frustrated over perceived double standards surrounding thread closings, warnings, etc. IMHO would be filled with folks seeing how closely they can toe the line. Look at how commonly the line is blurred between IMHO polls or poll type threads and true debate threads already - creating a rule against debating would just make this even worse.
If you get rid of Great Debates, you are prohibiting debates, by definition, since there will no longer be a forum for it. You can’t have it both ways.
Your characterization of the forum does not remotely fit my own perception, by the way.
I wouldn’t expect it to.
I love a good debate and don’t think it should be prohibited. However, there is a big difference between a “good” debate and the kind of debating I regularly see in GD, IMHO.
First off, when someone starts a thread they are setting the terms of the debate, but they are also engaging in it. If the thread is restricted by the terms of the OP, it’s already completely fucked because the debate has been constructed for one particular viewpoint. That isn’t a proper debate. That’s an argument against one guy’s opinion. It’s basically a slightly more contentious version of this forum.
Secondly, if somebody isn’t debating in good faith (such as ignoring cites) there just isn’t much you can do. There’s no standard of proper debate conduct. It’s just some guy with an opinion on the Internet who will likely never shut up.
Are there gems in the forum? Probably. I haven’t looked that deeply and just because I haven’t been impressed yet doesn’t mean good debates don’t happen. But it generally seems like fairly pointless arguing in circles.
People want to debate politics and religion. That’s not going to stop. GD allows all the debates to go in one place. If it wasn’t for GD, political debates would be happening in other fora. It’s as necessary to have a debate forum as it is to have a forum where people can flame each other. If you don’t like GD (or the pit) think of them as sewage overflow containment.
I think what some people might not get is that some people just really like arguing for its own sake, and aren’t necessarily concerned about resolution.
I also think there’s an element of people who don’t like debates for the same reason that fat kids don’t like gym. They aren’t good at it, and they perceive the people who are good at it as bullies for playing too hard.
Or they think strawmen are stupid.
FYI: Loved gym, like debates (enough to end up in law school). It is possible for people to have a different opinion from you without it being some sort of character flaw, Dio.
People have debates in Cafe Society and IMHO, too, they just tend to be a lot friendlier and debate-like. I gave up on reading Great Debates because I feel TheFifthYear’s assessment is pretty accurate. Very few GD threads are debates, most of them are (often very petty) arguments. I try not to invite that kind of toxic energy into my life if at all possible, so I don’t read the forum.
The only time I end up in GD is if an IMHO thread I was already reading gets moved there, and I didn’t notice. I might stick that thread out if things remain civilized, but once it’s moved all bets are off, really.
I do find it funny that Dio doesn’t think debate occurs outside of GD. I never read GD, yet I see him debating (or arguing… or, really, picking fights) all the time.
Anyway, if the question is, what forum could we get rid of that I wouldn’t miss, that would be GD. If the question is, should we ban debate entirely, I’d say no, of course not. I enjoy the CS and IMHO debates.
This isn’t really true and an illogical conclusion. A better way to think of it would be to think of it in the same way you would think of the changes to the Pit rules. Just as the PTB decided that we can’t call each other cunts or syphilitic pricks anymore in the Pit, they could also decide that they would no longer have a forum specifically devoted to people that have an inflated sense of their own intellect and are incapable of changing their minds about anything.
This does not stop people from debating issues with one another, rather it is a cultural change indicating that the same old same old is pretty freaking tired at this point, so give is a rest. See the difference?
I voted yes. GD is tedious.
My opinion of GD has changed since I changed the way I surf the boards. I used to go into each forum one at a time and open all the threads that looked interesting. I tended to avoid GD because of some of the reasons mentioned by other posters in this thread: Lengthy pointless debates with the same few people pulling out strawman arguments, etc.
Then I started using the “New Posts” link to surf the boards instead, and found to my surprise that I was interested in and participating in some pretty good GD threads along with all the other threads I read/post to. So, either I’ve become that which I feared, or GD really isn’t that much of a craphole in the first place. I suspect the latter.
I didn’t say it was everybody, I said there was an “element.”
Well, the “grown-ups” in my family are very unreasonable and disagreeable. 
I don’t see any difference at all, actually. The debates that crop up in other fora are typically no different than those in GD, and if you get rid of GD, but still permit debates in other fora, you’ll just end up with the exact same GD threads in those other fora. What’s going to stop them? What exactly would you be eliminating by eliminating GD?
The same old same old is getting pretty freaking tired at this point. Give it a rest.
Give what a rest? What are you referring to? What specifically would you like to prohibit? How should the new rules be worded?
The same old same old is getting pretty freaking tired at this point. Give it a rest.