I wanted to bring up the topic of:

I really like the debate idea.

@JonEricson I do as well, wondering if assigning someone to rebut and giving them a 2 paragraph limit would work?

@waxeagle Hmm... So instead of writing an ordinary comment, this would go into the body of the post?

I was thinking more of having an email exchange that gets converted to a blog post.

For instance, @Peter Turner and I could exchange emails on how the church ought to view Mary. Or something.

@JonEricson yes.

@waxeagle Would the assigned person have an advanced copy of the post? How would we decide who gets assigned?

@JonEricson yes, they'd get it a couple weeks before publication with their rebuttal due a week before maybe?

assignment is harder, maybe you just pick, or we go next one down the list or something

@waxeagle Part of the problem I have in comments is that I don't always have a strong opinion or good reasons to oppose other folks' posts. My "rebuttals" might end up looking more like affirmations.

@JonEricson I'm thinking that after picking the topic there would be something of a natural split. For example, we couldn't have a debate between @Peter and me about the value of bishops and hierarchical church structure, because we'd be on the same side.

@JonEricson It may simply be that on most topics we are generally in agreement but express things in different ways. And discovering that through a debate format can be valuable, I think.

@JonEricson certainly potential. But maybe you choose to highlight an aspect the OP missed/didn't cover

@BruceAlderman Agreed. But I think the debate format would need to be more fluid than just a rebuttal paragraph or two.

@BruceAlderman And I wouldn't be helpful in a debate about which structure is correct. ;-)

@waxeagle I guess I'm not sure how that's different than just having comments.

@JonEricson it's not really all the different. The only thing it might do is get the debate kickstarted. We're still in spitball mode here. I don't think we'll be back to our normal format until January

(unless we want to be)

@waxeagle On that topic: how are folks coming along with their stories? Does someone need to create a bunch of accounts on blogoverflow?

@JonEricson I probably need to change some permissions, people just need to log in...

@waxeagle Nice! I'm glad the revamped login process is helpful.

@JonEricson yeah. Going to go comment on testimony volunteers now

Anybody mind if I flip the Google signup page around so we don't have to scroll to the bottom to sign up.

@PeterTurner I'm good with that, or you and just edit out the past

@waxeagle Sure, it's not like it's not saved in revisions anyway.

@PeterTurner that's what i was thinking :)

@waxeagle Wow. I have some past that I'd like edited out. What power! ;-)

@JonEricson talk to Peter :)

Two of the guys I work with always leave their large swaths of commented out code in subversion, takes a while to break that habit.

@PeterTurner Yeah. You never know when you might need that printf diagnostic statement that helped you find that one bug or the 48 line function that was just doing the same thing that some library call does better.

I've got that sort of junk in my codebase too. :-(

BTW, I'm totally up for a great debate format, but it can wait. Would it be too narrow or naive to just have 3 Catholics on one side and 3 Non-Catholic, Non-Orthodox, Non-Mormon, Non-Jehovahs Witness, Non-Unitarian, Christians on the other?

@PeterTurner maybe? we really need like a 5-6 way battle royale format

Catholic v orthodox v mormon v JW v unitarian v fundamentalist v souther baptist (non fundy) v Calvinist

@BruceAlderman lol

last one standing gets to engage in the Jewish v Christian v Muslim v (any other semetic religion that wants to join) battle royale for title of Abraham's true heirs

@waxeagle And the winner of that one gets to battle the winner of Buddhism v Confucianism v Hinduism v Sikhism v Taoism

The last one standing is the One True Religion. Then there will be no question.

It's the only objective way to settle our disputes.

@BruceAlderman And if that doesn't work: paintball.

Might be interesting to see something objective and encyclopedic like a comparison between the Westminster Catechism, the Catholic Catechism and the Methodist Book of Discipline etc - at least where they line up to tackle similar issues. I didn't even know Protestants had anything besides the Bible until I started poking around this site.

Maybe that's already been done?

@PeterTurner I'm honestly not sure, i'm sure someone has done it, but I'm not sure how well (or if we could do better)

@JonEricson I would be very interested in a debate format. After writing my "essay" last month, I will be very reluctant to ever do it again! You wouldn't believe how long it took me to write. Ugh... I feel nauseous thinking about doing that again.

@Jas3.1 speaking of which we need an author for this month :)

What we are each bringing to the table is our understanding of our own perspectives. We want to contribute for the purpose of making our point - not for the purpose of working for C.SE full-time as a blog writer. The debate format allows us to make a concise case for our position and respond efficiently - all without quitting our day jobs.

In my opinion, we should try to find a way to do the debate format without tying the authors up for the whole month (or longer); perhaps collaborate on answers or take turns with the replies? It's just an idea... but that way if someone couldn't write one week, another person could take a stab at a reply.

Another possibility would be to open a chat room for a given topic, get a bunch of folks involved in the discussion / debate, and then edit and post for the blog. Not sure if that would work - just another idea that came to mind.

@Jas3.1 Yeah. I'm a terribly slow writer. To give you an idea: it took me 5 minutes to think of this chat message. ;-)

@JonEricson Hah. I can reply quicker (often without thinking), but crafting a

...case in point...

@Jas3.1 An edited chat debate sounds workable.

..."polished essay" is hard!

@Jas3.1 I only do it because it sharpens my thinking.

@JonEricson The thing I like most about that is that it would provide an "outlet" for folks on this site who aren't allowed to have extended discussions in "comments", or debate in "answers", and can't get others to join them for a specific back-and-forth in "chat". We could even pick a question from the previous month which seemed to have a lot of heated debate in the Q&A / comments...

But we would need to figure out how to get some of the other folks (Mike, DJClayworth, Jay, Marc Gravell, etc.) involved, since folks like them (us?) seem to gravitate toward the in-question debates.

In other words, "debate" doesn't work well on this site (presently), and it's been a frustration of mine since I started contributing here. (And I know I'm not alone.) It's frustrating to read a rebuttal-comment to your answer, attempt to reply point-by-point, only to have a mod tell you that you're not allowed to do that... and a couple of weeks later, the whole comment-discussion is wiped! This would provide a means for thoughtful, formal, moderated debate for "the rest of us"

@Jas3.1 Yeah. Comments are meant to be temporary. Chat rooms are (counter-intuitively to me) more permanent.

We have tons of rooms but there's no easy way to find anything there. Maybe we could do a blog post that summarizes discussions we've already had, with a promise to do more over time.

@JonEricson that's not a half bad idea.

@JonEricson I wasn't even aware they were "saved"; I thought they disappeared when they were closed. But regardless, it's not very formal, etc.

@waxeagle It's not half-bad, it's all-bad. Har har...

@Jas3.1 once a room get a certain number of chats it won't be deleted. afte 14 days of inactivity any room will be frozen, but can be unfrozen by a mod (and maybe a room owner, not sure on that one)

Also, I don't want to read through pages and pages of back-and-forth to find out that half of it was based on misunderstandings or lack of articulation... you know how chat-room discussions go... If it started in a chat room and were then edited, however, it could be good, concise reading for others.

@Jas3.1 right that's Jon's idea, 2+ users get in a room, hash it out in chat someone comes along and condenses it into a blog post

@waxeagle Ah. Yes - that sounds great. I wouldn't want to do the editing though (!)

I just found The Census. There's not enough entries there to be useful...yet. ;-)

Male, 30, heretic.

Regarding blog debates: I wonder if we could also utilize the Q&A functionality to vote on responses to each argument along the way...

@Jas3.1 not integrated with the blog at this time and no way to keep it off the main site where we've largely tried to avoid debates...

...For example, in C.SE or meta we could ask "what are the most prominent Eschatological positions?" Use the highest-voted answer(s) to frame the debate in Week 1; Concisely state the position of each of the most prominent (2-3?) positions. For each (e.g. Amillenialism), post a separate question: "Counterarguments to Amillenialism?", vote, concisely post the highest-rated counterarguments in Week 2, etc.

In other words, rather than relying on an individual to thoroughly think through a position, we could present the common replies using the consensus of the C.SE (or meta) community

(by "common" I mean "best"... too late to edit)

@JonEricson I unfroze it if you want to pimp it

@Jas3.1 Little known fact, G.K. Chesterton dictated everything he produced once with nearly no editing including an entire history of England. Probably kept his spirits up.

@waxeagle Since I am in the process of writing a book on this topic, I suppose I should volunteer. It will have to be concise, though - I don't want to spend a week writing it. If anyone else decides they want to write for this month, please relieve me, though. :p

@Jas3.1 concise is fine :)

Can you add me to the list for now? (I lost the link) You can title it "The Divine Standard: Are you getting the picture?"

@PeterTurner That explains a lot. The man could have used a good editor. (But I don't mind having the stuff that would have been left on the floor--it's better than most everything anyone else wrote.)

@Jas3.1 FYI: docs.google.com/document/d/…

But we have you on record and you can't wiggle out of your commitment now! :-P

(Peter removed this month already.)

@JonEricson lol @PeterTurner put this month back :P

@PeterTurner LOL @ "How “Left Behind” made me want to be more Catholic" ... Peter, that movie made me want to be more Catholic!

@Jas3.1 Personally I don't believe the rooms are "saved" if they don't endure to the end.

@waxeagle Turning chats into blog posts might be a good way to get more participation on the blog. A lot of people who haven't volunteered for the blog are frequent chat participants.

@BruceAlderman I believe they suffer a heat death first, unless resurrected.

@JonEricson lol