When I host a debate on my channel I ask a few things:
- Substances
- Please don’t drink on camera. It’s best if you are sober, it’s a debate, you want to be sharp.
- Don’t do drugs.
- If you are going to do drugs, don’t do them during the debate, this alone is enough to end the debate.
- Family-friendly
- My family and kids watch what I do online, as do friends with their kids. No need for swearing. This expands the potential audience as well.
- Use this as an opportunity for creative expression.
- Take turns
- For a non-structured debate, we have time to explore a topic. Make your point, keep it limited to the current topic and give the other party a chance to talk without interruption.
- Keep on topic
- If the topic is the shape of the earth, there is no need to go into detail about other conspiracies. If you feel the need to reference something to support your current point, go ahead, but get back to the main subject.
- Be cordial
- If you have no evidence or wish to give up please signal this by using ad hominem attacks, unsupported claims, yelling, strawman arguments and similar techniques.
- Other ways to signal you are defeated:
- Claim the other person is “indoctrinated”
- Claim the other person is a paid shill
- Quotes need full context
- If you wish to include a quote from someone, start with a reference to the work containing the quote, then give direction where, in the citation, the specific quote can be found.
- Cherry-picking a single quote from the citation is not useful, the entire cited work will be completely available for reference.
- Support your claim
- If you make a claim, it is usually expected to provide supporting evidence.
- If you want to disprove evidence that has been presented, simply dismissing it is not sufficient, there should be evidence to support the dismissal.
- Be consistent
- If you demand a certain standard of evidence, it is expected you will use that same standard for any evidence you include.
- Being clear on the standard of evidence upfront is preferred.
MCToon 