From: Hermit (virus@hermit.net)
Date: Wed Oct 01 2003 - 13:08:23 MDT
Given Mermaid's reaction to my last positive response to one of her suggestions, the fact that she knows that I have been involved in debating for years (JCs, Toastmasters, University, Forum and managing Interschool and IRC debates) yet has not approached me, that I don't want to seem to be appropriating or treading on her (generally good) idea, I am reluctant to step up to the firing line, but I think that somebody who knows a bit about debating needs to raise a point of information here. As nobody else has spoken up, I reluctantly intervene.
Mermaid, when you say, "Parlimentary rules" do you mean all 277 pages (excluding the index) of the current Robert's rules as revised (ISBN 0-7607-1646-3 or (cheaper) ISBN 0-7607-1734-6), or do you mean something else? It seems to me that in establishing your "Fishy Format" for "Blindfolded Players" you have already bypassed Robert's on a fair number of rules and made others irrelevant. So how do debaters and viewers know which rules apply and which do not?
If you do mean Robert's rules, who will chair, and how will you apply the rules in a forum where there is no control over who can speak, in what order, what they can say, when they can say it, and, where so far as I can see, nobody knows what rules will apply*?
As a further point of information, people tend to speak at a rate of 180 to 200 words per minute, and this might be a good multiplier to use when extrapolating debating time into a "word-limit".
Hermit
(Who isn't volunteering to debate with an unknown partner against unknown opponents with an unknown chair of unknown capability under unknown rules - and who will not risk arguing the "wrong side" of a motion on a topic where he has strong opinions, in a forum generally incapable of separating argument from the speaker.)
*Hermit notes that the format for formal debate per Robert's rules is included in the FAQ: #debate channel on irc.lucifer.net:6667 (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid=26335), which also has links to the 1915 version of Robert's Rules(link checked and active 2003-10-01) (http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror--00.htm), which might give you some idea of what is involved in formal debating.
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