Any interest in a book debate?

MadArchitect · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 1:35 pm Post subject: Any interest in a book debate?

Mr. P and I have been tossing around ideas for staging a book debate. Any interest?

We're still tossing around ideas concerning the format. The basic idea is that we would, as a group, choose a book -- nothing too daunting, but something with enough meat in it to give us something to talk about. Two people would volunteer as the debators, one person would volunteer to moderate. The debators would read the book, and then debate some question or questions related to the subject matter of that book.

There are still lots of questions to answer as to how the debate would be handled, and we're looking for input. For instance, BookTalk has nifty new chat software which allows for moderated chats, but there are also some benefits to conducting the debate through a regular thread.

It's an idea that can be fun if we do it right, but we need some interest before we really move forward. Let us know what you think.

Chris OConnor

I'm really excited to see you guys putting in the effort to make a debate a reality. The opponents do not have to be BookTalk members. Feel free to pull from other sources. ::80

Chris OConnor

This belongs in the BookTAlk News and Development forum, doesn't it? Maybe I'm not seeing things from the right perspective. Let me know what you guys are thinking. I can leave it here or move it.

MadArchitect

It might get more attention there. I don't think anyone even checks this forum anymore. Hello? Hello! See?

Dissident Heart

I like the idea.

I like utilizing the Chat Software for the actual debate.

Perhaps we can create a thread for the book where we can identify the issues/themes/questions and rules for debate? This can help us prepare the parameters for discussion and help the Debators be well informed for Debate.

This is also where we can clarify who the Moderator and Primary Debators will be, as well as the time/date of Debate.

This raises the question of including mutliple Debators, or limiting it to just two with a Moderator. Perhaps we can have teams for Debate?

I suggest one book, a small one, but full of chutzpah and a very definite point of view:

Government in the Future by Noam Chomsky. It could be read in a good, solid afternoon and it challenges damned near every notion of government, politics, freedom, democracy and the threats we face when these issues are driven in malicious ways.

Chris OConnor

When I have a few minutes I'll figure out the chat software and assign each of you in this thread moderator powers. These powers would only pertain to the chat room and I believe I can delegate them to just one chat room. We can create a permanent chat room for debates.

MadArchitect

Dissident Heart: Perhaps we can create a thread for the book where we can identify the issues/themes/questions and rules for debate? This can help us prepare the parameters for discussion and help the Debators be well informed for Debate.

I had something similar in mind. My line of thinking was that the debators would email the moderator from time to time and let him know what parts of the book interested them, what parts they disagreed and agreed with most, and so on. That would give the moderator some sense of what subjects would make for the most interesting debate and would allow him or her to formulate a question or two that could serve as the topic of the debate.

For example, if we had chosen "The End of Faith" as the subject of the debate -- and let's say that DH and Mr. P were the debators -- and that I was serving as moderator... As they're reading, they would each email me from time to time, telling me their general thoughts about what they were reading. Neither would know what the other was saying about the book, but I'd be taking it all into account. Now let's say that DH had mentioned the following three things:
- he disagreed with the thesis of the whole book;
- he was interested in Harris' discussion of Islam;
- he thought it likely that certain of the religious examples Harris mentioned probably did require some reform.
And let's say that Mr. P's emails mentioned these three things:
- he mostly agreed with the thesis of the book, but thought Harris' arguments were weak;
- he was glad to see someone calling out Islam for harboring so much violence;
- he thought that the major problem in most of Harris' examples was not faith itself but that people treated faith as a public good rather than a private choice.

My first task as moderator (aside from reading the book), would be to look at those points and compose a question that would set the tone for the whole debate. I might decide on something like, "How, if at all, could modern religions be reformed to better suit the ends of society?" Personally, I think that would be a better topic than the second one, about Islam, mostly because it doesn't require that we look for secondary sources outside of the book we've chosen to debate. It's also a bit smaller than the question of faith itself, which makes it a little more manageable. I'd announce that topic a week or two before the actual debate so that people would have some idea of what the debate will be about and can go ahead and think about the topic a little.

That's just an instance of how I saw this working, but I'm definitely open to other formats. I think some sort of private communique before hand is better than a thread, mostly because I think a thread is likely to leave us little to discuss in the actual debate.

This raises the question of including mutliple Debators, or limiting it to just two with a Moderator. Perhaps we can have teams for Debate?

We might be able to work that out, although there's no way we'd have enough people to do that now. Almost no one has shown any interest in the debate itself so far. At the moment, we have just enough people to have two debators, a moderator, and an audience of one.

Chris OConnor

The entire idea sounds exciting to me and I'd love to see it happen. I'm especially encouraged by seeing several of you putting it together. Mad, your idea sounds great. It does require quite a bit of work though, so maybe something simpler to test out the new chat room would be ideal at first.

Any interest in simply helping stir up interest for a community chat scheduled a few weeks in advance? We could come up with a theme or topic, but members could approach it more casually. Having a full chat room (10+ members) would enable us all to learn how to use this chat software, and expecially the moderation features. We need to master the mod features before we try to have a real debate.

But I need help and am always running low on time. Some evenings I am working on real estate till 3am. I'd really like to see someone take charge (Mad?) of this and stir up interest and manage the entire project. For me to do so on top of running our polls and dealing with administrative stuff means I have zero time left to actually enjoy BookTalk.

We really need to have 10 members logged in and actively using the chat software all at the same time. The goal would be to have one mock guest and several moderators. This could be for fun and to learn all of the important features. I give special powers to the guest and to the mods, just like we would do if we had Richard Dawkins as guest in our chat room.

The guest name would be in a different color and remain at the top of the list of chatters. The mods would also be in a special color or have an avatar signifying their role as mod. We need to learn how to do stuff like this.

I need to learn how to "gag" or prevent people from public chatting during specified times, such as during the first hour of an Author Chat.

The way moderated chats usually work is chatters submit their questions to one or more moderators. The mods screen the questions and then post them in an upper window for the Guest/Author to read and reply to. Nothing appears in the upper window other than the text typed by the mods (questions) and the text typed by the Author (answers).

A window on the bottom half of the screen can be for open discussion. Anyone in the chat room can use the bottom half of the screen.

I have options. I can make it so that the entire screen is for the Q&A between the mods and the Author OR make it the split screen as mentioned above. I think it would be confusing to have a split screen during author chats.

The better choice, in my opinion, would be to have an Author Chat start at lets say 9:00pm. For the first few minutes, maybe 10, we have an open chat session. All chatters can say hello to each other, greet the author, and generally socialize.

At some point we go into moderated chat where I click a button and gag the room, other than the author and designated mods. All members can then start submitting questions and/or comments to the mods. Or they can just sit and enjoy the Q&A. The beauty is the room won't be cluttered with off-topic discussion between members, which does make an Author Chat chaotic and frustrating to authors. This is why we are paying for this chat software. After a few chaotic Author Chats where I was embarrased by the mess I decided to hold off on Author Chats. We now can handle them again.

At the end of the moderated chat session I thank the author for their time and then ask them to hang out for a few extra minutes so members can say their thanks and goodbyes. I then click a button and we're back to open chat. In time the author leaves and we all can discuss the session for as long as people like.I can then post the chat transcript to the chat transcripts page.

We need to practice! We need a full chat room where we can really test things. I'd really love to see 20 or more members involved. One person can pretend they are the guest, 3 are mods, and the rest are chatters.

I'd love to see this happen before we have a formal debate. We could always combine these ideas and use a debate as theme for this practice moderated chat.

GOD defiles Reason

If you do your book debates in a thread, you wouldn't have to rely on all the participants to gather at the same time, and it could span over any allotted period of time.

MadArchitect: It's an idea that can be fun if we do it right, but we need some interest before we really move forward.

If you guys already have 3 or 4 people interested, there's no reason not to carry on with your idea because others aren't expressing interest.

Are you guys thinking of having a book debate about a book other than the current discussion book? If so, I think you could also have debates about the discussion book. A thread could be started for "Book Debate Ideas" within the current book discussion forum, and by the time the book reading period is a third or half way done, you'd have a pretty good idea who was interested in debating what topics.


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