Oh my goodness, this seriously needs to be a global sort of thing between all the major servers around there. Seriously, however, I do want to perform in formal debates. And here how it works for me (School debater alert)...
So, there are two groups of debaters, the proposition, and the opposition.
The proposition proposes a subject that they believe should be most recognized, for example... The proposition believes that this server should add this certain plugin.
However, the opposition is the team that disagrees with the proposition, and they debate against the proposition towards the certain subject.
Each group has three people in it. Which include the following:
The first speaker,
The second speaker,
The third speaker,
And reply speech.
The first speaker mainly introduces their group and start out with making their points towards why they are for, or against the certain subject. Usually, the proposition team begins first, so basically the first speaker of the proposition is the first speaker for the whole debate.
The second speaker evaluates some of the points their fellow speaker made (1st speaker) and make new ones, while they rebuttal the speeches the opposing team made by counterpointing their ideas and all that with theirs, remember, there has to be a reason towards why you intend to counterpoint their argument, don't just say "Your idea was bad, and you should feel bad".
The third, and final speaker is the strongest speaker of their group, they evaluate all of their group's points and possibly add more detail, sometimes, if they want, they can add a couple extra points, however it could be counteracted in the reply speech. They also rebuttal the previous speeches of the opposing team.
The reply speech... It can only be performed by either the first, or second speaker, to finish up their points and evidence and information. The third speaker can't do it since they have performed last time. They can also rebuttal the other reply speech if they are the last speakers of the whole debate.
So here are the basic turns for each speaker...
1st proposition speaker,
1st opposition speaker,
2nd proposition speaker,
2nd opposition speaker,
3rd proposition speaker,
3rd opposition speaker,
opposition reply speaker,
proposition reply speaker.
The timings can vary from two minutes, to ten minutes. The average speaking time is up to at least 4 - 5 minutes. But, during a certain period of time during each speech (excluding the reply speech because it is finalizing points), the opposition are able to say "Point of information" if they have any questions to ask to the speaker. And the speaker can decide if the opposing team can make their point or not, by either saying "Denied" or "accepted".
For example, if each speaker were allowed to speak for a span of 5 minutes, they will have the first minute protected, meaning that the opposing team is not allowed to do point of information. The next 3 minutes, the speaker will have to accept or decline any points of information while making their speech. And the last minute is finishing up your speech and you are once again protected from points of information. Remember, it is sometimes good to answer any points of information, declining all of them could make you look weak! Usually, the timings differ and all that.
The time-keeper is the one who keeps track of time for each speaker and how long they have left. The time-keeper should also make a sort of noise, or knock if the speaker is available for points of information and when they aren't. So when the time starts for availability of point of information starts, the time-keeper knocks. And then when the point of information part ends, the time-keeper knocks again. Sometimes, speakers tend to be eager to speak way past their speech time, so the time-keeper knocks twice if the speaker reached the speaking limit and says "Final point, speaking time reached". So the speaker makes their final point and finishes off.
The judge is the one who keeps track of score, and points per speaker, so it requires a lot of responsibility. They need to look at certain aspects of each speaker to determine the amount of points they could get. Which include:
Presentation,
Content,
Overall speech,
and reply speech.
Presentation is for how well you present your speech, which mainly targets confidence, emotive language, and how well you do the speech.
Content is how much information you provide, and how well you provide it, as well as how reliable it is as well.
The overall speech is how well you managed your time, rebuttals, points of information and all that.
The reply speech is for only one person, and that is the reply speaker, it basically looks upon at the overall speech to finalizing their points.
This job as a judge tends to be stressful, as well as trying to count up the scores at the end of the debate as fast as possible, also, there are some judging/point sheet formats scattered around the internet, sometimes the aspects judges look for differ, or increase. I have had experience with it, and it wasn't easy.
Also, if you believe someone could be lying if they make a point, you could always do "Point of evidence" during the point of information time range and ask for any evidence they have gotten to support the point. But usually, it doesn't tend to work out that much...
There are some Youtube videos to help out for a formal debate, so here's one I found most intriguing...
Hopefully this helped out, but my goodness, I truly would love debates coming around, if you have any questions, you can private message me if you need to.
And here's my slogan for this...
"Don't hate, Debate!"
