I see no reason why Jarus should not continue to manage the debates.

Are previous debaters barred from participating again as debaters?

I recall I had also suggested the following topics -

1. The unity of Nigeria: negotiable or non-negotiable?

2. Federating Units: To revert to regions, decrease the number of states, retain 36 states or increase the number of states?

3. Special Status for Lagos: Yes or No?

4. Presidential Terms of Office: To limit to single term or retain double terms?

5. Corruption: Shall we introduce the whistle-blower reward commission system?

6. Immunity in the constitution: to remove or retain?

7. Constitution - Political Roles for Traditional Rulers?

8. Mayoral status for Abuja

I would like to add -

9. Legislative Reform of the CBN - desirable or simply negative politics?

Deep Sight:
Are previous debaters barred from participating again as debaters?

Not at all.

OAM4J:

Not at all.

Yippeee! In that case I am interested in the January debate. But of course I will happily step away for other volunteers if there are enough of them, since I have participated before.

Let me however warn the mods that you had better consider me a default volunteer for every debate concerning this country every month, lol.

Deep Sight:

Yippeee! In that case I am interested in the January debate. But of course I will happily step away for other volunteers if there are enough of them, since I have participated before.

Let me however warn the mods that you had better consider me a default volunteer for every debate concerning this country every month, lol.

We will miss you in the religion section.

Deep Sight:

Yippeee! In that case I am interested in the January debate. But of course I will happily step away for other volunteers if there are enough of them, since I have participated before.

Let me however warn the mods that you had better consider me a default volunteer for every debate concerning this country every month, lol.

I loved your incisive and well-informed analysis of issues in the last debate. It would be great having you around for the January edition...

Jarus: Ok. Lets get this rolling.

Yipee! Ok, count me in.
I'm debating against the motion, that is, if you guys finally settle on the topic.

Let's finalize on some issues:

DATE: Saturday, January 26, 2013

TIME: 7-9pm Nigerian time

TOPIC: We have up till end of tomorrow to choose one of:

State of residence or state of origin?

Legislative Reform of the CBN - desirable or simply negative politics?

The unity of Nigeria: negotiable or non-negotiable?

Special Status for Lagos: Yes or No?

Or any other topical subject:


Lets's decide on which to go for before end of tomorrow (Wednesday) so we can settle for debaters and put up the debate thread.

I vote for Legislative reform of the CBN or in the alternative State Residency. Indigeneship.

Bump.

So what's the way forward??

The thread seems to have been abandoned by the organisers, so I will take over the management of the debates on the short term.

After doing some research, I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to officially put afam4eva in charge of this debate.

Like everyone else, I would have liked to have Jarus continue because he has done a great job. However, since he is no longer a moderator, he would need to collaborate with the current moderators to get things done. However, considering the fact that he resigned from his position when one of them was appointed, I think it's unrealistic to expect them to collaborate with him very well.

Fortunately, I have observed Afam4eva's efforts to take over from Jarus, and I believe he has what it takes to do even better than Jarus. I have offered to appoint him as the moderator in charge of official debate contests in the politics section. I hope he accepts my offer so we can start working to make the debates even better than they were.

No comment.
No facial expression either.

Seun: After doing some research, I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to officially put afam4eva in charge of this debate.

Like everyone else, I would have liked to have Jarus continue because he has done a great job. However, since he is no longer a moderator, he would need to collaborate with the current moderators to get things done. However, considering the fact that he resigned from his position when one of them was appointed, I think it's unrealistic to expect them to collaborate with him very well.

Fortunately, I have observed Afam4eva's efforts to take over from Jarus, and I believe he has what it takes to do even better than Jarus. I have offered to appoint him as the moderator in charge of official debate contests in the politics section. I hope he accepts my offer so we can start working to make the debates even better than they were.

So when is the next debate? Will we still have a January one or would it be February.

Seun, with 1 million members and millions more in terms of guests on your forum, you need to realize that you have a HUGE PUBLIC platform for WHATEVER you want to say. Your forum alone gives you a louder voice in this society than most politicians would ever have. I am not exxagerating when I say that one day, if you choose to become Nigerian President, merely announcing your candidature on this forum would leap you massively ahead.

As such, you must recognize this for what it is: not just an AD bizness; it is a VOICE.

You can make of that voice what you will bro.

But it starts with taking little things like the debates seriously.

You have done very well, and if I was Bill Gates; I would make you a huge offer to buy this forum from you.

What's up guys? What's the way forward? I guess we will have to postponed this month's own like we did that of last month.
Helloooo! Can anyone hear me

ujchief: What's up guys? What's the way forward? I guess we will have to postponed this month's own like we did that of last month.
Helloooo! Can anyone hear me

jarus should be left alone to perfect his craft otherwise this dream would soon become a nightmare. for 2 months running now, there's been no real move made to continue the debate. i doubt afam has the chutzpah to organise this ish. let the pioneer continue his work and afam can observe or mediate from a distance.

coogar:

jarus should be left alone to perfect his craft otherwise this dream would soon become a nightmare. for 2 months running now, there's been no real move made to continue the debate. i doubt afam has the chutzpah to organise this ish. let the pioneer continue his work and afam can observe or mediate from a distance.

I share your opinion, but the ish may not be unconnected to the fact that since jarus has resigned as a mod, it might be difficult or impossible for him to hide posts and collate judges scores since its an exclusive ability for mods to hide posts and ban offenders.
The beauty of this debate lies in its coordination, and only a mod can have that exclusive ability to keep things moving. Otherwise, jarus would have been the best to keep the flames of his project running.
Anyway, whatever is the way forward, I'm all in!

I'm pleased to inform you all that Afam4eva has agreed to manage the debates.

We're working on some fresh ideas, such as:
- holding the debates weekly instead of monthly so that they'll have more impact and more people will be able to participate.
- eliminating the entire process for selecting winners and allowing Nairaland members to make up their own minds about who won or lost each debate or whose position is right. (No more official winners). One advantage of this is that it will make the debates easy to run so we can run them more frequently. it will also eliminate the possibility of picking the wrong winner due to one form of bias or the other. It will push more people to read the actual arguments carefully to make up their own minds about who 'won' instead of just relying on the official result. It will encourage contestants to make their debates more down-to-earth so that they can be understood by average Nairaland members too.

What do you think about these ideas?

ujchief:
I share your opinion, but the ish may not be unconnected to the fact that since jarus has resigned as a mod, it might be difficult or impossible for him to hide posts and collate judges scores since its an exclusive ability for mods to hide posts and ban offenders.
The beauty of this debate lies in its coordination, and only a mod can have that exclusive ability to keep things moving. Otherwise, jarus would have been the best to keep the flames of his project running.
Anyway, whatever is the way forward, I'm all in!

jarus' name is a brand!
people are excited when they see him coordinating stuff like this. in the sports section, he's doing something similar with the player rating in the cup of nations - he posts his opinion and people either argue for/against his prognosis!

i agree it's become difficult as he's no longer a mod but he can always be in contact with afam/oam4j through the private message and ask them to remove/add posts! how is this difficult. that afam is now the mod does not mean he can do this better - he can also be better than jarus at other stuff jarus is completely clueless about!

These are my inputs:
1) It will be tedious, if not impossible to organize a weekly debate. The process of debate entails selecting a topic, appointing judges, selecting contestants and then the actual debate. All of us have life outside Nl and keeping up with such weekly activities might be tasking, both on the side of moderators, judges, contestants and voters.

2) I still don't understand the correlation between Nairalanders selecting (or electing) the winners and the points you listed as the advantages of the new method.
$your polling system isn't working, and manual collation of votes is tasking, both in the part of mods and we the floor members that might try to ensure a due process.

3) Lastly, I've witnessed several events requiring voting here in Nl, most of them turn out ugly. there's always room for someone to believe there's foul play somewhere; and don't over-estimate those visiting the politics section of Nl, not all knows what a good point entails. So they are misled to either join the crowd, or vote out of sentiment; be it religious, tribal or ethnic.

Thanks. I will make more inputs and suggestion later.

Seun: I'm pleased to inform you all that Afam4eva has agreed to manage the debates.

We're working on some fresh ideas, such as:
- holding the debates weekly instead of monthly so that they'll have more impact and more people will be able to participate.
- eliminating the entire process for selecting winners and allowing Nairaland members to make up their own minds about who won or lost each debate or whose position is right. (No more official winners). One advantage of this is that it will make the debates easy to run so we can run them more frequently. it will also eliminate the possibility of picking the wrong winner due to one form of bias or the other. It will push more people to read the actual arguments carefully to make up their own minds about who 'won' instead of just relying on the official result. It will encourage contestants to make their debates more down-to-earth so that they can be understood by average Nairaland members too.

What do you think about these ideas?

A weekly debate is already daunting as it is, rather a roundtable discussion (if something like that actually exist) will be more appropriate. Seun, just stick to the monthly debate.

Allowing NL to make up their mind is tasking. How are you gonna deal with folks with multiple ID's? How are you gonna deal with people who feel the need (vendetta) to vote against the contestant? How are you gonna handle the date collating system? There's just too much trouble with every NL trying to vote... Unless, you're trying to bring the voting system back, and restrict it to active members.

IMO opinion, every debate doesn't have a winner nor loser but based on what has been argued, how much are people swayed by the argument. For me o, I'll eliminate the winner/loser scenario and introduce a more friendly approach if the people agree or not.

As for the arguments, they are very and super lengthy that most times, it just makes it too difficult to read, I'd say limit the wordings to a limit. There are people who can argue precisely but keep it short and interesting.

We are sorry to have kept you guys in the dark about the politics section debates...It's my privilege to announce to you all that the debate is not gonna be left to die. I want to thank you for your support and we also want to extend our hands of fellowship with Jarus who have done very well in keeping with the tradition of the debates which he was instrumental in it's existence and hereby thanking him for a job well done

Having deliberated with Seun on the way forward, we've made some changes to the debates...

- The debates will now hold every week instead of every month and it will hold on the 3rd day of every week which is on Wednesdays.

- If you want to be a contestant, you have to signify by making your position known with a few paragraphs of original text on the debate topic

- No winners will be chosen. contestants will just be allowed to make their position known.

A debate without a winner is dead. Let just call it Round Table Discussion or Monthly Intellectual Reasoning.

Afam4eva: We are sorry to have kept you guys in the dark about the politics section debates...It's my privilege to announce to you all that the debate is not gonna be left to die. I want to thank you for your support and we also want to extend our hands of fellowship with Jarus who have done very well in keeping with the tradition of the debates which he was instrumental in it's existence and hereby thanking him for a job well done

Having deliberated with Seun on the way forward, we've made some changes to the debates...

- The debates will now hold every week instead of every month and it will hold on the 3rd day of every week which is on Wednesdays.

- If you want to be a contestant, you have to signify by making your position known with a few paragraphs of original text on the debate topic

- No winners will be chosen. contestants will just be allowed to make their position known.

Ngwakwe: A debate without a winner is dead. Let just call it Round Table Discussion or Monthly Intellectual Reasoning.

A matured debate shouldn't be about winner or loser, that is so high school reasoning. Real debates is all about convincing your audience and being able to sway their votes(if election) towards you.

Winning in this context is not the opposite of losing, it's just an acknowledgement that a debater provided some superior/better points to support his argument for the topic being discussed.

manny4life:

A matured debate shouldn't be about winner or loser, that is so high school reasoning. Real debates is all about convincing your audience and being able to sway their votes(if election) towards you.

What's the rationale behind the proposed "No-winner" policy??

Ngwakwe: Winning in this context is not the opposite of losing, it's just an acknowledgement that a debater provided some superior/better points to support his argument for the topic being discussed.

Huh? Winning in this context means, your work is better than mine (irrespective of the audience input), that's what it means, let's not sugarcoat it. Well, if that's the case, why don't you let the audience decide (in real life causes), who delivered the best, superior point not only to support the argument but win over the audience? As for me, it isn't about the argument, but the audience. I've heard of debates that were boring and had factual information but lacked that "WOW" effect on the audience... so what gives?

GARRI (x7):
What's the rationale behind the proposed "No-winner" policy??

The rationale is unconnected with the fact that Judges will always be biased for a particular argument. Take for instance you're a judge for a debate topic titled "Is Garr1 the best food in the world?". You're most likely to score the person supporting the motion high because you're also a garr1 advocate and will most likely agree with some of his points. I hope i'm making sense.

Ngwakwe: A debate without a winner is dead. Let just call it Round Table Discussion or Monthly Intellectual Reasoning.

Sounds cool

Afam4eva:
The rationale is unconnected with the fact that Judges will always be biased for a particular argument. Take for instance you're a judge for a debate topic titled "Is Garr1 the best food in the world?". You're most likely to score the person supporting the motion high because you're also a garr1 advocate and will most likely agree with some of his points. I hope i'm making sense.

Has that been the case or is it just a preemptive measure??

While minor errors in judgement and a level of bias cannot be ruled out, I still believe that if credible individuals with a track record of objectivity and logical reasoning are selected to act as judges, the effect of such bias will be minimised.

Judges could also be selected from diverse backgrounds such that the final outcome will not be swayed by individual bias..

Whatever the case, I'm willing to give these new policies a chance.

Trying something new wouldn't really hurt anyone..

I wish you all the best as you plan and organise the January 2013 debate...