I'd like to start a website for intelligent converstion/debate. It may or may not be affiliated with the high school I attend, but there is no school newspaper, so people at my school will probably be reading it. Does anyone have ideas for a setup? I was kind of thinking someone writes a researched paper, then people respond in intelligent supported comments/articles. This would avoid flames, and while some of the issues may be inflammatory, people responding would be required to keep a level head. Anyone have any thoughts?

Sounds like you may want to setup a weblog

http://www.blogger.com/start

KC

does a blog allow other people to respond with articles? do they have to have accounts to log in to respond? Other thoughts?

I'd go spend some time at iidb.org and debate a bit, get a feel for how it's set up, the membership you'll require, the guidelines you wish to set. Then you can start looking at the direction you wish to go for topics.

There you will find VERY good debate on almost every realm. Religion, politics, society, even science. It started out originally as a religious site, but has really done some heavy expansion into all areas of debate. And you won't find smarter people anywhere. It's fairly tightly controlled, but fair. A good model for what you are wanting to do. Just pick a territory you are not uncomfortable with(there are areas that I find hard to visit, but I just don't go) and dive in.

go for some kind of "popular intervention" with priestly higher thoughts disdainfully closed and sealed in a basket for foolishness which we can carry whenever we go , they are not going anywhere really ......

"books" had been published and republished for ages where it really comes to a kind of forever contemporary dead end where it just make no sense to write and to read for "books" again . Nothing served , only academically baked and let rot .
some weird and "out-off-their-mind" ever tried but failed , not necessary on the net but afterall the net is just part of modern life for many of us.
it is a difficult and heavy one where the majority of those well-learned one don't even dare to thread into or think about it , too much a muddy burden to get yourself soiled .....

not being deterministic in any way , just another possible redundant option for some ........


Good Luck to you who did sound genuine for me

the iidb.org site is kind of what I'm looking for, but not exactly. My thought was that people would be required to cite their sources, and have a fact based opinion. The problem is, someone would have to moderate it, and then you have the problem of personal bias against(or for) an opinion. Other thoughts?

how to do that ? and about your notion of "fact based opinion" , what is the problem that you had observed which you need to address with citing the original sources ?

one idea is that you could create a yahoo group. being the one who created it, you would be owner, and you can create as many moderators as you wish...one nice thing about a yahoo group is you can actually handle it through email, instead of actually visiting the site.

well, the reason for the citing of the sources was mainly to prevent people from spreading fake facts. Fact based opinion is kind of misleading. Obviously the posts would be opinion(what's the point of debate otherwise?) but they would have to be backed up by facts(in order to prevent redundancy and flames). Other thoughts? What about the moderation system?

what's your ideal measurement of "flames" and "redundancy" and , should i include , "decency" on a public meeting place like yours .........
afterall , these might set the "trend" for your moderation system .........

Setup something like geeklog or drupal, where you can moderate the articles, approve, etc...

geeklog and drupal are software that would allow someone to automate the process? I really don't know how I would install these, seeing as how I proabably won't be hosting my own site. Perhaps the school might host it though(hmmmm...). Other thoughts?

The actually have a forum with formal debate rules, two in the ring, qualified sources and all that jazz. Of course it takes moderation to do this, and you would have to dedicate an inordinate amount of time for what you are wanting to do...and then if you shop it out, you still have to deal with the different personalities of moderators. I'm sure the site owner at any forum could tell you the sheer headache of keeping everyone working together while trying to keep the original goals alive. Moderators have a tendency to want to steer, so you have to be careful.

Perhaps Jeremy could voice an opinion as to how to do this? Obviously he has some experiance in facilitating a large site Other thoughts? Geeklog looks like something that would work well. I'll check with the IT admin at my school and see if the school could host this.

microsoft/linux,

it's not a question of which software to use, but how you can manage a site like that.

Let me tell you. Even with twenty or thirty people you will have so many conflicting purposes, that moderation would quickly become a nightmare, no matter how much you stress on the rules/objectives/spirit of the community and so on.

As a previous poster mentioned, especially when you set the standards high, moderation will quickly become impossible to handle because everybody will be different and even moderators may or may not implement the kind of standards you set. Maintaining standards will become extremely tough if not impossible.

The only thing you can pray for is that you attract the right kind of crowd who will participate in the kind of community you wish to create.

That's why it's better to have a laid-back approach to moderating a community and allowing things to "flow" naturally. Otherwise all that moderation can quickly make things sore or worse, kill that community slowly.