Online Community Examination: The Economist Debates

I've passively followed some of the debates on The Economist's website for a few years now. By passively, I mean as--in web parlance--a lurker.  I've never posted a comment.  I have voted a few times in the "agree with the motion" or "disagree with the motion" but I've never felt interested/motivated or qualified enough to contribute a written opinion. I suppose this makes me a quasi-lurker, but I digress.

In general, the community is made of readers of the Economist and its website (the debates have been regularly plugged in the print magazine), but it can also include guest luminaries and pundits varying by the subject of debate.

Purpose:


The debates are designed as an enhanced forum for traditional Oxford style debate. A motion is proposed by the "house," and the debate is whether to "agree" or "disagree." At the end of a series of  phases, a winner is declared by the editorial staff (the "moderator").  The debates tend to focus on issues tangent to current events. As such, the Economist can present a number of related archived stories, featured agree/disagree opinions by expert or celebrity commentators, and yet another forum for expert but objective commentary on the points made in the user forums and by experts.  As a whole, the debate forum as The Economist presents it allows participants to further educate themselves on the facts of the situation presented, and provides exposure to the breadth of opinions presented the (assumed) most capable pundits and its readership. In the classical sense, the purpose of this website is education via a dialectic.

Product:


Although the site is mostly textual, it does what I feel is a fairly good job of presenting the multitude of information surrounding a debate in parallel. Although dense, the site is organized professionally, adhering to design concepts argued for by Redish, Williams, etc. That said, a fair amount of literacy and openness to moderated argument is assumed of the site's readership.  While flame wars have been present in the forums, they are far more polite that what one might find in the comments section of a CNN.com article, with most forum posts beginning "Dear Sir," or "Dear Moderator." Rarely are comments directed at specific posters. (This may be against the Oxford Union-house rules that the forum is modeled on. Regardless, it is effective.)

Process:


Debates have five parts: Overview, Opening, Rebuttal, Closing, and Post-Debate. Each of the latter four phases marks the closing of the forums for that part, the starting of a new forum, the inclusion of new expert pundits, and additional commentary by the moderator. Forum members can change their agree/disagree votes at any time, and the votes are charted daily up until the closing phase. This is very unlike other online forums that may be moderated, but are not closed off into temporal sections of discussion. While an online thread on, say, Brett Farve's love life on a Viking's Fan Site, has the potential to go on into perpetuity, that this forum is designed to actually come to some sort of moderated conclusion on a social, economic, or political issue makes it somewhat unique.

Has a debate ever changed my opinion? Not completely.  I have never found myself transitioning from the "agree" to "disagree" or vice versa, but my view on the topics presented have always ended up more nuanced, more complex than prior to following the debates. This house proposes that this makes this community an effective, intriguing one, both for the quality of its presentation and the occasionally thought provoking post in the floor forum.