Debate Digest: Teacher-student friendships on Facebook, Law school, Balanced budget amendment, US debt ceiling deal.

From Debatepedia

Revision as of 18:11, 24 June 2008

We are trying to expand our system by which we involve readers and volunteers in the tasks that lie before us. This section is dedicated to those ongoing as well as day-to-day tasks that you can help with.

Articles that could use your help

See editing tasks at the top of each article.

• Bill of rights in the UK - This article needs more con resources posted in the pro/con resources section; articles that advocate against a Bill of Rights in the UK.
• Banning Islamist political parties - Another article needing a pro/con resources section and for pros and cons to be drawn from these resources.
• Debate:Attorney-Client Privilege - There's a strong Wikipedia article that could be read on this topic. Arguments should be drawn from it, as well as from articles that are referenced in the Wikipedia article.
• Debate:Arts Subsidies, Abolition of - There is a good list of pro/con articles at the bottom of this debate. Read an article, quote from it, and then mark that it's been read and quoted.
• Debate:Armed pilots in airplanes - Another article in the beginning stages that needs, first, for the pro/con section to be further developed, and then arguments and quotations drawn from these resources.
• Debate:"Dont ask dont tell", gays in the US military - This debate is completely underdeveloped. We need to start by building a pro/con resources section.
• Debate:Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki - This debate is completely empty. It needs a pro/con resources section and arguments from there.
• Debate:Homosexuality - We need to develop this aticle, effectively, from scratch.
• Debate:Arranged Marriages - There are some arguments that need claims. A pro/con resources section needs to be created and arguments and quotes drawn from these articles.
• Debate:Confederate Flag, Banning of - This article needs a pro/con resources section and development from there. There is one argument that is far too long on the con side.
• Debate:EU Common Foreign Policy - This debate is from Debatabase and could use modifications listed on the article.
• Debate:Corporal Punishment (for Children) - Needs quotations from main pro/con sources. Debatepedia:Getting started tutorial#Writing_model_pro_and_con_arguments Needs arguments isolated and sub-debate sections organized.
• Debate:Polygamy - This debate is highly developed, but needs to be cleaned up. Also, it needs more quotations to be drawn from the pro/con websites on the topic and put into argument pages.
• Debate:DNA Database for Criminals - Needs arguments separated out, pro/con resources gathered, and arguments and quotes drawn from these resources.
• Debate:Marijuana for Medical Purposes - This debate is simply copied from the Debatabase, so follow the instructions provided on the page itself to advance it.
• Debate:Waterboarding - Needs a pro/con video section, more quotes, and a background section.
• Debate:Affirmative Action - Needs more quotations out on the debate page.
• Debate:Animal rights - Needs arguments that cross-apply from Debate:Animal testing to be transfered over to this article.
• Debate:Darfur, international military intervention - Needs a major overhaul, a pro/con resources section, many more quotes, and a major clean-up of wording.

On-going, important editorial tasks

See 'New, Underdeveloped Debates That Need Your Help' section on Debatepedia's main page

On a semi-daily basis, the Underdeveloped debate section on the main page should be updated now. For editoral tasks that

a) are the most interesting

and

b) need your help to edit them,

see this section for regularly updated editoral tasks.

Be a part of the Debatepedia community and start editing now!

Editorial skimming of Daily Debate Digest debates

Roughly every day, we publish on the Main Page's Daily Debate Digest a debate that is very good. BUT, BUT, BUT, we do this very quickly, as we are trying to build content at a rapid pace, and make plenty of mistakes. If you are willing to read these articles, search for mistakes, and click edit and correct them when you see them, that would be great, and would be highly valuable to the site.

Help publish a debate in the Daily Debate Digest

If you want to put your editorial efforts to high-impact use (where lots of people will read your work), one thing you can do is help publish on the Daily Debate Digest. You should go to the Daily Debate Digest Publishing Calendar, see what's coming up, and see what you can help with. You can put your name under one of those debates too, and "sign-up". You should prepare to help meet the deadline for publishing that debate on the Daily Debate Digest, and you can get ahold of Brooks Lindsay (Debatepedia:Contact), the editor of the site, to coordinate efforts.

Build debate background sections

Many debates lack background sections, or at least good ones. These are very important to introducing a topic. The way we've been doing this is to provide in one paragraph a brief introduction to the history of the debate and the context. In the second paragraph we've been presenting an overview of the questions that frame the debate and that readers should expect to answer in their deliberations. See the following example. http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:Clinton_vs._Obama#No These backgrounds are particularly needed in the Past Daily Debate Digest topics.

Build pro/con argument summaries

Realizing that many people want a distilled overview of arguments, we are opening pro/con argument summary sections at the top of debate pages. This is a great way to jump in, particularly because there are so many debates up with masses of arguments, but that badly lack this kind of pro/con summary.

Linking argument pages with counter-argument pages

You can open a section at the bottom of argument pages that creates a link (via the wiki code of [[ ]]) to a counter-argument. This makes it easier for readers to jump between arguments and counter-arguments.

Pro/con resources sections

Pro/con resource sections are an important part of any given debate page. They are the starting point for building debate articles, containing the main pro/con resources from which we can draw arguments, evidence, and quotes. Therefore, building a pro/con section list is a great way to get involved in helping the Debatepedia community. Check out the pro/con resources section at the bottom of this article: Debate:Iraq, withdrawal from as a guide of what it should look like. Click edit on it to view the formatting and coding for making hyperlinks. Emulate this when you create a pro/con resources section in another debate where it is needed.