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New Debate Format
I enjoyed the debate. But @flicker and @metalheaddoc proposed a new format that I think deserves its own thread, hoping the candidates pick it up. With small edits, this is how it might work:
Each candidate gets an automatic chess clock: 60 seconds per turn. At the end of that time, the camera and mic for that candidate ARE TURNED OFF. We want to hear expressed thoughts, not snark. If someone wants to attack someone else, they do it on their own time. And when someone is using their time, the other mics are turned off.
Everyone sits around a table. Topics/questions are proposed from verified commenters in the audience — crime/climate/Ukraine, etc. — and an algorithm/AI picks them in order of audience interest. There might even be questions that get upvoted in the comment feed, directed at specific candidates.
In this way, moderators do not run the show. The questions are not planted. People get to speak. We kill cross-shouting.
What do you think?
Published in General
Brilliant! Since participants would be encouraged to be thrifty with their time, I think it would also encourage them to drop their canned remarks and get to the point, should they actually have one.
Yes. They always run past their time because they know that they can get away with it.
My idea was a little bit more free-form. All candidates sit around a round table. There is a moderator to maintain order with a well-applied gavel to an offending candidate (mostly kidding). They have a time-remaining clock in front of them with activates when they speak. Each candidate gets 10 or 15 minutes — for 10 candidates, 15 minutes each, if they don’t talk over one another, that’s 2 1/2 hours. They can use that time any way they want. Some quips can take 5 seconds, or a real answer may take three minutes or more.
(Perhaps every 15 minutes all mics will be turned off except one in rotation, allowing a candidate to make a statement important to him and his campaign, to which all the others can then respond. Or, each candidate could be given 3 minutes each for five rounds. And the end of each round the candidate who has spoken the least will naturally be able to use his remaining time to say what he wants without interruption.)
But after they’ve reached the end of their time, their mic will no longer work and they will no longer be heard, so they must be considerate and concise. There is no order of speaking; it would be like a formal argument session. Candidates would know not to interrupt because they would only be spoken over and they’d waste their time, though they could interrupt another candidate. The mic’ed moderator could give warnings and brief time-outs with the mic off to the unruly participants.
They do not even need to remain seated, but firearms will be checked at the door. Just kidding about the firearms, but I do think this format would give people a knowledge of not only candidate’s position but also how they interact with others and perhaps how they might build consensus.
I think the Republican Party–I don’t care what the Democrats do–should run their own debates on their own server. Republican debates should be run by us for us. No network television. And the primaries should go back to being run and paid for by our own party, by us and for us.
I want them isolated in soundproof booths, so they cannot hear each other or the audience. It would look like Hollywood Squares. (credit CTH for visual) In part II, it becomes a Japanese game show with buckets of muck dumped on candidates based on audience reactions.
I don’t want to diminish the candidates. I want to promote their ability to intelligently express themselves.
I proposed something similar for two person debates a few years ago. Sounds ok to me.
As of this moment Tucker’s interview with Trump has exceeded 217 million views. Any word on the Fox News debate ratings?
This is not apples to apples. People who watched a snippet is not the same thing.
Ah, 51 million viewers.
https://x.com/mattwallace888/status/1694767187074949279?s=61&t=GhQMhuKuXj-TjIfKhOBVUQ
Well, I clicked the link and this is the reply..
Your account is suspended and is not permitted to perform this action.
It’s been a while since I logged in. 51 million – 1.
If nothing else, mics should be turned off when the bell rings signaling the end of someone’s allotted time. That would impose some discipline.
First things first, what we saw last night was not a debate. It was a rotating press conference, in which each candidate was asked a different question and allowed 1 minute to respond (so they had to spew out their talking points), and the rest devolved into a free-for-all so that every opponent could get air time. It may be entertaining (for some), but it was only insightful or informative by accident. Having watched politicians actually engage in debates decades ago while acting like adults, the carnivals we have to sit through these days simply leave me disgusted.
So let’s have a debate.
First, let’s halve the number of candidates on the stage to three or four. This is the third or fourth cycle trying to accommodate a multitude of candidates, it’s always a circus, and it’s just a waste of time.
[If we must allow also-rans an opportunity to get name recognition, how about we skip the farce and just have a rotating opportunity on prime time for each candidate to get 10-15 minutes to introduce themselves to the primary electorate and take a few hard questions? That can’t possibly be less useful than the silliness on display last night.]
Second, have each candidate respond to the same question, and allow them three or four minutes for a response, and a rebuttal after all other candidates have spoken. For anyone going over their time, turn off the mike. Allow the candidates time to frame an argument, and maybe even attempt to persuade voters for a change.
Third, the RNC should be able to structure the debates so that each has a primary focus, rather than covering the same ground over and over again. Each debate would consist of four to five questions, in order to provide time for each candidate to provide an answer and rebuttal, followed by a final statement.
Lastly, eliminate the live audience if they can’t shut up.
Yes. But in my debate, time used is aggregated, not sectioned off bit my bit for each given topic. People want to argue, let them argue. They should just know beforehand that they have only ten or fifteen minutes to make all their points over the next two hours.
Twitch, the streaming service, sometimes has streamers who, for example, install Windows XP.
They do this by sampling the comments in the live-chat and comments that are more than x% of the last y minutes get included. This is automatic.
Do a tiny bit of automated moderating for “is this a question” “that generates answers appropriate for public television” might be able to get some good audience participation. Add to that each candidate answering the same question, and actually debating a bit, and that could be a good forum.
Look out for the crowd though. That twitch streamer who installed Windows XP? He started the project intending to install Linux, but the crowd got away from him, even typing one keystroke at a time. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/twitchs-latest-idiotic-adventure-installing-linux/
I no longer watch politicians debate, at least not live. I will listen to recaps the next day by my favorite commentators.
For some, they are entertaining. But they aren’t serious.