The organized debate forums are now open for people who want to have specific debates with other members on specific subjects. This forum is for threads that are themselves debates, and the Challenges forum is for organizing debates and figuring out what you want to do.

I haven't seen something exactly like this elsewhere, so my advice is to try to set up some basic rules to agree on with your opponent based on how frequently you can log in and post, whether you want a definite endpoint to the debate, whether you should alternate posting, etc. Testing out different rules and posting them for others would help as well in trying to make an "online debate" work.

It would probably help as well to agree on a moderator, what that person should do, and things you should ask the "audience" to do (wait until the end to post? do it in a separate thread? post in between "rounds"? post in a different font?)

Some other ideas:

- you might want to poll on who was the winner afterwards or have a "wrap-up" thread to discuss the debate

- deciding on your topic can be important, and you might want to tell people what side you want to be on to find potential opponents.

- I have seen some people on here suggesting they are here to learn how to argue more effectively. You might try arguing for a position you don't believe in and seeing how you do.