I've posted this under "debate proposals" because I'm proposing a debate format. What I mean by real-time debating is a debate with very short time restrictions to ensure quick, concise, response. I've noticed that some members seem to enjoy the rapid back and forth of chatter, but due to the difficulties of holding intelligent conversations under these conditions, the discussions usually degenerate into trivial nonsense or banter quite rapidly. The conversation is no longer interesting. I, for one, would be very interested to see if some of these members could maintain an extended, intelligent debate, under these conditions.

The idea would be to have a topic, and an overall time period of perhaps an hour or two. If some participants enjoyed it, and became proficient, they might want to try four hours. Participants would have a limited time period for response, perhaps five or ten minutes, to keep the replies short and sweet. No editing. Some sort of round robin with three or more participants might work as well, giving the individuals a little more time between posts.

Afterwards we could hold discussion, and judgement. Participants would not be judged on "winning the point", as we know this is impossible. They would be judged on their ability to stay true to the topic, adequately interpret the opponent's points, provide coherent and intelligible replies, while staying true to the time constraints. And, on how well an overall knowledge of the subject is expressed. I think that some members here, engaged in such a debate could produce some entertaining reading material.

Start with easy topics. Any thoughts, or volunteers?