Debatepedia:Community portal
From Debatepedia
]Welcome to the Community Portal
This is the central place to find out what's happening on Debatepedia. Learn what tasks need to be done, what groups can be joined, and get or post news about recent events or current activities.
You can do some of the following things here:
- Join and collaborate with the Debatepedia community!
- Discover what issues are hot and events going on around them.
- Seek and find guidance on ways to help with an aspect of Debatepedia (ie. research, editing,...)
- Find groups of interest to join and collaborate with in making Debatepedia more and more useful to the world.
- Seek and find help on anything on Debatepedia.
Also, make sure to go to Debatepedia's Community forum to discuss things related to the Community Portal and other things on Debatepedia.
Note: This section of Debatepedia is based off of Wikipedia's Community Portal. It may be helpful to refer to Wikipedia's Community Portal as a model that can help guide the development of Debatepedia's Community Portal.
]2008 priorities
- Content-building. The main priorities in 2008 revolve around topics that relate to the 2008 US presidential elections as well as the upcoming 2009 EU elections. In addition paying attention to the various debate community topics will be a significant priority.
- Community-building: Initiate numerous projects for stimulating the emergence of a community of editors on Debatepedia.
]Seeking editors and stewards of specific debates
- If you want to become the chief editor and steward of a debate, it's really easy. Just pick a debate, and notify Brooks Lindsay's user page that you are taking command of that debate as its steward or one of many stewards. Also, go to the discussion page of that debate, create a new subsection with two equal signs on either side "== ==" called Stewards of this debate. If you do a great job at this task, we will offer you administrative editorial status on Debatepedia, where you can edit any page on the site, including all restricted pages and the main page, as well as perform key executive functions such as blocking mischievous editors.
- We encourage you to become "stewards" of debates in the 2008 US elections category and the 2009 EU elections category, as we are engaging major projects around these elections.
]Become the chief editor/steward of an entire category/portal/or area on Debatepedia
We want Debatepedia members to become stewards and take charge of any of the below portals, categories, or other areas on Debatepedia. If you decide to take charge of a portal, category, or other area on Debatepedia, start a section called "Category/portal stewards" on the main page of these pages, and write your user name there, with a link out to your user page. (you can do this by signing with four consecutive "~"s. After you do this, write a message on Brooks Lindsay's user page notifying him that you are taking charge as a steward of that category/portal/area.
- In a category page, you will find links to articles that have been tagged as within that category. This is a useful way to quickly browse through all the existing articles within an area as well as to consider what new material is needed and that you can contribute. (You can tag an article as within a certain category (thus listing it automatically on the category page) by writing [[Category:(Category Title)]] at the bottom of the article.)
- In portal pages, you will find a general introduction to a subject area and links out to the debate-related articles within that field. These are pages where editors can frame a broader topic, such as "the United States", and organize its many sub-parts so that users can explore a topic thoroughly. They are also a critical place for you and other editors to consider what new pages are needed on Debatepedia, and what general areas are weakest and needing of contribution the most.
]Subject area categories and portals
When browsing through these categories, recognize that debate pages are categorized by "debate:" at the beginning. Argument pages are categorized by "Argument:". Actors pages are denoted by "debate:...(actors)".
- Philosophical / Political Theory: category, portal
- Constitutional / Governance: category, portal
- Politics and economics: category, portal.
- Moral and religious: category, portal
- Education: category, portal
- Culture: category, portal
- Sport: category, portal
- Law and crime: category, portal
- Health: category, portal
- Science and technology: category, portal
- Environment and animal welfare: category, portal
- International / Global Affairs: category, portal
- Peace, Security, and Human Rights: category, portal
- Historical: category, portal
]Regional category and portal pages
- United States: category, portal
- Canada: category, portal
- Central America and Caribbean: category, portal
- South America: category, portal
- Europe (EU): category, portal
- Balkans: category, portal
- Central Asia, Caspian, Caucasus: category, portal (Mongolia, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Caspian Sea, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan)
- Russia: category, portal
- Middle East: category, portal
- Africa: category, portal.
- East Asia: category, portal (China, Japan, Taiwan, North and South Korea)
- Southeast Asia: category, portal (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines)
- South Asia: category, portal (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Burma)
]Hot topic categories and portals
- 2008 US Presidential elections topics: category, portal
- Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: category, portal
- Marijuana: category, portal.
- Iraq war: category, portal.
- Iranian nuclear crisis: category, portal.
- Global Climate Change: category, portal.
- The future of energy: category, portal.
- North Korean nuclear crisis: category, portal.
- China rising: category, portal.
- War on drugs: category, portal.
- HIV/AIDs: category, portal.
- Disease and sanitation: category, portal
- Corruption: category, portal
- Trade and globalization: category, portal
- Internet and information issues: category, portal
- Biotechnology and ethics: category, portal
- Abortion: category, portal
- Homosexuality issues: category, portal
- Elections and voting issues: category, portal
- War on terrorism: category, portal
- Treatment of suspected terrorists, Guantanamo Bay, "enemy combatants"...: category, portal.
- Immigration issues: category, portal
- Islam and the West: category, portal
- Millennium Development Goals: category, portal
- Feel free to think of new categories and subcategories, and just make them. Learn how to do this here: Debatepedia:Creating New Pages.
]Debatepedia improvement teams:
- Fundraising forum and committee: Acts as a forum for fund raising ideas from any source. Develops and implements fund raising raising strategies for Debatepedia.
- Feature debate committee: Develops the criteria of "featured debate status", and judges the achievement of this status.
- Supporting evidence and citation team: Ensures that all arguments on Debatepedia have supporting evidence that is derived from reliable published sources. Points out debates that need help in this regard.
- Argumentation and logic team: Experts in the field of argument construction and logic, this group ensures that arguments are constructed in logically sound ways with, for example, claims being clearly supported by the warrants underneath them.
- Hot debate trackers: This team will be in charge of tracking the hottest debates and issues in the world from moment to moment.
- Debate prioritizers: Develops and innovates a framework for prioritizing the most important debates in various subjects.
- Cleanup team: Focuses on basic debate and article improvement, with such things as basic grammar, spelling, organization, links and so forth.
- Categorization team: Helps structure the broader categorization of Debatepedia debates and articles.
- Language translators teams: Helps plan and coordinate the translation of certain articles in one language to articles in another language.
- Software development forum and team A forum for new ideas, brainstorming, and implementation in the innovative software powering Debatepedia.
- Spam fighting team: Protects Debatepedia from its many vulnerabilities to spam.
]Become a Debate Steward:
Become a steward of a debate simply by going to that debate's discussion page, starting a stewards section, putting your name down in that section, and discussing with other users ways to improve the content of that debate. Your primary objective will be to work with other users to make that debate into a featured debate and/or of briefing quality.
]Community Bulletin Board: This is a place to post Debatepedia community news and notices:
]Community notices
- Debatepedia is launching following Labor day Debatepedia's merger with the International Debate Education Association and the finalization of its software project out of India are done. The final touches are being put on the new site, which will be launched following labor day. Get ready!
]Wiki news relevant to Debatepedia:
]IDEA lauches Idebate.ñ--the first international magazine for youth advocates en español!!
Estimados amigos, Quisiéramos convocarlos a participar en el numero lanzamiento de Idebate.ñ, el primer proyecto editorial en español realizado conjuntamente entre la Fundación Open Society Institute y la Asociación Internacional de Debate Educativo (IDEA). Idebate.ñ publicará su número uno en Febrero de 2008, que contará con una edición impresa de distribución internacional, más una edición electrónica que estará disponible a partir de Febrero en: http://www.idebate.org/es
La propuesta editorial de Idebate.ñ hace hincapié en las relaciones entre los jóvenes y el resto de la comunidad, y las problemáticas en torno a su inserción y participación activa en la ciudadanía. Utilizando como insumo principal experiencias de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil dedicadas al trabajo con jóvenes, Idebate.ñ abre un valioso espacio para el intercambio de información y recursos de capacitación, así como de experiencias innovativas en los campos de la educación para una ciudadanía activa y del abordaje de conflictividad en jóvenes derivada de la pobreza y marginación social.
Existen en América Latina—y en comunidades hispano parlantes de otras partes del mundo—numerosas organizaciones que realizan un invalorable aporte al mejoramiento de las condiciones y oportunidades de los jóvenes en sus comunidades desde su trabajo cotidiano. Sin embargo, este trabajo es a menudo poco conocido fuera de su área de incidencia inmediata. Idebate.ñ ofrece una oportunidad para que estas iniciativas se den a conocer en el ámbito internacional contadas por sus protagonistas, de manera de facilitar la construcción de redes organizacionales a niveles local e internacional, y amplificando así su impacto.
Quisiéramos entonces invitarlos a participar del primer número de Idebate.ñ, enviándonos artículos o materiales relevantes a las siguientes categorías:
· Debate y otras actividades educativas para jóvenes:
-Artículos sobre actividades de debate realizadas, o anuncios de eventos y actividades que tendrán lugar en 2008; materiales de capacitación y ensayos breves.
· Los jóvenes y los medios de comunicación: - Ensayos fotográficos, artículos, ensayos breves, reportes de eventos y actividades o anuncios de iniciativas relacionadas al uso de radio y medios electrónicos, tanto en la educación formal como informal de jóvenes.
· Participación joven en causas de interés social: - artículos, ensayos, reportes o historias acerca de campañas de interés joven y otras iniciativas participativas generadas por y/o para jóvenes.
· Idebate.ñ/ Directorio:
- La publicación incluirá un dossier con información acerca de instituciones dedicadas al trabajo con jóvenes—ONGs,organizaciones comunitarias, escuelas y universidades con programas extra-curriculares, etcétera. Aquellas organizaciones interesadas en formar parte del Directorio podrán enviar su información de contacto a Idebate.ñ, acompañada de una breve descripción de la organización y su misión.
Requerimientos para el envío de materiales:
Los interesados deberán enviar sus contribuciones en formato Word (.doc). Los artículos no podrán exceder las 4000 palabras. Toda imagen—cuadros, esquemas, fotos o ilustraciones—deberán ser enviadas por separado, como archivos de imagen TIFF, TIF, EPS o JPEG. Las imágenes de menos de 600 píxeles de ancho no serán publicadas.
Las contribuciones deberán ser enviadas antes del 11 de enero a hbonomo@idebate.org
El encabezado del mensaje deberá leer “contribución Idebate.ñ”
Si no recibe respuesta por parte de Idebate.ñ es porque su mensaje no fue recibido.
Si le interesa recibir la edición impresa de Idebate.ñ en forma gratuita, por favor envíenos sus datos a hbonomo@idebate.org. Para más información acerca de Idebate.ñ, por favor comuníquese con Hernan Bonomo por correo electrónico o por vía telefónica, a los teléfonos listados a continuación. Esperamos contar con su participación en Idebate.ñ!
]Debate in the news and politics: Post content related to how debate affects the real world here.
]Debated legislation:
]Issue-focused conferences and events coming up around the world:
]Debater's corner: Write and learn about what's going on in the competitive debate world
]Competitive debate topics in the air today:
- Resolved: Market mechanisms are preferable to regulatory approaches in reducing carbon emissions.(on Debatepedia)
]Competitive debate events:
- The People Speak Global debates, October, 2007 Resolved: Market mechanisms are preferable to regulatory approaches in reducing carbon emissions.(on Debatepedia)
]Help out now: Here you can find miscellaneous tasks that need doing on Debatepedia now.
]Important research and development tasks and projects:
]