Welcome to Debatepedia!

Debatepedia is a wiki encyclopedia of pro and con arguments and quotations in important public debates from around the world. It is considered "the Wikipedia of debate", helping the world centralize arguments and quotations found in millions of different articles, essays, and books into a single encyclopedia, so that citizens can better understand important public debates and make informed choices. Join this cause and community and become an editor of the site. Your efforts will improve your own thinking and have a major impact on the way thousands of other citizens draw conclusions. Debatepedia is endorsed by the United States' National Forensic League. Get started

Browse through Debatepedia's main categories to explore its contents and areas of interest to you. Go to Debatepedia's contents page to see all of its categories, portals, and other contents.

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Portal pages are pages you and others can create to act as a "portal" into a particular subject area on Debatepedia where you can get links to articles, understand what the community is working on in the field (and join in), and to gain a better background knowledge of that area.

These are a critical component of browsing on Debatepedia.

• IDEA Summer Institute 2008
• British Parliamentary
• World Schools
• Lincoln Douglas
• Public Forum

Welcome to the 2008 Debate and Citizen Journalism Institute!

This portal page on IDEA's Debatepedia will be your home base for the next three weeks. Here you will find information you need, resources you can use, and examples of the work coming out of both the debate and the citizen journalism tracks. To find this page from anywhere else in Debatepedia, just search "institute" in the search bar.

• Check out the CJ Learning Blog!
• Join our Institute Facebook Group!

For more information on the Institute, click here.

• Idea Houses - IDEA is attempting to develop Idea Houses in selected locations throughout its network around the world to promote civic participation, youth-community interactions, and debate and dialogue.
• Karl Popper Debate Judging Handbook
• Hall of Fame - A pantheon of famous figures in the world of debate, that you can help build.
• Debate in the Neighborhood - A youth voice project lead by IDEA that was piloted at the Open Society Institute.
• IDEA launches Idebate.ñ--the first international magazine for youth advocates en español!!

Debatepedia is a small, but growing community of editors. The tasks involved in producing this encyclopedia of debates and arguments are large and important to the community. In order to oversee these tasks, we need to establish a core of administrators on the site with the special powers to regulate the work of the Debatepedia community. Consider editing on Debatepedia and working toward achieving the trust of the community and earning the status of an administrator. Contact Brooks Lindsay to nominate yourself.

At the end of each week, Debatepedia honors an exceptional volunteer editor on the site, by featuring them on the main page. Find out how you can achieve this honor here.

• User:Ali Ali has made great contributions to the NAFTA debate article in the last couple of weeks, earning him the editor of the week award.

• Past editors of the week

• There is no evidence that GM foods are unsafe "The real GM food scandal". Prospect. November 2007 - "The fact is that there is not a shred of any evidence of risk to human health from GM crops. Every academy of science, representing the views of the world's leading experts—the Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Brazilian, French and American academies as well as the Royal Society, which has published four separate reports on the issue—has confirmed this."

• Past 'Argument of the Week' Topics

• Make a comment on the community forum
• Suggest a debate
• Create a debate
• Earn editing rewards
• Collaborate on debates
• Compete against other debaters
• Join the Debatepedia.org facebook group
• joining the Debatepedia mailing list.

Debatepedia is partnering with the Economist.com, structuring and archiving their new Online Debate Series. These are great demonstrations of how Debatepedia's pro/con "logic tree" can break down a topic for enhanced deliberation.

• Proposition: Governments and universities everywhere should compete to attract qualified students, regardless of nationality or residence (December 12-23, 2007)
• Proposition: Continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education - Took place in October of 2007.

Lincoln Douglas Debate

• 2007-2008 NFL LD national finals topic: Resolved: Limiting economic inequality ought to be a more important social goal than maximizing economic freedom
• 2008 March/April NFL LD debate topic: Resolved: Hate crime enhancements are unjust in the United States
• 2008 January/February Lincoln Financial Group/NFL LD Debate Topic: Resolved: It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a military threat
• 2007 November/December Lincoln Financial Group/NFL LD Debate Topic: Resolved: In the United States, plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust

Public Forum Debate

• 2008 National Tournament Public Forum Debate Topic: Resolved: US policies established after September 11, 2001 have substantially reduced the risk of terrorist acts against the United States
• 2008 April Public Forum Debate Topic: Resolved: That the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 will successfully mitigate economic slowdowns over the next year
• 2008 March Public Forum Debate Topic: Resolved: The US system of presidential primaries is contrary to democratic values
• 2008 February Public Forum Debate Topic: Resolved: That Russia has become a threat to U.S. interests
• 2008 January Public Forum Debate Topic: Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice
• 2007 December Public Forum Debate Topic: Resolved: That the United States would be justified in pursuing military options against Iran
• 2007 November Public Forum Debate Topic: Resolved: That eliminating United States government budget deficits should be prioritized over increasing domestic spending

Policy Debate

• 2008-2009 Policy Debate Topic Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energy incentives in the United States
• 2007-2008 Policy Debate Topic: Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa

A daily supply of high quality debates to help you deliberate, take a stand, take action, and back yourself up.

• Democratic peace theory - Is the democratic peace theory correct? - Posted July 18th, 2008.

Recent Daily Debate Digest Topics:

• Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Was the US bombing of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified? - Posted July 17th, 2008.
• NATO, Expansion of - Should NATO continue to expand into East Europe and possible beyond? - Posted July 16th, 2008.
• European missile defense - Is the planned US missile defense system in the Czech Republic justified? - Posted July 15th, 2008.
• European Union Expansion - What are the pros and cons of EU expansion and of EU membership itself? - July 12th, 2008.
• China "one child" policy - Is China's "one child" policy justified? - Posted July 10th, 2008.
• Banning cell phones in cars - Should all cell phone use in cars be banned? - Posted July 9th, 2008.

Past Daily Debate Digest topics

Here's a list of debates with tasks you can help with. See the getting started tutorial to learn more about how to edit.

• International trade reduces conflict
• Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as a war criminal - This article is brand new. It first needs a pro/con resources section. See the getting started tutorial.
• Single-Sex Schools - This article needs an expanded pro/con resources section.
• Rehabilitation vs Retribution - This article needs some sections reformatted, and its con resources section developed.
• Liberal vs Labor in Australia - This is a brand new debate that needs facts as content. See the pro/con resources on the page to get started.
• Banning religious political parties - This is a new debate with no content. Start by building a pro/con resources section and draw arguments and quotations from these resources, documenting them on the debate page.
• NAFTA - Pro pro/con articles at the bottom of this article need to be read and argument-quotations from them need to be cut-and-pasted into this debate article and its argument pages. Some arguments also need argument summaries or summarizing-quotes.

• See Editing Tasks for more tasks that you can help with. And see the full list of underdeveloped debates on Debatepedia that you can help develop.

• Recent changes - To see the most recent changes on Debatepedia
• Debate collaborations - To join future debate-building collaborations.

As a wiki like Wikipedia and an open-source movement, Debatepedia's socially important content is developed by editors like you - students, citizens, debaters, professors, experts, and thinkers. Here's why you should join our community of editors:

• Help yourself deliberate as a citizen: As an editor, you can engage intensely in deliberating on the most important issues and debates you care about.
  
  Debatepedia's enables you as an editor to ideally frame, in its "logic tree", the salient arguments and evidence so that you can deliberate effectively.( Browse contents) And, if a debate of interest to you doesn't exist, but that you want to deliberate on, you can create it.

• Help thousands of other citizens deliberate: In the same way that you can help yourself deliberate more effectively by framing arguments and evidence on Debatepedia, you can also help thousands of other citizens that read the articles you contribute to. This public service is highly important, and worthy of the respect of your readers and peers. If you are an expert, scholar, or debater in any area, consider volunteering your time for these reasons.

• Affect decision-making: Debate articles are held to the objective of achieving "briefing quality" (or feature debate status), and can and will be used by leaders and their staff to weigh the pros and cons and make decisions. This is people to power.

• Join an editorial community of like-minded scholars, students, debaters, advocats, and thinkers: By acting as an editor, you can develop a profile and communicate with other editors, and join a vibrant community of like-minded citizens.

Because Debatepedia is a wiki, it depends on building a community of editors. Here's some ways for you to join in:

• Read the Getting started tutorial and become a more advanced editor.
• Copyedit an article - fix spelling, grammar, and make small edits.
• Build content Help research and write pros and cons on debates you care about. Start by researching and reading pro/con articles outside of Debatepedia, and quoting arguments made by the authors as pro/con "evidence" on Debatepedia.
• Suggest or start a new debate article. If you think a new debate should exist on Debatepedia, you can suggest it on the Community Forum or you can simply start the article yourself (you don't need permission).
• Patrol Recent Changes To see what changes are happening minute-to-minute, go to the recent changes page, and join a real-time editorial effort on an article.
• Follow your interests. What debates are you interested in? Read and build-content around those interests.

• A wiki just like Wikipedia where anyone can edit and document debates, arguments, evidence, quotes, studies and more.
• 7,417 articles. Debate pages, argument pages (for supporting evidence in the form of quotes, studies, links...), encyclopedia pages, team pages, and organization pages.
• Over 450 existing, well-developed pro/con debate articles from IDEA's famous Debatabase, written by expert debaters and professionals over the past 7 years (now you can edit them).
• A growing community of 2,307 idebate.org registered users.