Judging a Forum Debate

You should have a quick reference to a list of "logical fallacies" as a starter. Then they need to determine if the point of judging is on the quality of the debate or the substance. (i.e. whether the people are debating "properly" or whether one side has better proven their point.)

Then it becomes a matter of which side is able to prove the point of debate the most authoratively and convincingly using the fewest number of logical fallacies.

Back years ago I judged one and simply awarded 1 point for a proof/counter, 0 for a non-proof statement and a -1 for each logical fallicy.

The hard part, IMO, was not getting invested in the debate itself. If person "A" posts a comment and provides a reference it isn't up to the judge to judge to quality of the reference. It's up to the opponent to counter the comment with their own evidence. If the opponent doesn't challange the comment then it stands even if it's entrirely bogus.

I had to judge one via two members in one of the homosexual threads arguments - one thing I notice is you must read their arguments carefull. How embarrasing it would be if you pointed out some "error" which one of them never committed!

Which post is it? I am interested now.