There's a reason why Mike Wong and others always preferred on setting time limits for their debates. As Mike once pointed out to Lord Edam,Gandalf wrote:I disagree, there is no reason to set time limits on a debate unless it is some kind of academic exercise.
A "see how it goes" approach only works if the losing party is willing to admit that he's losing, and that rarely happens. It is up to readers to determine later who they felt to be the winning party based on the exchange, and if one debater cannot make his point within the allotted time, that's as much a reflection on his performance in the debate and the validity of his point as anything else.
Moreover, while you may have enormous amounts of spare time, I do not. Unlike you, my job does not give me time to participate in newsgroups during work hours. I also have a wife and two kids to take care of. It is a major imposition on me to commit myself to one of these debates, and I simply cannot commit to an open-ended debate. Unlike you, I have schedules and commitments to worry about, hence my desire to set aside a fixed block of time for this event. I had hoped you would be able to understand this.
There's a difference. If I recall correctly, they both said that they were using websites for a basis, however, that can only get you so far. Eventually, when the debate goes out of the range of what the websites cover, that's where it's up to the debaters to come up with their own argument beyond what is available to each of them already. And do note that my comment was in the context of having a time limit. If you have one of the participants that has a group of people that is actually coming up with the arguments for them on the fly, then that is an unfair advantage.Gandalf wrote:And if Dragoon is using a website as a basis for his arguments than his opponent should be able to ask for help. Although the least he could do is formulate the argument into his own words rather than cut/paste.