Mon
Live7–9pm
The People's Debate · you are the judge
Who won? You decide.
In Search of Better Debates™
Bring debate back — and bring it forward. Most debate hands the verdict to one judge in one chair. Invert it. Record the debate, stream it here, and let the people score it — two sides, one room, and the only jury that can't be bought: everybody who watched.
One judge can be wrong. A room that actually watched is a lot harder to fool.
The format & the week
Two sides take the floor on a real question, in The McKendry Debate™ format (1-on-1, Lincoln-Douglas lineage) — recorded and live-streamed here, 7–9pm. Then the verdict goes to you: who won, who lost. The curator takes the floor himself to start, and seeds debaters until debate camp is real.
Tentative, audience permitting — start small, earn the crowd. No debates on Sunday — that's for football and the Lord. The house puts itself on trial Saturday nights instead: 🔥 Roast the Site, Saturdays 8pm, weekly.
The lineage — credited. The house format grew from Lincoln-Douglas and from MIFA, the Michigan Interscholastic Forensics Association (Public Forum, Policy, Legislative; PF/Policy are two-person events) — full credit as the foundation. The house's own clock is The McKendry Debate™ — 10·5·5·10 (10-min constructive · 5 cross-ex · 5 rebuttal · 10 prep), then the public votes. Topics & resolutions announced each week. See the full format → · the live clock ⏱
The rules
The public is the judge. Not one chair — the whole room. You watched; you score it.
Voting runs 48 hours, then closes. Each week's windows shut Sunday.
Don't vote if you didn't watch the debate. A verdict from someone who didn't see it isn't a verdict — it's noise.
No suits. You don't need the costume to debate — you need to know how to debate. Come as you are; the only dress code here is honesty.
Clean streams. No copyrighted music in the background — it gets a debate muted or pulled off the platform. Original, licensed, or silence only.
First names only. No last names, no titles, no credentials to wave around — just a person and an argument. It levels the floor and it's a layer of privacy. Your name's yours; guard it.
13+ to watch. Real debate, real people — language may happen. Parents, that's your call to make, and at least we said so up front. (The site's age gate is honest about it.)
No lying — house rule #1. That includes the count. A result you can't trust is worse than no result.
📏 You must be this old to debate
13+ — sorry, I didn't make the rules. (okay, I made the rules. still: 13+. ;)
A resolution to chew on
What a topic looks like — and the first one's on the house, straight off the research desk:
Resolved: requiring a law degree to sit in judgment is gatekeeping, not quality control.
Aff: the JD is a money-gate — law school is expensive, and eight states already let non-lawyers judge. The credential isn't the qualification.
Neg: judging the law takes real legal training; competence is how you protect the people in the room. A gate can also be a standard.
Two real sides, no obvious winner — which is exactly what makes it a debate, not a dunk. You'll judge it.
Why it isn't live yet — on purpose
A public vote is only worth something if it can't be stuffed. Bots, ballot-box-stuffing, ten votes from one person — that turns "who won" into a lie, and lying is the one thing this house won't do. So the voting engine is being built to count honest (a real backend, one-human-one-vote as best as it can be enforced, the 48-hour clock) — and the league opens the day the count can be trusted, not before.
🛠 Phase one is this page — the format, on the record. Phase two is the honest engine — recorded/streamed debates + a vote that can't be rigged. We don't ship a fake ballot just to look launched. Earn it.
Where the house stands. The format and rules here are real and the curator's. There is no live vote yet, and no debate results are invented or implied — the public-voting + streaming engine is in build, and it ships only when the count is trustworthy, because a riggable vote would break house rule #1. The one rule holds: no lying — including about who won. Sister rooms: Why We Need Debate Brought Back, The Fallacy Wing.
Go Debate™
Warm up solo on the clock — then bring it to the room that votes.