Welcome to the Chamber of Debate! This forum is designed to be more formal the the other forums. It has more structure, and is more strictly controlled. Here's how it works:
Anyone can read the debates in the Chamber, but only those participating in a debate can post there. Before the debate begins, the rules for the debate are agreed upon (number of posts, time intervals, judges, etc.), and these will be posted in the initial post of the debate.
A parallel thread will be created in the Discussion forum, where other users can comment on it. Once the debate is completed, a poll will be added to the Discussion thread to get the popular verdict. The Debate thread will be locked after the judges ruling is presented (if judges were involved; otherwise, it will be locked after the final debate post).
If you'd like to start your own debate, you will need to organize a challenger, and select judges if you'd like to use them. Once everyone has agreed, PM the moderator with your complete rule set, and they will set it up.
Just to be clear, anyone who wants to debate can debate! The extra control isn't designed to make the forum exclusive, just to make debates a little more. . . debate-like.
So, have at it!
EDITED: revised 5/29, see below.
EDITED: revised 12/7/2015 for readability
EDITED: revised October 3, 2016 to remove reference to "rules", because people don't like rules as much as they like explanations.