I think your secondary purpose is actually the primary purpose, excluding sponsors, who I agree, usually set up the debate for entertainment.
Even if both sides claim that changing minds is the purpose, the actions show otherwise. The “change minds” or “reveal the truth” is a convenient lie, and one that’s actually believed. Plus, it would be tacky and uncivilized to state the real reason for the debate, best to claim a more noble imperative—and believe it.
Depending on how polarized the sides are, the audience is either mostly, or completely going there to watch a fight and root for their team. Although the audience may respect the other side if they play well, they’re rooting for their side getting in some choice jabs, resulting in a KO. I don’t think, leading up to the event, any side of a debate actually says “this will really change some minds!” No, it’s usually “we’re going to show them why we’re right and they’re wrong,” or some more sophisticated equivalent of “it’s beat-down time.”
I will grant that if one side comes off as incredibly foolish, some may abandon it, but how often does that happen? Betting on a side already makes a person more confident of that choice being the right one.
Dawkins and other aggressive-in-that-way atheists irritate me: they’re being very irrational about either their purpose or their approach. If they want more rational atheists, their chosen methods are very poor. If they just want to have pride in being right, and rallying their base, they shouldn’t keep up a pretense of spreading rational atheism. They want both, but they can’t have it.
I want to make a longer and more focused reply on what I see as the core questions: how can we change minds, and how should we? I’ve been wanting to tackle it here for a while, but I have trouble keeping up with this site.
Absolutely, linking really improves the resource.
A link for each major claim or background topic would be much appreciated. Sometimes I wonder if there shouldn’t be an original post layer, also containing the comments, and a wiki-ish layer, that could provide more links and notations. That way, an entrant could dig deeper, and regulars could participate in bridging those gaps, but could also continue in the original post layer without the wiki-ish clutter.
Learning through participation is a problem when a post generates 30+ comments, some of which are asking for “beginner” clarifications of known-by-regulars concepts. I think it’s better to include the beginners in grappling with the concepts and attempting to build the course for themselves and others. Isn’t it a bit odd that so many learn by following their interest, filling-in gaps as needed, and yet later on those very same people will attempt to teach others using a more linear method?
Looking back on something I know, I see the map of knowledge, and think “Ah, I might have been better off had I learned these foundational basics first.” The click-and-pursue nature of the web seems stacked against that method, and really, would have I been better off? Maybe I wouldn’t have pursued as much as I did if I couldn’t choose my own path.
If a wiki-ish layer is too crazy, maybe fundamental concepts should be more present in the tags, or be a separate little part? Related links and fundamental concepts relating to the post could be voted up or down. I could vote up a “hindsight bias” tag while downvoting a smartass “jedi” tag, and propose or vote up a link to another post that explored something (say, hindsight bias) in more detail.