Debates :: Decidim Docs

Understand the basics

The Debate component allows people to have discussions, without voting nor prioritization. It also allows to close debates, by adding conclusions or a summary of what the discussion was about.

Configuration

To create a Debate component, first go in the participatory space where you want to create it.

Then:

Click on the "Components" item in the secondary menu
Click the "Add component" button
Select "Debate"
Fill the component creation form

You can still update this form and the configuration after creating the component, by clicking the Configure icon Configure icon in the components list.

Table 1. Add component: Debate form
Field	Type	Description
Name	Required	The title of this component.
Order position	Optional	The order of the component in relation with the other components. Having a lower number means a higher priority. For instance, if you have two components, "Component a" with weight "10" and "Component b" with weight "0" then "component b" is first when ordering.

Table 2. Debate form - Global settings
Field	Type	Description
Scopes enabled	Optional	Check if you want to have Scopes filtering in this component.
Scope	Optional	Which Scopes does this component belongs to.
Comments enabled	Optional	Whether you want to have comments in the debates.
Comments max length	Optional	The characters limit that participants have when making comments. Leave 0 for default value.
Announcement	Optional	A general announcement that’ll be visible on the general debates landing page.

Table 3. Add component: Debates form - Step settings
Field	Type	Description
Endorsements enabled	Optional	Check if you want to enable participants to show public support for debates.
Endorsements blocked	Optional	Check for participants to be able to see the existing endorsements but not make any new one.
Participants can create debates	Optional	Check if you want to allow the creation of new debates by participants during this phase.
Comments blocked	Optional	Whether you want to enable comments for this phase.
Announcement	Optional	A general announcement that’ll be visible on the general debate landing page.

Create a debate

Table 4. New debate form
Field	Type	Description
Title	Required	The title of this debate.
Description	Required	The description of this debate.
Instructions to participate	Required	Add a message for the participants, displayed on the debate page in an information box.
Information updates	Optional	Add a message for the participants, displayed on the debate page in an information box.
Debate type	Required	Choose between Finite and Open. Finite means that the debate has a starting and ending date and time, Open means that there isn’t any time frame.
Starts at	Required if the debate type is Finite	Expected format: dd/mm/yyyy hh:ii
Ends at	Required if the debate type is Finite	Expected format: dd/mm/yyyy hh:ii
Category	Optional	Which category has the debate. Used for filtering in the debates list.
Comments enabled	Optional	Whether you want participants to be able to comment on this debate.

Manage debates

To start creating and managing debates, click in the component title in the navigation bar or in the component list, or click in the Manage component icon icon on the components list.

On the debates list in the administration panel, administrators can see:

Title: Title of the debate.
Start date: Start date of the debate.
End date: End date of the debate.
Scope: Scope of the debate, if enabled in the participatory space.

You can also export the comments in the debates in CSV, JSON and Excel format by clicking the "Export all" button.

Debate types

It’s possible to have two kinds of debates:

Finite: with a start and end date
Open: without a start and end date

Participants can see the types of the debates in the debate public list.

Debates list

Actions

When participants can create debates, administrators have less actions available, and can’t edit nor delete the debates.

Table 5. Actions
Icon	Name	Definition
	Edit	Edit form for a debate.
	Close	Close form for a debate. For adding conclusions.
	Preview	To see how it’s shown in the frontend to participants.
	Permissions	To handle the authorizations needed to create or endorse debates.
	Delete	To delete this debate.