About diskurso.ph

A debate forum for Filipino students

Most places online reward the loudest reply. diskurso.ph is built the other way round: you pick a side before you speak, you get sixty words to make your case, and the person disagreeing with you sits in a column of their own rather than buried underneath you.

How a debate works

An administrator opens a question — something a student can genuinely take a side on, with background written up like a news article so both benches argue from the same facts.

1. Pick a side. You choose Side A or Side B before you can post. You may switch later, but the arguments you already made stay where they are. Changing your mind in public is part of debating honestly.
2. Make your case. Sixty words for an argument, forty for a reply. Tight limits force a claim and a reason instead of an essay.
3. Cross-examine. Reply to someone on the other bench and your answer appears on your side, tagged as a cross-examination — so the two columns read as two cases, not one tangled thread.
4. Like what convinced you. One like per argument, and you cannot like your own. Likes are the only score on the site.

Influence

Every like you receive counts once toward the influence ranking. There are no points for posting volume, and none for agreeing with the majority. The only way up is to write something an opponent finds hard to dismiss.

What we ask of you

• Attack the argument, never the person.
• Write it yourself. Arguments pasted in from an AI get removed.
• Report rule-breaking, not opinions you dislike — the other bench is there for disagreement.

The full house rules are public.

Moderation

Readers can flag any argument, and every report reaches a moderator. We remove personal attacks, hate speech, doxxing and spam. We do not remove arguments for being unpopular or for being wrong — being wrong in public and finding out why is the entire point.

Reading without an account

Every debate is readable by anyone, signed in or not. You only need an account to pick a side, post, like or report. Signing up takes an email address or a Google account, plus a username.

Who runs it

diskurso.ph is an independent student project based in the Philippines. It is not affiliated with any school, political party or news organisation. Get in touch through the contact page.