Talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential forums

Criteria for inclusion in the list of Forums
This is generally a very good section, but I think it would benefit from some criteria for inclusion. I don't think the AJC Global Forum should be included for several reasons. None of the candidates were present at the event, they only supplied the event with pre-recorded videos. The longest video submitted by a candidate was about 6 minutes long, far shorter than a typical forum segment. Obviously this does not allow for candidates to interact with the audience or forum moderators. The event itself was not designed to be solely or even primarily a presidential candidates forum; it merely featured several candidates in addition to other types of speakers.

I propose that in order for a forum to be included on this page, it should:
 * not be a town hall or debate
 * feature multiple presidential candidates at the same physical location, on stage at separate times
 * feature at least one moderator who remains on stage to interact with the candidates by asking questions and guiding the conversation
 * feature a live audience
 * be either a standalone event designed specifically as a forum for presidential candidates, or part of a larger event where the forum part has been designed specifically as a forum for presidential candidates (e.g. a 3-hour presidential candidates forum scheduled as part of a weekend-long labor union conference)
 * not feature an excessive number of speakers who are neither presidential candidates nor moderators

All of the forums on the list that have taken place so far meet the above criteria, except for the AJC Global Forum. I propose the AJC Global Forum be removed from the list. --USPrezDebates (talk) 00:04, 9 June 2019 (UTC)


 * See above. Let's work together here.  I'm not trying to dictate arbitrary criteria, I'm trying to collaborate on establishing a set of standards.  Make whatever justifiable changes you want.  Just realize that if the standards that end up agreed upon here do qualify the AJC Global Forum and/or the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame dinner, then I can think of several more events off the top of my head that should be on the list as well.  There are probably dozens if not hundreds of small town events in Iowa and New Hampshire alone where several candidates will show up at the same time and place to deliver their remarks; I just don't think that in and of itself qualifies as a "forum".
 * The Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame dinner fails to meet the moderation criteria above, as well as the specificity criteria. According to Politico, the event is "designed to honor Iowa Democrats in a Hall of Fame dinner."  Various presidential candidates tend to show up to this event, but I would argue it is neither a forum in and of itself, nor a multifaceted event featuring a purpose-built forum timeslot.  Not to mention that the 19 candidates present had only five minutes each to speak, which barely afforded them the opportunity to get out a condensed stump speech before being kicked off stage.  There was no time for interaction with a moderator or the audience, and there was no time to answer questions.  Like the AJC Global Forum, this looks to me a lot more like a collection of short speeches than a presidential candidates forum. --USPrezDebates (talk) 19:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Forum Attendance - Video Message and Video Link
Do we count video-link presence at a forum as attendance? And regarding 'video messages', assuming these are not video-links but prerecorded messages (we will need to check if we consider the two different for the purposes of registering attendance at forums on this page), do we consider candidates who've appeared by video-message as having attended a given forum? At the moment, I am marking both cases with 'P', but if there is any disagreement, it would be wise to work this out before future forums occur. PutItOnAMap (talk) 14:10, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * In my judgment, submitting a pre-recorded video message is different from a video-link presence for the purposes of registering attendance at forums. Video messages should not be considered presence/attendance any more than submitting a written statement or a pre-recorded audio message because these are forms of one-way communication.  While debatable, I think video-link presence (and telepresence in general) should be considered presence/attendance, at least on a case-by-case basis depending on the technology employed.  I would argue the important bit is not whether a candidate's body is present at the forum but whether their "presence" is present enough to accomplish what they could if their body was there, such as two-way interaction with moderators and audience members. &#8213;  💬  USPrezDebates  21:48, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Should we indicate bipartisan/nonpartisan forums?
In some of these forums, Republicans have been invited as well. I know for the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum, President Trump and his primary challenger William Weld were invited but neither showed up. Trump and Weld are obviously not Democrats and this page is made to cover 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums, so should we indicate this somehow? Would it be confusing? Does anyone have thoughts on this? Independent candidate Mark Charles did schedule to be at the forum after being invited. Thanks, -TenorTwelve (talk) 00:03, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If several Democratic candidates for president showed up, then it would be of interest to Democratic voters. So I would say it should be included. (But I am not a Democrat.) JRSpriggs (talk) 21:36, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree. The DNC does not have formal guidelines for forums as they do for debates.  So while you would never see President Trump participating in a Democratic primary debate (except on SNL), it is theoretically possible for him or other Presidential candidates from other parties, independent candidates, and non-candidates to participate in forums where Democrats are participating.  The question becomes, Is such a forum Democratic enough to be considered for inclusion in our list here?  Agree with  that "several" Democratic candidates showing up would merit inclusion, possibly even just one Democrat depending on the circumstances.  My suggestion about how to represent this in the article would be either to: A) continue to omit all non-Democrats from the Forum Participation table, or B) include an "Other Candidates" row where non-Democratic Presidential candidates could be included as footnotes.  I lean towards A because there are other places where mentioning any non-Democratic participants seems more appropriate and less cumbersome.  For example, if a particular forum is notable enough to merit its own Wikipedia article, then that would be the obvious place to mention them.  It could also be mentioned in a potential Forums section on 2020 Republican Party presidential debates and similar articles for other parties involved.  It could also be mentioned on the participating candidates' 2020 campaign articles. &#8213;  💬  USPrezDebates  23:23, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Forum participation table transposition
I propose to transpose rows and columns of the forum participation tables because there will be many more forums to add to the tables and transposing the tables allows to merge them into one table that will be able to contain all future forums. Xenagoras (talk) 14:35, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I think this is a good idea, would make formatting easier to see. WittyRecluse (talk) 20:47, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Relevant archived posts restored
After split 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums into 2 separate articles, 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates (and its two archives) retained all of the original Talk Page posts (regarding both debates and forums), while this 2020 Democratic Party presidential forums Talk Page was left blank. In order to provide context for future editors, I have restored here all Talk Page posts relevant to forums from Talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums/Archive 1, Archive 2, and Talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential debates. In my judgment, several of these posts seemed ready for archiving, and so instead of restoring them here, I created a New Archive 1 and archived them there. If you think any of these archived posts still merit further discussion, feel free to restore them on this page (in chronological order, please). &#8213; 💬  USPrezDebates  20:48, 22 December 2019 (UTC)