Speaking

Table of contents

1. The Speaking Order
2. Starting a Speech
3. The Count-in
4. Ending a Speech
5. Pausing and Resuming

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In the Debate Room the floor moves from speaker to speaker in the British Parliamentary order. Adjudicators control which speaker holds the floor; the speaker themselves normally starts their own speech.

The Speaking Order

The next speaker’s badge is highlighted in blue:

Adjudicators use the forward and backward double arrows to move the floor between speakers. The British Parliamentary order is:

1. Prime Minister
2. Leader of Opposition
3. Deputy Prime Minister
4. Deputy Leader of Opposition
5. Member of Government
6. Member of Opposition
7. Government Whip
8. Opposition Whip

Seats nobody filled are skipped: the floor moves to the next seated speaker, and the debate finishes after the last one. A debate with six debaters therefore runs six speeches, not eight with two silent gaps.

Starting a Speech

When the floor moves to you, a dialog appears:

You’re up next You have the floor as {your role}. Start your speech when you’re ready.

Click Start speech when you are ready. If you dismiss the dialog with Cancel, nothing is lost — you can still start later with the play button, or an adjudicator can start it for you.

Everyone else in the room sees a banner instead:

Both the speaker and any adjudicator can start the speech; whoever acts first, the result is the same.

The Count-in

Starting a speech does not start the clock immediately. A five-second count-in runs first, shown to the whole room as a banner:

This gives the speaker a moment to settle and everyone else a moment to fall silent. The adjudicators and the speaker can Cancel the count-in from the banner; the floor stays where it is and the speech can be started again. Other debaters see the same banner without a Cancel action.

All timer controls are disabled while the count-in runs — the only available action is Cancel. When the count-in reaches zero the speech timer starts in protected time.

Ending a Speech

A speech ends in one of three ways:

• The speaker ends it. In debates chaired by an AI adjudicator, the speaker has an I’m done button in the navigation bar.
• An adjudicator stops it with the stop button.
• The timer expires.

Pausing and Resuming

While a speech is in progress, any adjudicator can pause and resume it from the control panel — useful if a problem comes up mid-speech, or to break for feedback in a practice session. See The Timer.