The Lobby Room
Up to twelve people can take part in a debate — eight debaters across the four teams, plus up to four adjudicators. The Lobby displays badge placeholders for all twelve slots regardless of how many have joined. When someone enters, their badge shows their name and role. An empty name means the slot is unassigned. See The Badge for the visual conventions.
For invite-only debates, the Organizer assigns or changes roles while participants are in the Lobby. For Open Debates, roles are pre-assigned from the sign-up order, and the role menu is not used. In both cases role assignments persist if a participant leaves the debate (network drop, browser closed, etc.) — they keep their role when they rejoin.
The first time you enter the Lobby in a session, a Join-Device dialog asks you to confirm which microphone and camera to publish.
At the top of the Lobby a Next steps card summarises what to do next; clicking the chevron expands it into a numbered checklist (share the debate identifier, assign roles, start Preparation).
The control bar at the bottom of the Lobby is the standard meeting navigation bar with:
- camera and microphone toggles
- Debate — open the Motion Drawer
- Preparation — advance to the next stage. This arrow is visible to the Organizer (for invite-only debates) and to adjudicators in Open Debates. Sending the debate forward requires at least one Adjudicator to have a role assigned.
- Leave — return to the home page. Your role is preserved if you come back.
- Stop — adjudicators only; cancel the debate.