The DDO presidency should be abolished

FrameworkIf Pro had shown that the presidency was a lopsidedly bad thing on par with the Holocaust or a splinter, they would have fulfilled their burden. We maintain they failed to do this--at the very least they concede one good thing (TUF's updates), if nothing else. Pro set this debate as a shared BoP debate. Normally, when the status quo is in place, the one advocating against it has the BoP. Pro set up this debate in such a way that the BoP is shared, but wants to only have to show some negatives to win the day. Nigh-every system has some negatives; we concede that as trivially true. But our framework isn't "ridiculous", it's basic and standard. Pro has utterly failed to show that there would be benefit in simply abolishing the presidency, and has likewise failed to establish their so-called "counterplan" as reasonable. While Pro may claim it's "obvious", it remains both unworkable and not on the table under airmax's moderation. Pro's basic framework lacks detail or rigor, and fails to account for the fact that such a system requires airmax's approval. Airmax is not going to give approval to such a half-baked scheme, which is why it's not on the table. At the risk of cracking wise, if blue-sky hypotheticals are allowed (and ignoring that this would, if serious, be a new argument), we propose that the presidency be kept, with a million dollar stipend to every member. Wouldn't that be great!?1Pro concedes that everyone cannot contact Juggle. Their proposal puts burdens on airmax that they don't have the ability, authority, or responsibility to. This debate is on whether the presidency should be abolished. It is, of necessity, a practical debate. If airmax is not willing to entertain their demands, Pro has no counterplan. Pro cites a hangout conversation. You can't cite something that can't be referenced--that's not how citations or sourcing works. Here, Pro wants us to just take their word that they've provided airmax's words accurately and the proper context and rather shamelessly is aiming for source points. We would argue that "citing" a Google hangout that isn't recorded is worse than having no citations at all. Airmax is on this side of the debate, and believes that Pro is, at best, misremembering or misconstruing the context of the "quotes". Airmax has earned Juggle's trust and understands their goals and the way they operate. He asserts that if he said what Pro attributes, it wasn't with regards to the presidency, but in regard to the specific position he holds, as a sort of de facto site management administrator. Juggle certainly would like him to remain in this position, and no site election will replace him as such. Juggle will interact with the site's elected President; this is an actual verifiable quote from Airmax (as channeled through bladerunner for this team debate).While Juggle may be less inclined to give new admin access, this doesn't mean anything regarding how likely they are to interact with a new president. All it means is that they trust airmax to continue to do the job as he has, and to find other methods where necessary, and so far they have found this to be sufficient. How this ties in with the presidency is anyone's guess. But it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they would trust a new president.It's worth noting that bladerunner HAS had contact with juggle, so Pro's claim that "as far as Juggle is concerned, TUF is still president" is just false. The failure of Juggle to update the elected officials page does not mean that they aren't aware of election results. That Juggle has in general waned in their interest has not been contested. We did not make the claim that Juggle will definitely "be more involved in the future." What we said was that "At present it has waned to its lowest point. But to abandon the system because of that harms our chances at getting them to invest again." We never contested that it was at its lowest point, and we cannot guarantee that it will increase. Pro would like us to assume that the present is the way things will always be, and that's simply nonsense; it goes completely without any support whatsoever. I urge the readers to compare our actual claims against their actual claims, and ask who has made claims they cannot support?2It becomes tedious to point out false claims but nonetheless: - The "Inner circle" no longer exists in the way Pro presents it and hasn't for a year at least.- The president is still involved despite the presence of sub-mods. - The "close personal friendship" airmax and bladerunner have was more a result of the presidency than it was an effect on the presidency. Pro fails to address the fact that the forums will not influence final moderator decisions (such as bans). Consider this point dropped. Pro's failure to understand the relationship that the president and the mod can have is unfortunate. Airmax solicits opinion from the president on every major decision (i.e. not-spam), if that president has shown themselves to warrant such trust.This entire argument seems to stem from Pro's frustration that they didn't get immediate cooperation from moderation--they fail to understand that such cooperation needs to be earned; the membership gives the mandate, but it's how the president handles that mandate that determines whether they're effective in the job. Part of that is patience, and a lack of unrealistic expectations. It appears Pro is taking their experience as somehow reflective of universality, but problematic behavior in a president results in harm to their ability to do their job, things like: airing private conversations with Mikal or someone else kept vague and stripped of context being passed off as quotes, and attacks on specific members.31 - Pro claims without warrant or evidence that it's harder for airmax to ignore the site than to ignore the president. Considering the president can contact Juggle directly, Pro's failure to give any evidence for this point, and the fact that immediately after arguing this Pro gave us a case where airmax rejected a site-popular proposal because the president didn't care for it, it can rather safely be dismissed. Pro's "vote with our feet" point is just as valid with a president as without it, and so is irrelevant.The trial system is a distraction; we don't have the space to get into a detailed analysis of its strengths or weaknesses. Pro would like us to just assume it was an awesome plan. Without support for that argument, we can't. Pro argues that TUF used up "the last" update from Juggle. Yet, they offer no support for that except that at present Juggle has not been involved. 2 - The argument we presented was that good candidates would exist, as a response to Pro's argument that we would run out of good candidates. Pro now argues that since bad candidates may win that means "there will not always be good candidates". Pro had claimed that good candidates wouldn't exist, not that they wouldn't win. The latter is a feature of democracy. What wins is what is voted for, good or ill, and is as much an issue with their supposed counterplan as it is with the presidency. 3 - Pro argues that our point regarding transparency and privacy is false. They offer no evidence for this. During bladerunner's tenure, he made moderation more transparent (an example: http://www.debate.org...). He couldn't do this without moderation's help.4 - Pro argues that we "dropped" 4. Given that we did address it, this is confusing. We made the point that we don't know how well the alternative system would have worked, but that it wouldn't have been available without a presidency. Pro completely drops this point in their rush to claim we "dropped" theirs.4We really wish that Pro would either read more carefully, or would not twist our statements. We did not "concede" this point. We argued that Pro fails to understand how the power of the presidency works. We argued that the power of the presidency was in influence more so than direct authority. I guess it was dropped by them?5I'm rather done discussing how I would have acted while my wife was hospitalized. That Pro would rather I NOT recognize the responsibility that comes with the presidency is rather indicative of how they treated the presidency while they were the administration in power. 6Pro wants to keep pushing the narrative that it's undemocratic to lobby newer members. As we said, qualifying criteria are important, but irrelevant, and are a part of any system that involves democracy. ConclusionOne election does not a systemic problem make.The criticism that the presidency can be so easily decided by lobbying can be resolved by changing voting criteria and is non-unique. Saying that abolition is the solution is overreacting to the problem. Decisions can be based on the site in general AND on the president's input. Pro would remove the president completely; given that moderation issues require discretion in many cases, the president is necessary as another opinion based on the position they hold as elected by the membership.It's worth repeating that every opinion has value and each is treated as such. The president's value is as useful way to gauge what actions should be taken - not a sole determination indicator as Pro would like to argue.Pro has presented some problems with the presidency. They have also demonstrated a failure to understand what the role of the president is. The presidency has done good things, and can do good things again. Pro has failed to show that's not the case. Pro has failed to show that simply abolishing the presidency would be a good thing in its own right, thus losing the resolution, and has failed to give us a counterplan that would work, thus losing their case. Please, keep the presidency in place, and keep the voice of the community heard. Thanks to everyone who reads this long debate!