That filling out the big issues on one's DDO profile is beneficial

I'm going to run a three-pronged attack in this debate.1. Big issues limit the range of debates one arguesIf one intends to play devil's advocate on debates, then there is no point to filling out the big issues. The only reason is to invite challengers to face them on certain sides of certain topics. For instance, there is no reason to choose pro on the big issue of "abortion" unless you wanted people to challenge you as con. On the other hand, if you do not spend those precious moments of your day filling out these details, you'll get a mix of challenges proportional to how everybody else stands. Of course, you can accept open debates on both sides of the topic regardless, but doing so makes the big issues seem pretty pointless. There are two big harms that result from this. The first is the proliferation of a myopic mindset - what I mean by that is that as your arguments only ever focus on your own beliefs, which through the medium of debating one is continually self-justifying, those beliefs become more entrenched (think of it as "I am right, you are wrong" kind of thinking). If, on the other hand, people regulary debate on both sides of key issues, then they are able to constructively self-critique and evaluate their own beliefs critically, which ultimately leads to better judgements because a range of viewpoints are properly considered. These kinds of values imposed when debating have ramifications for the real world as well. I'm going to make a sweeping generalisation here and say that debaters are generally smart people - it takes a certain amount of intellectualism to do debating. Some of the people on this site will be politicians, businesspeople, lawyers etc, and in each of these positions dogmatism can have devasting consequences for the rest of society. For instance, a self-convinced politician who refuses to compromise can throw off an entire parliament (this happened in New Zealand's 1999 election, with Winston Peters and his New Zealand First party). Secondly, it limits the fun and thrill of debating. Some of the best and most exhilerating debates are those you don't WANT to argue, because it challenges you to think on your feet and try something fresh. If you're always arguing on the same side of motions, debating becomes more like a chore - always following the same set repetitive arguments and only adapting the case to deal with the odd unexpected refutation. Ultimately, that fails to stimulate in the long run and reduces involvement with debating, in a psychological sense. Besides the skill of being able to argue both ways being very useful for real-life debating, it is also essential for debating to be as fun as possible. Of course I admit that debating can still be fun without it, just like playing with the white pieces in chess is fun - but sometimes, you might want to try playing with the black pieces too.2. Big issues do not lead to constructive debatesThere are two kinds of big issues, which I will conveniently categorise as those that are "out of date" and those that are "extremely general". Out of date issues are issues that once were big and important, but which have lost a significant amount of relevance to our world. Juggle have announced that they are working towards fixing this problem (. http://www.debate.org...) so perhaps (maybe) by the time this debate is over things will be different, but working on the assumption that they won't be, out of date issues do not lead to constructive debates because they cannot be helped. You can't change the past, so debating whether George Bush was good or bad does not change the fact that he served as president. It's also not particulary helpful for future elections, as these will take place in very different contexts and conditions. Indeed, that debate is only meaningful when Bush was president, or perhaps before he was president. That makes the debate entirely unconstructive now. The second type of issue is that which is ridicliously general, such as "PETA". It's not as simple as being entirely for or entirely against these kinds of issues - most debates will ultimately focus on specific aspects of these issues. This makes it impossible to give a meaningful pro/con nod either way on the issue. With PETA, for instance, one might support their right to exist but dislike some of the methods of some of the members of that organisation. "United States", "Welfare", "Patriotism" etc all fall into this category also. They're not issues where you can develop a simple dichotomy and call that the basis for a debate. In all honestly, few of the supporters of PETA on the site will defend the motion "This house agrees with PETA" - they may agree with some of what PETA does, but not necessarily all of it. Issues about taxes are here too - does being "con" to estate tax mean you support abolishing it or that you think it's too high, or perhaps that it's too bureaucratic under the status quo, or what? The second issue with the issues is, in part, alleviated by the comment boxes (when they are filled out fully, and they rarely are), which allow you to define more specifically how one interprets the issue. However, the design and set-up of the big issues box discourages a detailed interpretation. Many debaters look no further than the "Agree" and "Disagree" percentages and icons to ascertain good candidates for topics/debates, and then assume that the other debater simply believes the opposite to them. For instance, say I think abortion should be banned because life begins at conception, then I see somebody who disagrees with me on abortion and challenge him to an abortion debate. I argue life begins at conception. Trouble is, my opponent agrees. My opponent simply doesn't see a moral problem with murder. And now we've wasted an entire non-debate about what I wanted to argue - when life begins. In this case, the big issues were useless as they failed to start a constructive debate on the topic I wanted (which as I pointed out in point one above, is the only purpose to the big issues). The problem is that you can't define a specific debate in terms of agreement or disagreement with a general issue.3. Big issues are brokenThe big issues are listed as links to out-of-date descriptions of the debates, complete with lists of people who "agree" with users on issues that are either irrelevant or general. But the worst thing is the design of the comments, which do not permit spaces. This makes them inaccessible to screen readers and visually extremely unappealing. Furthermore, it greatly reduces the functionality of the comments, as it introduces a greater possibility for misinterpretation. Filling them out is tacit support for their use, non-participation is the best way to send a clear message in support of change. I look forward to my opponent's arguments.