DDO's "7 point system " needs to be changed or removed

Wrap-up: It seems that you've gone from revision to elimination. However there's no explanation on how judges would exist for all the debates here and whether or not that would still hold value or how they would be tested (if they would) and granted that privilege? The 7 point open forum system has yet to really be shown anymore faulty than your system so not to say that it is great it's just to say that if it's to be changed it cannot be changed in how you envision it. There needs to be more meat to the plan. [you don't have to read the rest, this is a quick synopsis] -- There are two issues here that I see; the first is the example you provide where the 7 point system is what you claim to be the problem but then your solution to the problem is privatization. Well that removes the problem of bias but it also removes the point of this debate because the criteria changes immensely once you have a private judge. It is literally no longer a matter of "X" points but instead of really a well-crafted argument for or against your own judgment. It's a totally different system altogether. The second issue is actually the DDO article itself. It's not "How to Debate" it's "tips for a better debate" and you're right none of the basics like BoP are mentioned and neither is an exhaustive list of fallacies or anything that would arm you for the ability to actually debate. Instead it's "tips" and they are good tips but they are not lessons. It's not for that so if you're using that and asking "What's wrong!?" that's sort of like getting onto a horse and wondering why it won't go "VROOM!" and where the key notch is. So when we talk about the article it's really appealing more to those who actually know what they are doing to begin with. It's kind of like "How to save gas when you drive", well the assumption is that you know how to drive to begin with, right? But this is why it's so important that we don't eliminate that system which grants that flexibility to begin with; a lot of people assume and assert so many different things so when it's down to a real "how-to" people aren't educated or skilled in it and that's the basic truth; they think they know, they do their best, and they interpret what's given but a lot of debates that I've been in have had "insufficient evidence" whether I won or lost and used sources that were good but didn't prove their points! People voted anyway reading what they thought was there because they aren't official judges and hell some are only 16 so who expects them to be professional about it? :p Like if I asked you what IS weak evidence? Oh, man that's a road-trip of a question; you could (and people have) written an entire set of books on how that works. Credibility is the same. Your 7 Points: 1. There is no such thing as a topic (claim) without a burden of proof or an objective method of argumentation. Definitions should be clear for sure but again this is biased against the beginner specifically because what if you, the voter, just say "No, I don't like that definition, doesn't sit well with me?" even if it's legitimate? Also, you can't produce a debate and have an inconsistency with the BoP. You can try but it won't make sense and will fall apart quickly anyway so it's not a major concern. 2. Well jargon and technical language basics really should solve this. Ambiguity is not acceptable and neither is Equivocation so this is already covered long before it began or was brought up here. 3. That's not how it works. You're misreading that; what it's saying is basically once everyone establishes the axioms it helps to know BoP and how it works. So let's say that we want to debate whether nachos are sentient, it's saying that first we need to define sentient and nachos THEN we use BoP to help guide us through it so if I make the claim "Nachos are sentient because rocks." I have BoP for that claim and if you go "No, rocks do not make nachos sentient." YOU have BoP for that claim. Disagreeing does NOT negate (contrary to everyone's belief) BoP. I added that in because a lot of people think that the "mechanism" of BoP works by allowing one side to say something and the other to go "nu-uh" when in reality that's not how it works at all; my last debate had this problem where my opponent just shirked off their own BoP for their own claims and then accused me (consistently) of arguing something I Was not without reason (just an unsubstantiated claim) and then asked complex questions with emphasis on appeal to emotion. Now all of that is horrible but the worst of it all was evading BoP. He "claimed" it rested on me so he never backed up anything he said. He just made it up. 4. However if we use judges instead of voters and the open public then this negates the point of this debate AND this criteria. This has to be relative to the open forum voting system. Doing away with it doesn't work because then you have to find incentives for volunteer judges and face judge bias as well where it's a "buddy" of one of the debaters. 7. There's no testing for it. I mean you "should" but "should" isn't enough. Your system works in a perfect world but all do, so when facing it I'm thinking it just doesn't work outside of the bounds that you build and you built them more strict, not more lax, so there's more holes in it than this. That's bad. It means the system is weak.