Voters should be required to post their reasoning behind each vote they make.

The PRO starts off his round by claiming that I'm attempting to prove that comments are not helpful, but this is an obvious straw man. He even does my work for me through explaining the part of my case were I used the terms "almost never." Speaking of almost never, the PRO acts as if this benefits his case, but it actually does not. As I suggest below, debate.org should not employ a system that's only going to benefit a few users every once in a while (as it's merely a waste of bandwidth if the system cannot benefit all debaters most of the time). Also, there is the fact that users who wish to explain their reasoning already comment on debates. Users who don't can avoid this. Also, notice how the PRO drops my argument which explains how becoming a better debater depends more on the debates themselves rather than the audience. Since he drops this, he concedes that debaters already have a quality means of augmenting their debate skills. Not only that, but in doing as I suggested, all debate outcomes will be beneficial. As the PRO agrees, the same cannot be said for merely relying on the voters. The PRO then goes on by agreeing with my statement that suggests that this system will hardly ever benefit you. And given the flaws which I've pointed out (such as how voters can get out of having to actually explain their reasons for voting), this only further hurts my opponent's case. Re Response 1: I covered this above. Re Response 2: Keep in mind that the PRO yet again admits to how faulty his system is by conceding to the fact that many voters will easily get around having to explain their reasons for voting. He also states that debaters will be coerced to include intelligent remarks, yet this is completely false. All they will actually HAVE to do is provide a comment. The status quo point goes about assuming that most users will care about how other users label them (good examples of users who ABSOLUTELY don't care are Solarman1969 and bsergent). The only statuses which users on this website are encouraged to care about are their win/loss ratios. Anything which isn't visible (as in it isn't something which is permanently labeled upon certain users for ALL to see) won't prove effective. Of course, even then, those kinds of statuses would come with problems similar to the ones we are discussing now. Re Offense Point #1: There are 2 points to note. 1) This system can actually encourage trolling/flaming. Take for instance "blond_guy" in this debate: http://www.debate.org... . He is pretty much advocating the same thing my opponent is and he even admits that he would DEMEAN the users who had voted against him in his debates which he thought he clearly won. In fact, the debate which inspired him to make this debate ( http://www.debate.org... ) was reported and shut down due to the content on the comment section. As shown on the front page, the debate.org administration wishes to uphold a clean and friendly atmosphere and users having the ability to start flame wars against users whom they know are voting against them (even if these users don't really bother explaining their position) will no doubt prove detrimental to debate.org. 2) The PRO states that it would be easier to spot people with multiple accounts, but this system would IRONICALLY make it harder. With users having the ability to see who is voting, reports on this matter is will increase ASTRONOMICALLY. This will no doubt prove to be a HEAVY burden on the administrators here, thus slowing down the process of finding people who actually have multiple accounts, due to the so many reports being received. Not only will that occur, but users whom the other users merely SUSPECT to have multiple accounts will become ostracized. This will no doubt make debate.org experiences regrettable for many innocent users. Re Loss Justification: See the point which the PRO conceded as he goes about suggesting that voting turnout justification can occur without the need for comments. Re Offense Point 2: The PRO goes about assuming that criteria for voting are universal. In other words, he is suggesting that lack of refutation objectively means an automatic win for him. Lack of refutation can play a big role in voting, but the main focus is the content that was presented on the table of debate. Heck, even debate.org believes this. Debate.org: "Even if you don't have time to leave a full response, DO NOT forfeit a round. Forfeiting a round destroys your credibility and makes it less likely that voters will vote for you." http://www.debate.org... Now, although they aren't in favor of forfeiting, they merely suggest that it will make it less LIKELY that voters will vote in favor of the user who forfeits. However, if debate.org truly agreed with my opponent, debates such as the ones my opponent cited would automatically be won by my opponent. Thus, we can conclude that although forfeiting can play a big factor (hence the reason more than half of the people on that page voted for my opponent), it's not to be considered a reason for handing down an automatic win at least by the standards of debate.org. Furthermore, my opponent does nothing to strengthen his case in the rounds after his first debates, thus one could conclude that he gave his opponent some leeway and treated the debate as if it were one round. As for that second debate, his first argument can be considered a red herring since it does not address whether or not the Government should be responsible for building a missile defense system. It's merely suggesting that building such a system is beyond possibility (which is not true, but that's another matter). His second argument could actually be seen as supporting his opponent's argument. Building a missile defense system is a means of preventing war. Simply having the most powerful military force will give other nations an idea such as "Oh, we don't wanna mess with the US since they have such a kickass missile defense system." With those facts being noted, a voter could be justified in voting against his case (especially due to his 2nd argument since that could be seen as conceding to his opponent's case). And again, if a debater knows who is voting (and perceives the ones voting to be "bad" at voting), the debater can wreak havoc for the voters via flaming/trolling. Re Offensive Point 3: This is basically a minor alteration to point 2. It fails for the reasons which I've pointed out in both 1 and 2. That said, a troll would only need to become slightly more crafty in order to maneuver around this system. Simply put, coming up with a BS explanation, using more than one computer (especially easy if you're at a school library or if you are at college), and/or simply getting friends to sign up and vote (again, an extremely simple task) are all sufficient means to avoid retribution. Re Offense Point 4: It does nothing but prompt voters to provide a comment. As for status quo, this goes back to my point on how many innocent users will be bullied by others users for not living to their expectations of explanation. In fact, the comment section in this debate is a good example of this: http://www.debate.org... . Notice how the user who goes by the name of mrmazoo ends up attacking the users who disagree with him in their voting explanations. This also goes to suggest another problem with the PRO's plan. The comment section is reserved for commenting on debates rather than continuing debates. Debates continuing in the comment not only unnecessarily tax this website's bandwidth, but it also defeats the very purpose of their being a comment section. Besides those two factors, it will encourage flame wars. Your move! =D