The Voting System For Debate.org Has Many Avoidable Mistakes

Thanks to CriticalThinkingMachine for his arguments. To win this debate Pro had to show that the DDO voting system contains many easily avoidable and significant errors that were caused by the conscious decisions on the part of the creator(s) of this website. It shall be apparent to voters that my esteemed opponent has failed in fulfilling his burden. 1. Who did you agree with before/after the debate: Pro concedes that he has no problem with these questions per se. He also admits that these questions are beneficial. However he argues that before/after questions are not asked in presidential elections. Voting in election is different from voting at DDO. One of the important purposes of DDO voting system is to provide feedback to the debaters, which makes these questions important. Important questions cannot be considered as irrelevant. 2. Who had better conduct / spelling and grammar: Pro admits that spelling, grammar and conduct are important in debate and should contribute to the debate. However he insists that these should not contribute to ‘voting system’. He fails to explain in what way these factors should contribute to evaluation of debate. It is clear that including these factors in voting provides incentives to debaters to maintain high standards. I am not saying that this is the best way possible. However Con has not presented any better way, which means this cannot be considered as an error on part of creators of debate. Pro says, “The number of points (or lack thereof) for each question appear in parenthesis next to the questions in the voting section but not on an actual page of a debate.Why the inconsistency?”. I cannot respond to this since I could not understand the objection. 3. Who had better sources: Pro argues that sources can be incorporated into arguments themselves. That is a matter of personal opinion. Keeping points for sources separate emphasizes its importance. This cannot be considered as an error. I also pointed out that my esteemed opponent is free to provide overall votes based on arguments. He did not respond to this point. 4. Reason for voting: Pro concedes that inappropriate votes are being combated. However he is unable to understand the rationale behind 3 debate requirement before voting. The measure is intended to hinder and expose mischievous trolls intent on breaking our voting system. Users have to take part in three debates before they can start voting. This requires some patience. Most trolls don’t have patience. On other hand for serious debaters (like my opponent, I hope), this is not a serious issue since they complete the three debates soon enough. My opponent wants to know why the voting system waits for a ineligible voter to cast his vote before informing them. I agree that it would be desirable to inform the voters beforehand. However this is clearly not significant issue as it has no bearing on integrity of voting system. In any case, this issue ceases to exist for sincere debaters once they complete 3 debates. 5 & 6. Self Vote and Indefinite voting period: Pro has conceded these points. 7. Won vs. Winning / Lost vs. Losing: My esteemed opponent escalates an obviously insignificant issue into a question of ‘falsehood’, ‘honesty’ and ‘logic of time’ (sic). After the debate is over and the winner has been declared, the section under the debaters still says ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ rather that ‘won’ and ‘lost’ respectively (for example [1]). However in the centre of the page, the winner of page is clearly displayed. Thus there is no chance of any confusion. This is clearly a trivial issue which does not merit attention. Similarly in statistics of individual debaters, it includes the trends from current debates into debates which have been ‘won’ or ‘lost’. This makes a difference of barely one or two debates for any debaters. This issue too is clearly insignicant. As an aside from the debate, CriticalThinkingMachine complains that some of his arguments have been defeated since he did not know about history of site and consequently his timing was off. I sympathize with him. On other hand, new debaters are unlikely to face issues like indefinite voting period since this is a feature of old debates only. This clearly shows that my esteemed opponent is not like a typical newbie on this site. He clearly explores, investigates and questions whatever he encounters. He should consider visiting DDO forums (specially the debate forum http://www.debate.org...) where such queries will be immediately answered by our experience members. In the meantime, the resolution has been negated. References [1] http://www.debate.org...