The Cleaners

1) The rubric is simple. It is simply to follow the rules of voting as established by debate.org As we know, many people allocate the points fully to one person regardless of category. These are "Spelling and Grammar", "Reliability of Source", "Strength of Argument", and "Quality of Conduct". Each cleaner will be required to explain why he has allocated points of each category, not just give a blanket statement. This is to make sure that nobody gives the "Spelling and Grammar" points to someone just because their opponent's argument was far inferior. As for the membership requirements, I will not be looking for much. I will first start out with members of the leaderboard who have demonstrated that they harbor no strong political or idealogical biases and who would be as adept at critiquing debates as they are at debating. After an initial trial period, I will begin accepting requests to "audition". The audition process is essentially submission of debates, and I will be looking at them for the following: A. Competency in Debate and understanding how debates are won, lost, and carried out. B. Adaptability. I will ask recruits to argue on both sides of a particular point and get accustomed to doing so. The final part would be the actual submission of reviews. These are cases in which they find debates, give a thorough and detailed analysis of the arguments given, and an equally detailed explanation as to how they allocated points for each category. 2) I have not yet assembled a group, so I cannot put them in action to give a visible example. I can, however, detail the steps. First, we will have a mode of contact. Those who wish to "report" a debate will do so on a forum topic I will set up after our group is formed. While there is no guarantee that other people who view the topic will give it consideration, Cleaner members *must* submit their analyses and vote accordingly by a deadline. Possibly a week. Having 10 dedicated people offering input and voting with little to no bias will make results much more accurate, but the number will most likely grow by then. That is the essential method of how the cleaners would work. If need be, I shall implement new methods of communication, division of labor, having subgroups handle divided reports, etc. But it will maintain the integrity of the cleaners because at the very root, I am only directing the focus of voting, not the way votes are carried out. 3) I can guarantee that no vote bombing will occur because vote bombing is the unjustified allocation of points by a mass group of people. All cleaners are required to post a lengthy analysis to explain their votes. In addition, I can guarantee that there will be no abuse of power because there is no power. I myself will only have the responsibility and power of a taxi cab dispatcher, directing the members to go where needed, and making sure that members who are due to vote, vote. Since I have no say in HOW they vote, only that they vote, and vote with justification, it is impossible for me to abuse my power. 4) If the Cleaners work out the way I want it to, there will be no need. My short term goal is to create a police force. my long term goal is to increase the members of the Cleaners to encompass all of debate.org, so that each and every member will take up the habit of posting detailed explanations of their votes. However, in the event that there is too much work to handle, I will assign people to monitor smaller divisions of the Cleaners. The division is that simple, just to make sure people vote in the debates they are assigned. 5) Yes and No. I have had the idea for a while, and the controversy of the CWO was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. My very first debate on this site (The Walmart Debate) started out as a loss and continues to be a loss even though I personally know that my argument was far superior. The comment section was filled with spam with no productive input, and dominated by my opponent's debate buddy, and the votes are always against my favor. I have also encountered vote bombing several times by fundamentalist, young earth creationists who were angry that they lost debates to me time and time again, as well as for being Logical_Master and Yraelz and Beem0r at the same time. When CWO popped up, vote bombing no longer became a shadowy occurrence. There was now a group dedicated to it, and this prompted my action, fearing that debate.org would eventually turn into a battlefield of cliques as opposed to a place of debate. 6) The "appeals process" will be done via forum. I will set up a topic for people to submit debates for "appeal". In addition, i will also be assigning debates from the "Official I should not have lost" thread. If there are no assignments, Cleaners should habitually vote on whatever debates they find, and if they find injustice, should bring it to the attention of the other Cleaners. I'll be happy to field any more questions.