The "Conduct" Voting Category Should be Removed or Replaced

===== An inventive to avoid petty insults, and focus on debate ===== A simple read of my opponent's argument boils down to this: he argues that people should be expected to have 4. different interpretations of the various voting categories, and that debaters should make a conscious effort to figure out what the majority "interpretation" is. Right at the onset, there are several problems: 1. Voting categories should NOT be open to wide spread interpretation. A little leeway is acceptable, like some people weighing "grammar" more than "spelling" int he S&G voting category. But to allow different interpretations such as "convincing arguments" meaning "the user who I like more" is not fruitful at all to the debate process - in fact, examples such as my opponent has given is reminiscent of vote-bombing. While we can't fully prevent it from happening - as people will vote in a biased manner - we shouldn't encourage it. 2. Making voting categories open to interpretation defeats the purpose for the score. If we allow the total sum of scores to equal a wide amount of different interpretations of the voting categories, then we don't get a honest representation of who won (in the public eye). What if someone valued humor for winning the debate? What if someone valued how many times someone said "ergo"? There could be myriads of trivial reasons why people would vote for someone, and this obviously shouldn't be encouraged. Likewise with the interpretations. Not only would we not know who won in the public eye - since all voting categories are open to interpretation - but it would undermine the point of having a set of categories. Heck, why not just give them a blank field where they can give the debater how many points they want, for whatever reason? I realize there are RFD's (Reasons for Decision), but then why vote? To simply give debaters a number saying who won (which is inherently flawed because all the categories are open to interpretation)? 3. Setting a standard definition for each of the categories not only makes it easier, but it helps debaters improve (perhaps a new version will show debaters how many points they get per category). For one of the biggest uses of debating is intellectual discourse. Allowing categories to be flexible defeats this. 4. "The most debaters can (and should do) is know their audiences (which is what lawyers, members of the senate and presidential candidates do) so that they may know how to reason and dictate in a way that is appealing to them." This would be an inappropriately large burden for the debaters. They have to conscious of the general majority opinion, and then watch out for those few debaters who have different "interpretations" Not only so, but this isn't some politician training site - it's a debate site. Honest, intellectual debate needs a standard and stable system of feedback/review. The debaters shouldn't be expected to "know their crowd", they should be expected to hone their argumentative skills, critical thinking, and logic. ===== CON: Don't need to remove anyway ===== "It allows users to voice their opinions officially. " This can be done WITHOUT conduct being a *voting* category. Rather, a polling category for the interests of the debaters if they wish - just like the "I agree before this debate". This applies to my opponent's other point. If it's for the purpose of other "arenas" or "activities", then at best it should remain as a poll that does not affect the vote turnout. "To further negotiate with my opponent while upholding my side of the resolution, I argue that rather than remove or replace conduct, the webmaster could simply add in some information on the side of the page that explains "conduct" in more detail." Again - the only other purpose of the conduct vote is to prevent debates from turning into messy insults. A new category, such as clarity, can be implemented. As anyone should know, being clear in one's debating is great argumentative skills.