Fordebating.com will not see a substantial gain in membership based on the site owners advertising..

SemanticsMy opponent has tried to make a semantics argument out of the resolution, which is something I am not willing to let him pursue. His use of the words "Will not see" as a future tense also forgets that we are talking about a substantial gain as a whole. The resolution is clearly referring to past actions, as I or anyone cannot predict how one will change an action later to effect an on-going debate. For the purposes of this debate, we should be referring to actions that took place leading up to the debate. My opponent here is accusing me of moving goal posts, but that is essentially exactly what he is doing. Imagine if I were to start a debate with a friend saying "My friend will not score a date with his his co-worker based on his behavior". Then, after starting the debate, he shaves, starts to shape up a little, and genuinely becomes less of a slob. His approach and strategy have changed, and I originally was only arguing about how he initially behaved. If he then says "I changed my approach and now she doesn't ignore me anymore", his argument would be irrelevant because I was only arguing to the extent of his previous behavior. This is what actually moving a goal post is. Coveny past behavior prior to the start of this debate is really all that is relevant. My opponent is saying that I am assuming this controversy argument was his only advertising approach. I definitely have admitted that there were other avenues used, but that this was the bulk of what has been seen around the forums, and it was a self-admitted strategy by coveny himself. He himself in his arguments uses all of his stats to show how he thinks drama is what helped his views, subscribers, and mailers. He says this was after the mikal drama, he never tries to show his growth after his one early thread talking about the upcoming site. Since the debate started my opponent has tried starting several threads to promote the website, and even specifically mentions this debate as inspiration(1). My opponent is trying to move the goal line inches in front of him, when this strategy was rare from him prior to the start of this debate. While I do applaud his change in attitude with his marketing (I still don't think it will yield an substantial growth in membership), I implore the voters to look past my opponents grievances based on semantics.Lastly Coveny tries to sell you that I said he isn't advertising elsewhere, which is just false (and kind of funny that he didn't understand that argument). My point was that he would be more successful if he had opted to spend his time advertising through his other methods and websites, than arguing with people on debate.org. Danielle says this perfectly when she says "If you're truly committed to your new site as a money maker, I would advise you diversify your attention away from DDO and into more marketing endeavors with much broader reach." (2) Moving on. The Key effects of advertisingSubpoint A "Reach"My opponent tries to uses something I said as a contradiction here, but again is something he just failed to understand. When I say that he has brand awareness, I mean that the people who are aware of him know that he is the head of an upcoming debating website. This is because most of his posts are justified as advertising strategies, even when disputes get personal. Just because people who know you associate you with something, doesn't mean that is a positive association. Louis CK was a great comic for years, and one instance of sexual assault has made known as a sexual deviant and lessened his impact of being a well liked comic. When people see Coveny who know his past posting behavior, they know he is the leader of a debating website, but that doesn't mean I said that there was a significant number of people who even know about him to know about the website. It also doesn't mean that association is a good thing for his website. Subpoint B "Sales and Profits"Con is again trying to accuse me of moving goal posts by saying that sales and profits aren't relevant to this debate, I would dis-agree. Mostly in the area of time spent, vs payoff. Even if Con isn't trying to make money immediately, it is an ultimate goal of his, and something he wants to do in the long term. In order to do that, he needs to get members on his website. It is my point that if he was trying to get a substantial gain in membership, his time is best spent elsewhere, as members here probably aren't going to switch websites easily. Even if he gets a few of the member base, he needs to prove how his time spent here is more beneficial than how he could have spent his time elsewhere. That is the purpose of this debate.Substantial GainThe main point to respond to here is where my opponent is trying to say his stats qualify as a demountable pay off, and my point is that he isn't showing them. He is trying to confuse my argument by saying that he cannot prove a demonstrable payoff based on an un-released website, and I agree. But my opponent is the one making the initial claim that he can with his "Stats", I am literally just saying that he can't. I am saying that if he is going to use stats, he needs something more demonstrable than vague stats on youtube channels, facebook visitors, and mail subscribers. Those are not guaranteed signups. My opponent should be showing statements where people have omitted they were wanting to join the website, or said that they want to join specifically for the way he advertises. To clarify, I am not the one who made the statement that he can verify visitors through stats. HE did, and I refuted it saying that the stats he provided are not contractual agreements to his website. A verbal testimony saying someone will join his website would help him more than any of the numbers he has tried to attribute to the debate.Secondly Con responds to my argument where I said I would be surprised if 20 people knew about his website from these forums. He tries to twist this by using each unique view is someone who is aware of his website. Again that misses the point, because Con cannot prove those views were garnered from THIS website. Views on a video can be created by yourself and friends, same with mail lists and facebook subs. Just because he got a small gain in subs on his page, doesn't mean he can confirm they are strictly from this website. I maintain I would be surprised if more than 20 people knew or cared about his drama and his website, but even if they knew about it that they wouldn't join, so there is no way to view this metric as a gain, nonetheless substantial if you only converted 20 members. Friends =/= MembershipCon is trying to say that making friends means he is gaining respect, and overall support. But with the examples he used, that doesn't actually show that in the slightest. Zmike being a sarcastic jerk, Rocket saying he thinks a simple joke was funny, leaning defending him from being bullied while at the same post saying he is generally looked down on by the community, none of that is actual support. Con seems to think that any post that isn't directly arguing with him is some form of support. This is not the case. Con needs to show Pm's where these members said they want to sign up for his site, or posts where they have. None of that means support for his website. Next Con says that I attributed the friends I had on the site to membership, and I didn't. In fact the whole purpose of me using my website as an example was to show the opposite. So please ignore my opponents constant complaints about this goal post stuff. My whole point was that my making friends DOESN'T guarantee membership. Con is trying to make me sound as if I am saying something I am not. My opponent next says that I conceded the Alex Jones argument which means I said even if people make fun of him, they will join the site. That is not what I was saying at all. In fact it was just the OPPOSITE of that. My opponent using Alex Jones as an example works against him because Coveny is trying to market a community building social networking site, and Alex Jones is trying to get a few quick clicks on his pod cast where people opt to laugh at him and leave. That is not a membership gain. Alex Jones critiques don't have to become a member to watch his youtube clip, laugh, and leave. Coveny is marketing a website where to be successful, it will need a membership to be adding content that inspires other members to join. Having someone quickly click on the site to make fun of coveny, and then they log off isn't going to gain him any membership. My opponent has dropped this point by being so attached to the "Moving the goal post" argument, so we should consider this argument a concession. ConclusionMy opponent is trying to sell you on foul play, rather than spending the time to argue logically. In his debate with Danielle he attempts to sell his audience that she makes a conduct violation over something completely irrelevant to the debate, when he accuses her of plagiarism for her own argument. (3) Because my opponent was too busy trying to tattle on his opponent to the voters for irrelevant things, he missed most of the entire point of the debate, and also missed out on several opportunities to sell his case appropriately. Con has mis-understood most of my arguments and rebuttals, which means he has also dropped them as well. I implore the voters to focus on the important part of this debate, the argument. I implore the votes to Vote Pro, as I have successfully proven that Con hasn't demonstrated the ability to market his product sufficiently, and by extension will not see a substantial growth in membership through his advertising on Debate.org. Thankyou for reading! Sources:1. http://www.debate.org...2. http://www.debate.org...3. http://www.debate.org...