Members should be allowed to see who voted for who.

Hello, sorry I couldn't respond earlier, I was busier today. You said in your rebuttal that, "Personally, I wouldn't harass these people that voted for stevster but to a certain extent I WOULD demean them." (1) Fair enough. Even if we assumed that you would only demean them instead of harass them, from the perspective of the recipient, that might very well be harassment and a violation of their privacy. Moreover, how are we to make sure that other people won't harass others? If we enabled everyone to see who voted for whom, what is to prevent other people from abusing the change of rules? Pardon me, but I don't see how this modification would stop them at all. It would make debate.org a site where people would be free to abuse each other for the simple act of voting. At the very least it would severely tax all of the administrators with policing. Simply put, you nor I have any control over how people would use or abuse the new system. You said, "I'd rather have less people vote if it stopped some other people from voting without reading." (1) I agree with you here, that it would stop other people from voting without reading. But, would it not also stop people who did vote, from voting for the better argument? If you enable the revelation of usernames, what would happen? Take a conservative example - What if you voted for the idea that Nazis were not evil? (2) Let's say that there is a side that is morally repugnant to you and to most people, but has a superior argument. If you voted for that side, people would then see your name there. If they did, you would be associated with holocaust deniers and neo-nazis. Do you want that? Remember that this is a relatively mild example, there are plenty of more horrifying opinions I could vote for, many of them on this site. Far from preventing people for voting for their beliefs, it would encourage it. The last thing that you said was, >> 2nd of all, I think that is great to show people that many times when you give your opinion, there are often consequences, but you should give your opinion anyway! e.g. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out and he got killed for it, may he rest in peace. But your opinion is never in vain and you should make sure you speak your mind without any fear of others. (1) Sure, in an idealistic world, people should be able to speak without fear of reprisals. That is why Martin Luther King Jr. was exceptional, he died for his beliefs and opinions. Many people were persecuted and killed for their beliefs in the past and that is why they are extraordinary people. But, these people are just that, EXCEPTIONAL and EXTRAORDINARY people. Most people do care about what other people think, it is an ability that we have that enables us to live in society. Sure MLK Jr. would die for his beliefs, but would John Smith want to be harassed for a simple vote? I wouldn't count on it. That's why vote suppression works, and why it would work here if we revealed who voted for whom. By all means necessary, if you want to disclose your personal vote, you are free to do that in the comments box. But it should never be something that people are forced to do. Voter Anonymity is a right that everyone must have. (3) Disclosing the identity of voters violates that right. To summarize, I have shown that Voter Anonymity is a right (3) and that, by its very definition, the disclosure of the identities of voters violates that right. You can see that it would enable voter suppression via harassment. This harassment would be in-discriminant and hurt everyone, regardless of whether people voted for a superior argument or belief. In that respect, the advantage it is supposed to give is simple ineffectual. Any other benefits provided by identity disclosure are also negligible and are already provided by auxiliary services. In short, there is no reason to request a total overhaul of the current system. It would be far too much trouble to experiment with, and the advantages gained are, at best, dubious. Thank you for reading. Sources: (1)http://www.debate.org... (2)http://www.debate.org... (3)http://www.un.org... Feedback is appreciated.