DDO should keep a voting system with multiple categories

The main effect of the voting change would be more tied debates Con claims the proposed change would fix problems. I collected some data to look for voting problems. To get a list of debates I did an advanced search for the string “the” sorted from new to old. I examined the first twenty debates in the list. At the time I did the search the first debate was: [7. http://www.debate.org...] If the search is done later, it should be possible to scroll down to start at that point. Of the twenty debates, three were ties. If the debates were scored up-or-down based upon the awarded points, 16 of the win-loss outcomes would be unchanged, including the three ties. However the voting method change would make three more of the win-loss outcomes into ties. That's logical, because if arguments are tied the debate may tip based upon one of the other categories. The point of the proposed voting change is to make voting less discerning, and it accomplishes that. What the change accomplishes is along the lines of “Arguments were about the same, but even though one side was substantially more difficult to understand, so we'll call it a tie.” That doesn't help the debater or the site because it does not reward better debate. Reversals are not necessarily better For one debate in my sample of twenty changing the voting method would have reversed the outcome, with the winner becoming the loser. Call it a reversal. Con assumes that the only reason a reversal occurs is because a vote bomb is overcome, but that isn't necessarily true.The reversal was in Hierocles v. donald.keller [8. http://tinyurl.com...] In this debate the score was 13-8, but the up-and-down votes were 3-4. Of Con's votes, three scored the debate 0-2, 0-1, 0-1. One voter scored Pro the winner 7-0, claiming in his RFD that Con had made a semantic argument in the final round, losing both conduct and arguments. The voter gave a reasonable RFD for each category. I don't know whether the 7-0 vote would hold up to very close scrutiny, but it was at least prima facie. Pro's other two voters scored the debate 3-0, 3-0.Suppose the voting system were changed to an argument-only vote. The 0-1 and 0-2 voters thought arguments were tied, and we don't know if they would have scored the win based upon the non-argument categories. If the voting system were changed, the debate might reasonably have ended 3-1 rather than 3-4.With up-or-down voting, some debates where the scoring was lopsided looked more even. Some voters seem hesitant to score categories other than arguments.The debate Con cited was innomen v. bluesteel on the “The US should not recognize the results of the latest Nicarguan election. [9. http://www.debate.org...] (Con gave the wrong link.) Pro won 42-41, while if everyone went with the majority of points, the up-and-ddown vote would have been 9-1-11. I voted for bluesteel in that debate, but I and many other voters thought it was very close and said so in the RFDs.In my view, there was one clear vote bomb, 7-0 by a voter who said he was countering another voter's vote bomb. He said nothing else in his RFD other than that he adjusted his vote for that reason. There may have been some back-and-forth not apparent to me. The debate seems to have been completed before the Moderator took over countering vote bombs. In any case, the outcome was not by any means a travesty of justice in which vote bombing prevailed. It was a close debate with one vote bomb that the Moderator should have corrected if current site rules were in play. When there are many votes in which small factors tip the voter one way or another, the statistics may go either way. It reflects no more than that it's tough to pick a winner in a close debate.In all the debates I reviewed, and especially the two reversals, the categories were accomplishing exactly what they were supposed to accomplish: they were causing voters to examine each aspect of the debate. I think debaters remember what they consider to be errant votes, and don't notice that 95% of the time the voting is quite reasonable. The solution to bad judging is to better guide judges. Judging on DDO can be imporved. It's no surprise because judging a debate is subjective. There are two responses to the problem: a. Try to reduce the effects of bad judging. b. Try to improve the quality of judging. We would like to be able to do both, but we cannot. To improve the quality of judging we have to have judging standards and improved enforcement of those standards, but a simple up-or-down vote makes standards largely pointless and unenforceable. With up-or-down voting, we move closer to an opinion poll, and that's inherently moving away from more thoughtful analytical judging. The way to educate judges is to tell them what they should be doing by having standards and to then question bad votes in terms of the standards. This promotes good debate by telling the debaters exactly what is expected of them. That's why the judging of subjective sports have moved away from thumbs up or down voting to categories and points. If someone, for example, makes a seeming unjustifiable vote for sources, standards are the means by which the vote can be questioned. Con claims that the “real world” of debate is academic debate. I don't think so. I think the real world of debate is informally debating friends and associates about the issues of the day, arguing about what to do in the work or school environment, judging talking heads on video as they debate the issues, and evaluating the claims of politicians. Academic debates rarely have conduct violations because of the certainty of immediate punishment. Real world debate often enough degenerates into ranting. Academic debaters are less likely to lapse into incomprehensibility, because people who cannot express themselves clearly are rarely attracted to academic debate; the real world poses endless problems of misunderstanding. Politicians and talking heads do not worry much about sources; they pose as experts stating claims as facts. Informal debates are even less likely to be troubled with facts. Everything happens sometimes in academic debate, but in general internet debate needs more guidelines reflected in categories. Academic debate is burdened with jargon incomprehensible to the average person, but which academic judges embrace. Academic debates worries about technicalities. Try telling your boss or your spouse that drops count as concessions and see where it gets you. L-D style academic is especially perverted, with very little concern over facts. Making it a single up or down decisions makes vote bombing prohibitions virtually impossible to enforce. Here is a generic RFD that anyone can use to justify any vote: This was a complicated debate and a close call in many respects. Overall, X did a better job of putting together the logic of his case with the supporting facts from his sources. Y never overcame X's basic argument. Both X and Y were difficult to follow at certain points, but not enough to affect the outcome. It was a good debate with valid points on both sides, but I have to give the edge to X. This generic RFD can be decorated with a few debate-specific comments, like “X's confusion of “their” and “there” was distracting, but not really serious.” With no voting standards, the job of writing a fake reason for decision (RFD) is so trivial that the RFD requirement might as well be abolished. Summary My review of a sample set of debates shows that the categories are working fine, and are inspiring voters to consider the individual aspects of a debate. I think members would like to have optional guidelines on how to judge debates, and that would improve both judging and debating. The main audience, the lurkers, would appreciate the improvement in debate quality.