That filling out the big issues on one's DDO profile is beneficial

Are open challenges or DA debates relevant to the resolution? To assess whether something is relevant, the trick is to presume it is true and check whether it impacts the resolution. For instance, if we grant DA debates are good, and that filling out the big issues reduces the quantity of DA debates, the resolution is clearly impacted because it would show filling out the big issues on one's DDO profile is reducing a good, which is creating a harm. The open challenges point was a response. My opponent asserted big issues are a mechanism for finding friends and rivals, and I agreed, but I argued that this doesn't qualify as a benefit because not filling out those profiles wouldn't remove the benefit. If we grant that as true, then my opponent's claim isn't really a "benefit" to the user at all, which impacts the resolution because it proves my opponent has failed to show benefits arising from the use of one's big issues box. Showing that the big issues are good means showing that they provide some benefit to the user. If something else provides the same benefit, then the big issues are in no way being beneficial. Finding Friends and RivalsI agree that people can post open challenges as well as fill out their big issues, but if they do, then what's the point of the big issues? The open challenges are already providing people to debate against, and thus the big issues are providing no marginal benefit. The only difference will be that it will be seemingly obvious whenever you're playing the devil's advocate, which may turn off some debaters who'd prefer an honest discussion, which is a harm because it limits the pool of potential opponents. If people didn't want to discuss a certain topic, they'll put "no opinion" in the relevant issues box. That's it - there's no serious decision-making involved that gets them to think about alternative issues. People are unlikely to ask others about topics they have no opinion on, instead focusing on those they do as there is more potential for debates. The same thing happens with open challenges, but still it's not a benefit the big issues provide. The whole friends thing remains a moot point. I think the view that it's better to have friends to agree with and foes to argue with is as unrealistically black-and-white as the big issues themselves, but if people really wanted to find friends who agreed/disagreed with various issues in general, they could find those viewpoints clearly articulated on the forums, which provide a better socialisation interface than the big issues anyway. Furthemore, while finding sad excuses for friends may be an advantage to a small minority of debaters (those who want sad excuses for friends AKA those who agree with them on vaguely-defined arbritrarily-determined criteria), it certainly isn't worth the time of the average debater on DDO, nor does it outweigh the harms I have presented. Increasing ActivityThere is no marginal "efficiency" from having filled-out big-issues because open challenges yield all the debates you could ever dream of. Any lack of activity on this siteis due to a lack of motivation or time on our parts, as opposed to people not finding debate partners. The only loss in efficiency in the system is that some people spend a lot of time messaging others trying to arrange debates based on big issues they saw on their profiles. That's time they're not debating. I admit this is not a huge loss, but the key point is that efficiency is not improved using big issues, because the site is more or less perfectly efficient without them. Furthermore, debates are already a much better catalyst for new debates than issues/messages, so not filling out the issues would not have a significant impact on site activity. My opponent's only response was that people don't spend lots of time with big issues. If that's true, then that proves debates are much more highly involved and thus much better sources of activity generation than checking the big issues to see if there's anything you'd like to challenge others on. Besides, checking and discussing random debates has the flow-on benefit of encouraging voting. While all of this is not mutually exclusive with big issues stalking, it's a lot more efficient to do only the one thing that will yield more activity than split your time somehow. BI limits the range of debatesThe key point here is that if you say you're pro something, there's no benefit to that whatsoever except to possibly get challengers to face you who are con. If you get con challengers, then you're not doing a DA debate. You're limited to being pro because you declared pro to be your personal belief. If there were lots of (if even any) pro challengers also, then that would prove that the big issues failed to generate those debates - the challengers did not take into consideration the information you provided on the big issues. So - either the big issues are useless or you don't get DA debates. My opponent didn't understand this argument, so there's nothing I have to respond to. My opponent is right in saying that it's ultimately the debater's choice whether they do DA debates or not. That's true, but the system should not be designed in such a way as to discourage them. By encouraging voters to use and challenge based on the key issues, you encourage people to match up based on who opposes your beliefs - which is exactly what a DA debate ISN'T. I've spent enough characters describing why DA debates are the best, and my opponent has never contested that point. Debaters have the choice, but if they choose to fill out the big issues, then they lose that choice or waste their time. It's definitely not a choice they should make. Big Issues don't lead to constructive debatesMy opponent is correct in saying that not all debates need to be constructive. However, constructive debates are better for a number of reasons. They're more fun as they get to the heart of an issue and don't waste time with semantics required to derive a shared understanding of the resolution or any elements thereof. They're more fulfilling because of the increase in neural connections between the debate and the contents of one's life. They're better for the world, as I said in round two, because a myopic mindset is generally unhealthy for any population. I'm not saying there isn't a place for debates like "Barack Obama". I'm just saying it would be more fun if you did debates like "That Barack Obama is a good president". Big Issues facilitate the former, but not the latter. Open challenges are the best and most efficient way to get constructive debates. Why? The generalness of the issue and the agree/disagree dichotomy. As I said in round two, you can't define a specific debate in terms of agreement or disagreement with a general issue. The latter of these two points has been dropped by my opponent, so I'm assuming she agrees there's harm there. As she says at the end of this point, there clearly is "More harm than good". My opponent has not shown any benefit to being able to identify site members who broadly agree/disagree on various arbritrary issues. I still maintain, for the reasons I've already described in depth, that there is not a significant number of debaters on this site who think that "not saying" means "don't care", and even if they did, then that wouldn't stop them from taking my open challenges. Thus, the big issues fail to detract from good debates, but even if they did succeed, that would make them even worse because it further limits the range of debates to those that are even less constructive. BI BrokenI've already shown in great detail that new members are unlikely to have filled out the big issues, and my opponent has offered no response except to assert the opposite. The big issues fail to add anything significant of value to the site except to arbritrarily polarise and divide. My opponent has failed to meet her burden of proof.