DDO is a better debate site than Edeb8

DDO and edeb8 are both great debating sites and share some history. They are not the same, though, so a comparison can be made. I will present my case in this round. Arguments1. PopularityIt's usually argued that popularity should not be an argument for quality because the fact that something is more popular than other thing doesn't mean that it has superior quality. This is true most of the time, but in the case of debating, a good amount of debaters is necessary. - More people means more debaters and debatesThis is important in a debating site. If we were talking about games like Chess or some videogames, we would only need another player. But in the case of debating, because the possible debates have a really wide range of categories and topics, it's necessary to have a good amount of debaters. Now, it's not necessary for a site to have more debaters than the other for this to be critical. But in the case of DDO and edeb8, the amount of debaters is considerable. This is evidenced by the amount of open debates on each site (1) (2) and active debates (3) (2)For those unfamiliar with edeb8, there are only 2 active debates. The rest are randomly generated but they doesn't have any active debater on them. - More people means more voters and votesThis is more important than the last part. Even if there are few debates, the existent debates require votes. A site with enough debaters, that are experienced enough to read a debate and analyze it to determine who the winner is, will have enough voters to determine which debater is the rightful winner. A debate with few votes won't have a reliable result. - Reasons of popularityNow, it could be argued that the popularity is totally unrelated to the quality of the site, specially in this case where I have not mention features of the site yet. First, I will mention the reason I found debate. org first instead of edeb8. One day I was bored and wanted to discuss some topics for fun. I don't debate in real life and it's difficult to find someone to debate here, so I googled "debate". And that's it. The name of DDO is an important reason for it's popularity. Edeb8 is a clever name, but Google won't show me edeb8. com in the results if I search for debate. It will actually show me debate. org several times and some wikipedia results. Now, other debaters may have other reasons. Maybe they found the site because a friend told them, which is a result of popularity. Another good reason is that the site has features other than the debates. Like the forums (that edeb8 also has), polls, opinions, etc. And sure, these are not debates, but a huge source of debaters come from this features. There were some debaters suggestions for a separation of debates and opinions/polls, but they didn't change it because of popularity. People came here because they wanted tell their opinions to the world and create some discussion and found a bigger site with awesome things to do like debating and voting for debates. It´s true that the quality of the site should not be determined by the it's name or non-debate features, but the point here is that those features are what makes debate. org popular and this is important for a debate site.2. DDO has fewer bugs than Edeb8This is probably because DDO has more time working and more users to call attention to those bugs. And it's true that Edeb8's admin makes an huge effort to fix those bugs, but right now, you can find fine little bugs on Edeb8 almost each visit you make. I myself helped on the fix on some bugs, but I only ask the admin to fix really important bugs that affect the experience of the site. - Bugs that I found in the last 5 minutesSo I looked for bugs for this debate only. In DDO I found zero. In Edeb8 I tried to make a random search I got this result. This is a bug. I'm pretty sure this is not intended. Remember that this is just an small example of what I can find. Bigger bugs can appear time to time.3. Reason for VotesFirst, in DDO, depending of the choices you make when setting a debate, an RFD is necessary for a vote to count. If someone does not follow this rule, his vote is invalidated. This is a necessary feature to avoid biased voting to some extend. Bias always exists while voting, but it makes it more difficult for the voter to just vote without giving his reasons. In Edeb8, the amount of points someone receives depend on the amount of things you write, even if you repeat yourself or give further reasons to points you already explained. If you wanted to compare this to DDO, that would be like giving reasons for arguments in DDO, and then giving more reasons for argument but counting points for sources and S&G. This is not an analogy, this is just a way to explain it to people that is not familiar with Edeb8. Giving points for the size of your RFD is not a bad idea, the problem comes because there are other reasons those points are being given. Sources 1. . http://www.debate.org... 2. . http://www.edeb8.com... 3. . http://www.debate.org...Thanks again to nzlockie for the debate. I will post more in the next round.