Vote moderation standards are an overall benefit to the site

RebuttalsDifferent StrokesMy opponents arguments here are that he wants people to read his debates, and attempts to contrast this with people who want to have quality votes as an underlying difference, and therein lies the problem with this argument. People who want quality votes want the same thing, people to read their debates. In fact voting and having debates read go hand in hand. How do you really know someone read the entirety of your debate or even did more than simply click on the debate title to have read the debate? Having a lot of views doesn't necessarily mean that someone has read your debate. All this aside, my opponent has not actually proved that debates today aren't getting a lot of views. In fact, depending on the topic and overall quality of the debaters, some debates will get plenty of views. In fact, as I am writing this argument now, this debate has 550 views. That's half a thousand views for a debate that at this point only has one argument from either debater (2 after this one posts obviously). Views also are counted every time a debate is clicked on. So this time every time either myself or you have clicked on a debate, that page view number goes up by one. Which means a large majority of those views on these debates are coming from the debaters themselves as they are checking the time limit restraints, etc. And finally my opponent has no evidence to suggest that views themselves have any direct impact on Juggle's revenue. It is the comments, and specific key words in the debate that rank in the search engines and are what ultimately make up the majority of what people key in on Google. But just to clarify, my opponent in this argument has yet to show how vote moderation directly applies to the downfall of debate views in the first place. My opponent complains later that people aren't voting on his debates, yet in this argument also uses views as a factor in determining how many people are reading his debate. In his just finished debate with Danielle on Japanese internment camps, the debate has 45 comments and just under a thousand views however. (1) The debate has no votes as of the time I am writing this argument, however meets all the other criteria on how Juggle makes ad revenue, with the comments and debate keywords ranking in the search engine. So right here we can create a disconnect between views meaning people have taken the time to read a debate, and translating that by actually writing out proving they've read the debate in an RFD.My opponent has no impact here.My ArgumentsQuality VS QuantityMy opponents only real argument here is that quality isn't the only important factor for voting, but he fails to substantiate this argument with any convincing reasoning. He mentions the leaderboard; A board that even with the ELO system, does not measure the quality of votes being placed on debates that have a high number of votes. My opponent ends his argument essentially asking why we should "disbandon everything for quality", and that is a very easy question to answer to even meet my opponents own expectations for the site. Quality debates bring quality members to the site; If I am researching an article on Abortion looking to form a solid opinion on the issue, and see a good debate from two very intelligent adults that helps me reach an opinion, I will probably gain a certain respect for the site in question and be more willing to sign up. Now if I see a bunch of trollish debates that don't appear to have a lot of effort into them and I don't feel I learned anything from it, my opinion of the site will be prima facie that it is a haven for trolls. And let's face it, unfortunately these are the type of debates that are now making it on the home page, and pulling up in search engines. Silly polls that don't require effort put into an argument are now also attracting younger members to the site, particularly teens, and children. How does all this translate into vote moderation? These individuals tend to vote bomb debates, because they don't have a big enough attention span to read the entire debate prior to voting. I don't blame them, they are young and these are the type of individuals who probably already have a hard time finishing a 3 minute youtube video. Nonetheless, the community should make an aim to coach them into reading debates fully and voting properly, as that encourages what my opponents wants by having his debates read, and what the majority of the community want in getting proper feedback on the site. Moderation encourages people to finish reading that debate so that they can give the debater the quality feedback he/she deserves. Moderation's goal isn't to punish individuals; Moderators don't go out of their way to remove votes. These votes are reported by the debaters generally, because the debater didn't feel they got the proper understanding for why a vote happened the way it did. Voting is for the debaters, not the voters. Voting is and should continue to be an act of service, pushing the mindset of "what goes around comes around". People are starting to realize that demanding votes while not being willing to vote themselves, will typically result in the furthering the problem of getting no votes at all. This all means that vote moderation isn't at fault for the "lack of votes", it's personal motivation. People are less willing to put the time and effort into winning an argument if they think they will lose the debate simply on a basis of being vote bombed by an individual who may be more popular on the site, or who has messaged more people lobbying for votes on their debate. Vote moderation by extension creates higher quality debates from the most committed community members. This doesn't push out the noobs; it creates a standard for the noobs to adapt to in order to fit in better on the website, and there is nothing wrong with that.Concluding argumentsMy opponent says that if I don't prove that vote moderation creates more votes then we "shouldn't be doing it". This logic is a completely backwards way to think about this resolution. First of all, it would be near impossible for me to prove statistically that vote moderation has created more high quality votes, and would require tons of research compiled into a study over the past while since vote moderation has been amped. It's impossible for to prove that vote moderation results in more votes, the same way it's impossible for my opponent to prove that there are overall less votes as a result of vote moderation by the same standards. Either way, this is a flawed argument. Even if we were to assume the quality votes have remained generally the same over the past 4 years, my opponent needs to make a case for how keeping all the bad ones that clearly do not indicate the member having read the debate, to impact the overall decision of who the winner of said debate is. Reverting back to the "homosexual acts are immoral" debate I pointed to earlier in round 2, if only 12% of the votes on a debate demonstrate they properly understood the arguments in a debate, doesn't that mean that the debate winner was clearly impacted by the plethora of bad votes? That is what moderation does. It eliminates the bad votes to give the winner to the person who had the most positive feedback given to them from individuals who took the time to read the entirety of the debate.My opponents last argument is about how his debates used to get votes, but no longer do. He hasn't attributed any of these old debates of his as getting quality votes, and we've already proven that his debate with danielle has got popular attention. So what remains for my opponent to do, is to prove how vote moderation itself is the cause for the lack of quality votes on his debates. Unless my opponent is okay with a 12 year voting and saying "Danielle wins because of poop". My opponent says that these policies alienate the 12 year olds. I deny this, and see the policies and an invitation for a new member to learn to be a better voter. There are plenty of good voters on the site also that are completely willing to assist these new members. Having their vote removed isn't a punishment to the voter; The voter gains nothing from voting poorly. Removing their vote is an assistance to the debater, and an opportunity for coaching and feedback for the voter. Only the debaters are at risk from poor votes.Good luck to wylted in the voting period, and thank you all for reading this debate. Sources:1. http://www.debate.org...