DDO vs Edb8

C1: LearningDDO has no focus on progression. Users are "on their own," so to speak. Numerous attempts at starting up a buddy or "adopt a noob" program have routinely failed. Edeb8 is different. Features like judge feedback, coaching, badges etc, encourage users to improve their skills. Features like secret topics make them broaden their skill base. The culture of edeb8 has also long been improvement focused, users frequently asking for and offering advice. C2: FormatsDDO has little support for different styles. Even their own debate structure is routinely abused, with "Round 1" almost always being only for rules and acceptance. When you're preparing for an LD tournament and you want to practice your case, for example, this isn't good enough. Edeb8 is all about giving people options. We've had BP, LD, AP, Australs debates and countless more. We have support for things such as team, quick or video debating built into the site. Unlimited character debates, cross-examination, hidden participant/judges debates, unrated debates and more are quickly becoming staples which add both to the fun and the utility of the site. C3: AdsDDO has intrusive, slow ads. Edeb8 does not. C4: CustomizationDDO allows you only to change header persistence and remove the annoying dots on the background. Edeb8 allows you to customize the site background and colors to your liking, with a number of handy presets and a fun randomize option (and to share all this on your profile), allowing you to express your individual style. It allows you to fully customize your biography as well with rich text, fully showcasing our diverse community. C5: DevelopmentDDO has some bugs. Every site does, no matter how rare. Usually these will remain for quite a long time before Juggle gets around to fixing them. I'm not saying edeb8 doesn't. However, I am improving edeb8 almost every day. Every line of code, I know inside and out. That's not just ensuring a relatively bug-free experience, but also adding new features to the site that you won't find anywhere else, and being helpful when members need help or have a feature request. A smaller community is also easier to manage in terms of removing trolls, spam messages etc from a moderation standpoint, meaning it's relatively less attractive to these undesirable types. C6: SocializationDDO actually has relatively advanced socialization option: a forum, messaging, places to share your views, and profile comments. Edeb8, however, takes all this one step further. Examples of this include shoutboxes, at-tagging, groups, live chats, resources (unlike DDO's virtually inactive "blog"), status replies, the new issues section and more. Similarly, edeb8 also offers more styling options for debates. C7: Judge DevelopmentLiterally the only thing DDO offers to incentivise judging is a judge leaderboard, which is based more on quantity than quality, and doesn't even apply to many debates on the site. Again, there have been community efforts to help this, but none have lasted long-term. This is vital to edeb8, using a tiered judging model, leaderboard and sophisticated feedback methods to honestly appraise judges and help them provide more fair, balanced decisions. The site design and tier system also encourages more people to have a go at judging, and as a result, poor judgments are very rare indeed. R1: QualityEdeb8 ensures higher quality through:> Random tournament topics (not a bunch of "Goku vs Superman" challenges)> A focus on feedback and improvement> Meaningful judgments> On-site pre-drafting rounds> Autoforfeits and forfeit warnings> And dozens of other things DDO doesn't haveWhile DDO does have more members, I would contest that ON AVERAGE edeb8 has better debaters. Here's why:> People come to DDO for all manner of reasons. Perhaps only to vote in a poll. People come to Edeb8 specifically because they want to have fun and practice their debate skills. > Edeb8's focus on improvement and training is not matched by DDO. > We did have a higher AVERAGE placing in the WODC. Non-serious entries only shows that most DDO members are not serious. > Even if quality members are initially attracted to DDO, many of the "quality" debaters pro mentioned also have accounts on edeb8. That all improves the average quality of debates. As for "harboured" poor members, the reason why they haven't been banned from edeb8 is because they've attempted to stick to the rules this time. Jifpop is an example: he had poor conduct here, but edeb8 showed him an entirely different side to debating. Now he's made a strong effort to improve his debate skills and has learned to back down when asked. This argument is like disparaging a church because they have former prisoners in their congregation. To give a counterexample, RationalMadman was banned from edeb8 because I refused to harbor somebody who refused to change their ways - bans do happen there too. R2: Net WorthPro needs to prove why a higher net worth, which is entirely calculated by expected profitability, is better. A charity that does lots of good for the world is not inherently worse than a big profitable corporation - since edeb8 does not need to make a profit and is running on very low overheads, its profitability is not relevant to the site. If we used a different worth calculation that took into account the utility of each site, then the numbers would likely be quite different. In whose favor the numbers would then turn is what the issue is in this debate. R3: Types of DebateQuite the contrary, edeb8 has a number of features specifically geared towards more casual debaters. The shoutbox, issues, group polls, reply linking etc are all examples of this. Even the debates are not strictly formal - we have quick "twitter style" debates and other fun formats, as well as more informal topic categories, unrated debates etc. Which, by the way, is significantly more feature-wise than can be said for DDO's debate formats. Casual users do not necessarily need more members. A slow laid back discussion can be just as fulfilling as one where everyone posts quickly, much like a small town can be just as fun as a big city to some people. R4: FeaturesIf you've been reading my case so far, you'll find ample examples of features and aspects DDO lacks, which are only found on edeb8. The only two pro cited that aren't on edeb8 are opinions and polls. First, edeb8 does have polls (in groups) and the rather poll-like issues section. Second, the function of the opinion and poll sections (voicing an opinion) can, notwithstanding that, be quite easily replicated in other ways (such as with a forum thread). People were taking surveys and collecting opinions on DDO long before those sections were added. Third, the inclusion of other features on edeb8 can entirely offset this impact. For example, the fact that edeb8 might have a dedicated group and forum for a TV show you're interested in (as opposed to merely a poll about it), may attract a member to edeb8 who wouldn't come to DDO. R5/6: Social settingThese are practically the same point: that DDO's community has stuff to do other than debate. I have two responses. First, I'm going to take a wild guess and say most people here sometimes use Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, or any one of the billions of websites out there that aren't DDO. This in no way detracts from the DDO community. It's quite possible for folks to do other stuff on the internet, and come back to DDO for their debate-related needs. People DO leave DDO for all sorts of reasons. The thing is, they COME BACK. They log off DDO for a bit, check their social media, play some games, do some study, have a sleep, and then they're right back at it, refreshed and ready to debate once more. So while debaters need diversions, they need not be on the same debate site. The same is true for edeb8. Second, people do play the occasional games on edeb8. They post in last comment threads and ramble randomly in the shoutbox. There's even a mafia group. The extent to which these things are done by users is most probably ON AVERAGE the same as DDO. For example, take forum posts. Edeb8 has an average of ~23 posts per day (dividing total posts on the forum by days the forum has been active). By the same criteria, DDO has ~1000 posts per day. But then, DDO has >~45 times more users. The rate at which people engage in diversions from debating such as the forum is thus likely exactly the same on both sites. This leads to a slower pace, and smaller groups for the games. .. but that's fine if you just want some entertainment to get your mind off debate. Or you could go to Youtube and chillax there for a bit. Whether it's edeb8 or DDO, people come back. ConclusionEdeb8 is a more niche site than DDO, but this does not mean it is an inferior site. Quite the opposite: edeb8 actually provides a superior service in terms of the utility it offers its members, which I submit, ought to be the ultimate criteria for this debate (not unlike how a "better hammer" is one that is more useful to people in need of a hammer, or a "better computer" is one that is more useful to people in need of a computer) - a utility that can be demonstrated by all of my arguments above. DDO is a great site. Edeb8, however, is (arguably) the best. SourcesDetails on features described can be easily retrieved and verified through this site and edeb8. com respectively.