I think limiting the points one can add to a debate is a good idea. Actually, it'd be nice if the whole down/up voting system was removed (or at least, have the moderator choose whether to allow votes or not), then people can stop "voting" and actually present counter-arguments. It reminds me of Youtube where your comment can be down-voted into nonexistence, not necessarily because the comment was offensive or pointless, but the majority of people who saw it didn't agree with your position, so they voted it down. Meanwhile, short, offensive, even ignorant comments are voted up because they voiced the most popular position. Of course, removing the voting system would mean getting rid of the "efficiency" stat, which wouldn't be good, so I guess a limit would be a better improvement.
Hamandcheese and myself were able to get my Colbert vs O'reilly debate to 13 v 0 with just the 2 of us. This doesn't seem right....
I agree. I've actually bought up the point with CreateDebate. The system of being able to add points to a certain side of the argument by favouring or agreeing with other peoples' arguments seems silly.
Stay tuned, we have a scoring update coming soon to address exactly what you are talking about.
However, please keep in mind that a well-argued point from a single person CAN change the course of the debate. I often talk about the vocal minority, and they are very effective in convincing large numbers of people. Debate isn't a democratic activity, and while it seems counter-intuitive that two people who constantly up-vote their side's debates and down-vote the other's, this is simply an abuse of power. The scoring on this website should be based on the power of the argument being made, regardless of the side. Voting your own side's arguments up, even if they say something of little relevance, is just pure ignorance. Either way, this website will generally be slanted against religion and towards more liberal values -- this is simply because the spread of conservatives are in a higher demographic, and this "beta" website is part of the new social media. One person to one point will still lead to "unfair" voting, simply because of the demographics of the website. Can't wait to see the results. Good luck!
Oh, very interesting. I think I understand.
Well said. While I cannot agree with your final paragraph whole-cloth, I understand the perspective. There are certain topics that will always be 'hotbeds' regardless the medium. (If you really want to see people's heads explode, put up a debate about (whispers) scientology.) The exciting thing about a site like this is not so much having a 'new place to argue', but the potential for a site such as this to literally become a focal point for gauging the pulse on any number of topics. Of course, much of that potential is going to rest in how well refined the weighting of these topics proceeds. Interesting times ahead, to be sure.
Favored the favoring applause.
Favored the favoring of applause of a post which mentions me
I disagree. Each person should be able to vote for each argument once, not just once for each side of the debate. I think the main change I want is to see to be able to choose which side I am favoring, since oftentimes it chooses wrong based on the # of favor/oppose arguments before. But I should be able to vote for each argument I think is quality or crap.
If the purpose of the debate point system is to express agreement with a side of the debate, then, obviously, a single point is all that is needed. That point should apply to the debate, not the participants. If the purpose of the debate point system is to express agreement with individuals participating and not necessarily with the side being taken, then more than one point should be available and those points should apply to the participants but not have any effect upon the debate itself. If a person wishes to sway the debate, then they should take a stance. That IS the purpose of this place, after all. A debate should not be swayed by how many of the audience agree or disagree. Take a note from the pages of any debate society's handbook... points are awarded to debaters for how well they debate, and points are awarded to a 'side' overall for how well they overcome the logic of their opposition. Here, this would be the ability to vote: 1) How well I like the individual's use of logic and rhetoric. 2) How well I think the individual has made a valid point for their side of the debate. 3) Which side of the debate I support. Each of these three should be tallied differently and of the individual votes, only the ones at #2 should have any impact on the debate itself, and even then, much more marginally than #3. My suggestion would be to have an unidentified ratio of 'public support' apply if there is a wish to have public opinion of a person's thoughts be involved.
I agree. There's no reason by we couldn't have two separate systems in place: one for the overall democratic vote (one vote per member) and a separate system for rating individual arguments.
You say a debate shouldn't be ruled by how much of an audience agrees or disagrees, but I don't think that's true here. There is no judge to judge. Even if it's three points being voted on it's still the general public voting. And comparing this site to a debating society is invalid. For one, in a formal debate you're making a speech, not writing on the internet. Your side makes a structured argument and presents it in a strict time. Putting forward a formalised argument to a judge means they can analyse content, the quality of the argument and presentational style well. On this site you're writing something of indeterminate length and putting it forward where, when and how you will, and that means arguments aren't comparable. I don't need to be given rhetorical credit for remembering to punctuate, no-one wants to spend time analysing in depth where I have done so, and I don't want to give people a mark out of ten for 'logic and rhetoric', which by the way are two very different things. Logic would go better with item two, the "How well I think the individual has made a valid point for their side of the debate" consideration. And that illustrates my point - shouldn't we keep it simple with the plain yet effective +1 system?
The purpose of the site is clearly to create debate (points to the name). Obviously if you permit people to vote for opinions alone, you're effectively cutting out the chances they will feel compelled to enter the debate themselves (hello, 2% rule, anyone? still valid). You say you 'do not think that's true here', but you say it in relation to my comment that a debate's outcome should not be ruled by how much the audience agrees or disagrees. Exactly what do you not think is true? That the audience does not currently weight the debate based purely on their agreement or disagreement? Perhaps you should reconsider, as the entire site is opinion driven at the moment, with most of the 'debates' dealing more with aesthetic and preference than evidence or supporting information. In rebuttal to your statement that comparing this site to a debate society is 'invalid', I assert that, comparing this site to a debate society is entirely valid because it is not only named 'Create DEBATE', it is structured around the concept of DEBATE and as anyone with any degree of education on the matter knows, DEBATE is more than simply disagreement and opinion; it is the presentation of a logical argument for or against the matter under debate in which the very least requirement is some form of cohesive reasoning. Obviously you have never actually BEEN in a debate society, else you would know that it can take many forms, of which ONE is a speech format. Anytime you have the general public involved 'arguments aren't comparable'. That is why this site seems to be oriented toward offering contributor rankings. It is also why contributor rankings shouldn't weigh on the debate itself except when contributors are ranked highly enough on their skill to warrant it (hence the suggestion of threshold/ratio application). Thank you for making the point for me. As for 'judges', every reader/visitor to the site is a potential judge. The point underlying my agreement on this matter is simply that allowing visitors to weight the topic without presenting their own thoughts/logic/position is the antithesis of debate. Thus the notion of clearly separating votes for contributor/debater skill FROM the stance on the matter under debate is critical to insuring an accurate representation of the difference between popularity and position. Ultimately, this site has vast potential to be highly beneficial and much more than a social argument circle. If it is to get there (if that is, indeed, the vision for it), then segregating popularity and position soon and clearly is imperative.
What's the 2% rule? I don't think people currently vote just by opinions - you choose an argument, not a side, to vote for. I'll vote for someone who said something intelligent even if they were on the other side, and I'll vote down someone on my own side if they say something inaccurate or obnoxious. I won't vote for people if they say something unoriginal or badly phrased. I won't vote people down just because I personally disagree with their statements so long as their argument is good. The point of encouraging people to vote in a debate even if they're not participating in it is that they will be swayed by the arguments of one side of the other. If you had a clear opinion on a subject, you'd want to make your views heard. If you didn't, you can look at the debates and see which you agree with. I think people who will just vote and not enter the debate will not find anything they care about on this site and they'll leave it. I don't think they'll hang around voting mindlessly, which seems to be your opinion, because if they're on these sites they're clearly interested. And I want to know what kind of a Debating Society you were in that did other things than spoken debates, to be frank. I have been a member of a various debating societies; I've spoken in both English Speaking Union and Oxford Union debates in the school-level competition, and I have never heard of a non-spoken format. Please clarify. Please don't be a hypocrite about ad hominem. Debating on the internet isn't comparable to debating in a competition. In all truth, though, having a score for each contributor's argument quality and then one overall score for the side would be a great idea. I don't think we should have different categories to vote for on each argument, but having a chance to vote once for the for/against and then a separate chance to mark up each argument would work really well.
I cannot tell if you're being disingenuous or if you are ignorant of the fact that most debate (barring spontaneous argument) is researched and written prior to presentation. I'm looking forward to the changes mentioned below and am content to see what unfolds as a result of them. As for hypocrisy, it was not I who slipped off the rails into ad hominem. Perhaps you should revisit the definition.
No matter how well you prepare your debate, it doesn't change the fact it's spoken, and a lot of what you're judged on is responding to the other side's arguments. How well you've prepared may well affect how well you'll do, but it's not what you're marked on. My point stands. And "Most debate is written before presentation"? Is that actually true in America? The competition I know of that you know the motion beforehand for is English Speaking Union. I prefer the Oxford rules, when you just have 20 minutes preparation time. And as for ad hominem, I quote: "Obviously you have never actually BEEN in a debate society". That may not count as a personal attack, but it's as snide as hell.
You may think as you wish, but so far as I'm concern, you had no point and the only point that stands is that you don't know when to quit. You're now off in the weeds wanting to argue about debate societies, when the initial point (which remains, by the by) is that this place is intended to function like one. What you consider "snide" is simply a literal statement without any particular intent other than saying that I sincerely believe you never been in a debate society. And no, sorry, high school debate class is not 'being in a debate society'. As for your opinion on my words or their intent, you may choose to judge as you wish, that does not, however, obligate me or the rest of the world to take your definition or preference or view as the only view, or even one that matters.
My point was that the rules debating societies use are intended to judge spoken debates and thus not necessarily applicable to an on-line format of debate, which you seem to think they are; you haven't provided any reason for that not to stand. My point is that there's not enough similarity between spoken and written debates for you to try and apply the rules of one to the other, so I think what I said was quite relevant. I'm not sure why you think a school-level debating society doesn't count as one. Is it because you don't actually know enough about debate to want to discuss how it works, so you're just going to ignore me? Still, I think I've given up hope that you're going to do anything other than misunderstand or ignore what I say and try and sound clever doing it.
As CreateDebate is currently organized, a person who is passionate about the topic may 'run up the score' for their side of the argument and 'run down' all opposing opinions. They don't even have to read others' opinions to do this. If a person was limited to adding 1 point to a debate, they would tend to award their point to the best argument for their side. This would force people to be at least a little more thoughtful.
The voting impacts both the relative position of the argument (with the highest rated arguments appearing at the top of the debate) as well as the side score. While you're correct in saying that you can run up one side by voting on each argument, you can't run down the other side as the Side Score only takes in to account the number of "up votes". Check out the FAQ for more info on debate scoring. Since this is a democratic site I think they should keep the scoring as is. It's pretty much the same way that Digg and Reddit work (especially for their comments).
Just so a certain individual can't reply to his own comment twice (see link). Of course you should still be able to rebut multiple arguments.
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