Instigator / Pro
14
1536
rating
19
debates
55.26%
won
Topic
#297

Flat Tax

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
3
Better sources
4
2
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
1

After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

nmvarco
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Two months
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
8
1499
rating
2
debates
50.0%
won
Description

Pro (nmvarco) will be arguing for the Flat Tax.
Con (Declan25) will be arguing against the Flat Tax.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

This is a tough one to vote on.

Con forfeited the last round, which meant he didn't get a chance to make a final rebuttal or closing statement. Pro said that Con was unable to access the site and asked that voters not consider the last round... but that also causes us to lose 1/3rd of the debate. Being that this eliminates a big chunk of the arguments and rebuttals, that makes it difficult to evaluate the arguments.

I would have awarded conduct to Pro for Con's forfeit in the final round, but again, Pro politely asked us not to consider the final round. So thats out.

Spelling and grammar were roughly equal on both sides. Tie.

That just leaves Sources. Luckily, this is where we find a pretty respectable comparison that clearly leaves one side the victor.

Con only used four sources. One was a federal government website, so that was pretty authoritative. However, one of the others was a blog, which seems not very authoritative when discussing a very significant public policy issue . And the other two seemed to be news websites with a possible political bias.

Pro used significantly more sources, and those sources were from a much more diverse array of types of information. One of those sources was the exact same federal government website Con used, so Pro was able to use that same source for his own argument. Pro also cited several different wiki sites, several different news sites (from both sides of the political spectrum), a document hosed by a university and a helpful info-graphic, just to name a few. All of these sources were spread reasonably evenly throughout Pro's argument and verified many of the statistics he cited to support his argument. Overall, this diverse array of sources came across as being a lot more trustworthy and authoritative than the small sample of sources used by Con.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

RFD in comments