Instigator / Pro

1502

rating

debates

35.37%

won

Topic

#3000

Instant Loss Due to Forfeiture Feature

Status

Finished

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

Winner & statistics

Better arguments

Better sources

Better legibility

Better conduct

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

Theweakeredge

Tags

Miscellaneous

Parameters

Publication date: 04.10.2021 03:03AM
Last updated date: 05.12.2021 11:56AM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 3
Time for argument: Two days
Max argument characters: 3,000
Voting period: One month
Point system: Multiple criterions
Voting system: Open

Contender / Con

Theweakeredge

1706

rating

debates

80.3%

won

Description

In edeb8, there's an interesting feature where you can let the debate loser be the person who forfeits first (if it occurs).

I will be supporting this feature to implement on DART, assuming zero economic costs. Con will argue that it should not be implemented.

Round 1

gugigor

04.12.2021 12:04AM

Pro

My argument is very simple. This feature allows for a strong penalty, but at the same time it's logical when applied to real life. As Oromagi, the top debater of the site elo wise testifies in the comments: "I strongly advocate forfeit=auto loss. No real world debate would move on after one debater has failed to show."

Indeed, even DebateArt.com itself has noted that they will implement this feature. With replication of real world time constraints and strong encouragement of participation, this would no doubt create a strong high quality debate. Accepters can easily ask the instigator to lengthen the debate if necessary, and even waiving a round shows that they are at least trying to post, rather than procrastinating their days away. Just take a look at all my debates as 9spaceking (https://www.debate.org/9spaceking/debates/won/) . Or Or Oromagi's noob sniping. I've noticed most noobs who forfeit one round forfeit all rounds (and completely utterly lose the debate anyways), I see very little harm in implementing this feature, so that you don't have to wait too long for the debate outcome.

Theweakeredge

04.12.2021 12:50AM

Con

RESOLUTION: Instand loss due to forfeiture feature

POSITION: Con

OPENING STATEMENT:

Thank you Gugigor for the competition, I look forward to a productive conversation, and I thank any voters in advance for giving this debate a read-through.

INTERPRETING TERMS & RESOLUTION:

My opponent has thus far suggested no terms, in absence of defined terms, the negative position has the responsibility to provide useable definitions. Given the context of the debate, I will argue with improper definitions, as I could easily win this debate with out-of-context definitions - like defining instant as happening without delay.

Instant - "To happen as soon after"
Loss - "To fail the process of debating"
Forfeiture - "To not submit an argument before the allotted time is run out, in debateart.com debates

OBSERVATIONS (OF THE RESOLUTION):

The position my opponent is taking can be summarized as such: "Debateart.com should implement the feature which results in instant loss upon forfeiture." Such an interpretation is gathered implicitly from the comments and debate description.
The actual resolution "Instant Loss Due to Forfeiture Feature" Is not descriptive in the realm of establishing BoP, therefore it is the responsibility of both debaters to establish the burden of proof that the other must overcome in order to win the debate.

CONSTRUCTIVE I - FORFEIT > LOSS

It's simply untrue that forfeiting a round is enough of a breach of conduct to warrant losing the entire round, keep in mind voters, such a penalty system already exists. The conduct point is most often penalized from a debater due to a forfeited round, my opponent would have to argue that there is a warrant for upheaving the status quo. Cross-reff. my definition of forfeiture, to argue that one has lost a debate because they were not able to submit an argument in time is absurd.

For example: My debate with Mall regarding if anybody accepts homosexuality- I overwhelmingly won that debate, yet I did in fact forfeit the third round. The simple fact that I was unable to provide an argument in time, due to my mental health and IRL occurrences did not change the fact that my opponent lost to my rhetoric in the debate itself. Simply put, the mere act of forfeiting is not enough to warrant such a severe penalty, and my opponent's argument has done nothing to change that.

REBUTTALS:

My opponent primarily argues that such a thing makes sense in occurrence with real-life debates, and that it would effectively end debates where new users end up forfeiting the entire debate, making it far more convenient if users do in fact forfeit. However, both arguments are fraught with flaws - the first is more easily debunked - we are not debating in a live environment, to argue that forfeiting is not allowed in physical debate is conflating internet debating and physical debating.

Furthermore, the fact that a solution can solve a problem, does not mean that one should use it. To be elaborated

Round 2

gugigor

04.12.2021 01:39AM

Pro

Con's argument begins with one of his own debates where he laments that he unfortunately had to forfeit a round due to personal circumstances rather than anything related to the debate. As it seems that this case is very rare, the net detriment would be very little. Extend the overarching idea that it would generally enhance debates (where the option is selected) by forcing people to continually push out arguments and participate.

Con claims that my argument is inapplicable because this is not real life, but applying real standards to online environments seems logical. You set up potentially high standards ahead of time and you can prepare to meet deadlines quicker and better. With the stronger push to write out your argument, you also prepare yourself for real life debating. It can be genuinely helpful, and stop wasting time of the debaters. Con says that just because the instant loss feature can be done, does not mean it should be done. I'm very confused. If we can solve a problem, I don't see why we shouldn't. And improving site quality means potentially drawing in more users, especially more serious ones who don't want to see their opponents forfeiting half the debate.

Theweakeredge

04.12.2021 02:31AM

Con

STARTER:

For the sake of conserving character space, I am foregoing my traditional intros and jumping straight into rebuttals:

REBUTTALS:

My opponent has fundamentally misinterpreted my argument - which is to say that forfeiting a round is not equivalent in losing a debate. My opponent's argument is ignoring this point and instead opting for pragmatics, however, as I was going to argue in the last round (I simply did not have the character room too) - the ability to solve a problem does not mean that you should. What do I mean? I mean that solving an issue without fully analyzing the impact that it will have can often cause more problems. My opponent is arguing that it "rare" for a debater to be unable to debate due to personal problems, yet provides no evidence of that assertion.

My opponent next argues that such a change will force debaters to push out writing faster and meet deadlines; however, this is assuming that the reasons for someone missing a deadline is through poor time management, completely ignoring the fact that IRL often gets in the way of debates. Furthermore, my point was that online debating and face-to-face debating are fundamentally different. In face to face debating, you have everything prepared before the debate and have a rather short intermediate time period to come up with rebuttals, however here, you have upwards of weeks to come up with rebuttals, and because the two debaters are not face-to-face the same rules don't apply.

To say that a debater not showing up is the same as a debater forfeiting here is to make a false equivalence- as there, there is no instigation without somebody showing up- you do not randomly have tests in the middle of an in-person debate, or suddenly injure yourself, or become depressed, or get a new job - all of these things can and do happen because of the intermediary time between rounds - as such - sometimes those things happen and debaters should not lose their debate because of these occurrences. Fundamentally however, my opponent is arguing that to forfeit is the same as losing the debate, yet I have proven that is not the case.

Finally my opponent argues that it would "generally enhance debates (where the option is selected) by forcing people to continually push out arguments and participate." This argument is flawed from many perspectives, forcing people to continuously push out arguments is a way of diminishing the quality of a debate - it will also only encourage less people to debate as they have much less leeway to argue, anybody who feels even a little busy will always refrain from debates. This would cut down the debates from highly skilled debaters even more than they already have been - see: MisterChirs, Intelligence_09, etc..

DROPPED:

A demonstration that the "problem" warrants upheaving the status quo
that the current penalty system is inadequate in penalizing forfeitures

Round 3

gugigor

04.12.2021 03:40AM

Pro

Con once again argues that the same or similar rules to live debating should not apply online, however, it is hard to see why the virtues of being punctual and keeping your dedication would be frowned upon. Furthermore, he agrees that you may have days or even weeks to post your argument. This undermines his logic by making it extra unlikely that your depression or momentary accident would force you to lose the entire debate. Other than Con's debate, if you browse through any amount of arguments from the leaderboard (vs forfeiters) arbitrarily, the users never even bother to apologize or explain their forfeits -- even with my 9spaceking account or Oromagi's statistics. I obviously can't analyze them in great detail, but even back on Debate.org where everyone was more active, Blade-of-Truth was a renowned noob sniper where the opponents forfeited the majority of debates (or once they started forfeiting, they never gave a reason and forfeited every following round).

Con continues by saying that forcing the debaters to push out arguments on time would reduce arguments qualities, but I hardly see the case where even one sentence or two can be weaker than the word "Forfeited". Therefore even if I felt forced to deliver a single sentence to note a generic flaw in the opponent's argument, this would still be superior in manners and even in convincing ability than the forfeit. He argues that truly busy people would be swayed away from debates, but the top tier debaters have almost never forfeited an argument. Granted, someone like Undefeatable might be pressured to deliver arguments in 30 minutes flat, but it's his own fault for taking up 5 debates at a time, such that he misses key takeaways (or otherwise weakens his arguments). Regardless, the best debaters on the site almost never forfeit for any reason and extending the time allotted for debates makes it extra unlikely that we would lose out on skilled debaters.

If I had the option to, I would set the instant loss due to forfeit on this debate. Not because Con is untrustworthy, but rather debaters can be finnicky. I don't want to waste my time waiting three days for a newbie to give nothing. I would much rather Con deliver a singular sentence recommending voters to vote for him, and waive the round. Even that shows courteous respect, rather than forfeiting. It's understandable that some extreme situations and specific debates, this instant loss option would cause a slight problem. However, keep in mind that only some debates would be instant loss due to forfeit. And even fewer still with people accepting said debates. If we can arbitrarily already restrict to specific skill set (using Elo rules, description rules, etc.), I don't see any big difference with instant loss due to forfeit option being available.

The code of conduct is there for a reason. We have rules set in place to ensure your manners are acceptable, and this is merely a far stricter version of that rule.

Vote for Pro.

Theweakeredge

04.12.2021 11:56AM

Con

DROPPED POINTS:

A demonstration that the "problem" warrants upheaving the status quo
that the current penalty system is inadequate in penalizing forfeitures

DEFENCE:

My opponent has continued on with only assertions and has done nothing more to actually prove that his claim is true, he has yet to prove why the current penalty system isn't enough, and he has yet to prove that their is a major problem that this change in rules would solve. Simply put, Pro has essentially argued that because the rule could save time if people forfeit all of their rounds, and that it could reinforce punctuality - however - this is, again, ignoring so many different situations.

My opponent seems to not realize that people have different priorities at different times - that people forget about debates - or simply do not have the time to even log in at all - these occurrences could be caused by numerous IRL events, as I have argued this entire debate. Fundamentally speaking - Pro has an incorrect interpretation of the reason why people forfeit rounds, he is clearly biased towards thinking that it is only the noobs who forfeit, and provides a self-claimed arbitrary "example", note that Pro did not actually have a tangible example - whereas I did indeed have one - and in my example, I did indeed apologize in the comment section for my absence.

Furthermore, my opponent has failed to actually defend against my attack - that forfeiting a round is not equivalent to losing a debate, the two are clearly not the same - to push forward with this feature regardless of this truth, is to argue that we should be winning and losing debates, not on merit of argument, or persuasiveness of rhetoric, but on an arbitrary timer that can be missset, or outdated due to personal circumstances. Simply put, my opponent wants to undermine the principles of what ensure the victory and loss of a debate round - all for the sake of "punctuality" - not that my opponent has actually proved this to be the case (that his feature would encourage it).

Finally, my opponent, and I did mention this previously, has argued that "other rules are arbitrary, why not add in another" - my opponent is arguing that this website should be allowed to fall into the mindset of arbitrarily adding rules because it appears to work - that because we have in the past added in arbitrary rules, we should continue, now - ignoring the fact that the rules added were not arbitrary - this will only set this website on a fast-track to be like Debate.org, arbitrary rules are never a good idea in the long run, it sets a precedent. To recall the points my opponent dropped:

CONCLUSION:

He has not proved that the current penalty is inadequate, he has not proven that there is even a problem to be solved - we have nothing but Pro's assertions and rhetoric to to fulfill his BoP, something which I have proven is fundamentally flawed. Pro has failed his BoP, whereas I haven't

VOTE CON

Theweakeredge

04.30.2021 02:37AM

#17

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@DebateArt.com

Completely understandable, and while I do disagree that one forfeit should result in autoloss - I would say that if your opponent forfeited a *majority* of the rounds, then that should be an auto loss - for example - if someone forfeited 1 out of 2 rounds, 2 out of 3 rounds, 3 out of 4 rounds, 3 out of 5 rounds, 4 out of 6 rounds, and so on and so forth - which would stop the problem AND give people who are honestly just unavailable the time they need.

DebateArt.com

04.12.2021 04:34AM

#16

I think I misunderstood the idea coz I just quickly read about it on the go, I will properly dive into it and we can discuss it later, sorry for the confusion.

gugigor

04.12.2021 12:07AM

#15

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@Theweakeredge

course not. Would be pretty embarrassing if I managed to beat you lol

Theweakeredge

04.12.2021 12:05AM

#14

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@gugigor

I don't intend to lose this debate Selidora

Theweakeredge

04.12.2021 12:01AM

#13

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@DebateArt.com

@Barney

I think this is a terrible idea. For multiple reasons - this isn't a live debate - and the comparisons to it aren't cogent.

Theweakeredge

04.11.2021 11:58PM

#12

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@gugigor

Consider my attention captured.

Barney

04.11.2021 09:59PM

#11

Quite awhile ago I had a debate proposing a similar system: https://www.debateart.com/debates/803-default-auto-loss-on-forfeit

While I'm way too busy for active debating these days, I would argue a default auto-loss is preferable to an instant loss. As much as when the margin of forfeiture increases, there would be some gain in not having such a debate sit around in the voting window.

TheUnderdog

04.11.2021 08:45PM

#10

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@gugigor

It would be ironic if someone forfeit this debate. If I had time, I’d take this debate. I think the person who forfeits first shouldn’t always lose. If a 5v5 basketball game occurs and one of the players from team A misses the game, it’s still possible for team A to win; it’s just harder.

Nevets

04.10.2021 05:37PM

I was guilty of several forfeitures last year and I rightfully lost. It would be a scandal if I did not.
If I forfeit a round then there should be some kind of penalty. If it is instant loss, so be it.
It is not fair I get any advantage out of forfeiting and that was an opportunity for my opponent to get me on the ropes lost.
If I have to leave to go to work then it is my fault for having taken on the debate in the first place.
But if I forfeit it could also mean I was simply too slow, especially if it is a two hour quickfire debate. The whole point of setting the timer to 2 hours or 1 day is to make it more difficult for the opponent and it is not within the nature of sport to think it is ok to let them off because they were too slow or did not have enough time for corrections.
But a forfeiture feature suits me to the ground as I always play quickfire even if I am involved in a two week debate. I rarely spend much time fixing errors and I feel I am cheating if I do.

RationalMadman

04.10.2021 05:05PM

This should apply to full forfeits though, why should it apply to just one round of forfeit?

fauxlaw

04.10.2021 04:54PM

Looks like DebateArt has taken the challenge out of the "debate."

oromagi

04.10.2021 04:32PM

I strongly advocate forfeit=auto loss. No real world debate would move on after one debater has failed to show.

Intelligence_06

04.10.2021 10:57AM

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@DebateArt.com

Why would anyone want the forfeiter to win? Implementing this is almost equivalent to auto-loss at forfeit.

DebateArt.com

04.10.2021 10:08AM

It's not a problem to implement it and I will

Nevets

04.10.2021 09:09AM

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@gugigor

Or perhaps a Forfeiture ruling within the Parameters with a choice of either Instant win/loss, or 1 point per round, per vote, penalty.

Intelligence_06

04.10.2021 05:40AM

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@DebateArt.com

This is the 3000th debate...

RationalMadman

04.10.2021 04:14AM

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@gugigor

The biggest reason to justify it's not worth implementing is ruled out in your debate description.

fauxlaw

04.16.2021 03:59AM

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:

Argument: Pro’s argument is couched in the common misconceived justification for action: because we can, we should. Since Pro’s Resolution is not at all a construct of a non-live debate, there is no other justification for the Resolution but a matter of convenience, as Pro says in R1, to “stop wasting time of the debaters.” In fact, Pro further says in R1, citing Con [apparently from an earlier debate or forum comment], “just because the instant loss feature can be done, does not mean it should be done,” which is exactly this voter’s point in the Pro Resolution; it has not other compelling justification. Con’s argument that DebateArt is not a live debate successfully rebuts Pro’s position attempting another justification, “With the stronger push to write out your argument, you also prepare yourself for real life debating.” This may be Pro’s intent of being a DebateArt member, but not all members align with this justification, and Pro does nothing to support his claim that DebartArt should change its policy regarding forfeiture just to accommodate the Resolution.

Further, Pro argues in R2, “…it is hard to see why the virtues of being punctual and keeping your dedication would be frowned upon.” Con, again, successfully argues that since DebartArt is not a live event, whereas life does have a way of encroaching on one’s time availability [as mentioned in Con’s R1], it is absurd to expect that the conditions of online debating that is not live should yet impose life conditions on a non-live debate that literally can extend over days, weeks, and months. It is an absurd expectation. Con’s argument earns the points.

Sourcing: Neither participant engaged in sourcing that would support arguments, though outside sources are discussed. This is an optional voting feature: tie.

Legibility: Both participants offer understandable text. Tie

Conduct: Both participants offer reasonable treatment of each other. Tie

RationalMadman

04.16.2021 12:19AM

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:

Pro forgot something important. In his Description, he laid out a plan for this feature to be optional. It literally says this is to be the equivalent of an optional debate setting for debate-initiators on edeb8.

Him forgetting this is the only reason why his autowin was lost. He forgot this and it was the only sufficient rebuttal to Con's impact case regarding debates where the superior debater forfeits a Round.

The reason I myself didn't accept this debate is that I saw Pro had autowin because it would be an optional setting that both debaters consent to (like character count and time per argument).

For the reason that Pro never brought up the optional aspect of it, Con's case holds much more water than it should have and Con won the debate. The reason Con wins is because Pro essentially admits what happened to the forfeiting side in the showcased debate, shouldn't have been a loss. He calls it an edge-case and says it doesnt happen often enough to matter.

I know personally that I am the single best andost frequent user to win debates where I forfeited a Round or two but I am am enigma and Con doesn't focus on me at all so I ignore this. Nonetheless, I do not think Pro realises what he admitted. He admitted that in these fringe cases his idea falls apart and he then tries to focus on punctuality mattering more than debating ability which he doesn't expand enough on for me to buy into.