The majority of animal agriculture in the United States is slavery [for @Oromagi]
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 7 votes and with 7 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Is Animal Farming Slavery?
Full resolution: The majority of animal agriculture in the United States is slavery.
The burden of proof is shared:
Pro: The majority of Animal agriculture in the US is slavery.
Con: The majority of Animal agriculture in the US is not slavery.
Slavery: the state of being owned by another person.
Animal agriculture is the rearing of animals for resources/food consumption.
All rules, terms, and specifications of the debate are agreed upon by acceptance.
Only Oromagi or Barney can accept this debate. Anyone else accepting will result in an automatic loss.
The crucial contention in the debate is one which lies far from the topical stipulations. We can all agree that, in the intended debate regarding the moral aspects of animals, Novice_II clearly wins - however, this was not how the contest panned out. Oromagi opts to instead critique the fundamentals of the instigator's case, by exposing that the definition results in a tautological impossibility. It’s a risky strategy - let’s see if it pays off.
R1. PRO
Nothing which will be substantive in the overall decision is said here because Oromagi will undermine the entire argument. Thus, I need not make any comment.
R1. CON
Nothing much needs to be said here either - CON establishes the beginning of their Kritik - that the term “another” implies “in addition”, which further implies that according to the provided definitions, slavery is that which must include at least two agents. Thus, the rest of the instigators case is null, for they apply to animals as opposed to “another” human being.
R2. PRO
PRO responds compellingly here (personally, I had thought the debate was over already and that CON had won). They argue that “person” refers to “that who has personhood” and further compliments this by showing examples, where in the traditional definition of “person” is insufficient (ie, the abortion debate is one where “person” is in contention, there was once a time when the status of African’s or Jew’s were questioned etc).
R2. CON
CON replies by arguing that PRO’s definitions fall prey to the stipulative fallacy, wherein the ambiguous defining of a term is done so in order to bolster one’s own argument. They also claim that PRO does not use the most common of definitions. I don’t buy this - if it were the case that we can only use surface level definitions, debates regarding abortion and the rights of minorities could never be accelerated, as PRO observes in both rounds.
R3. PRO
Much of the same here, though PRO adds that CON’s reliance on “common sense” defines an argument from incredulity. I buy this - once upon a time, common sense determined the subjugation of African Americans, a point which PRO made in the prior round and also supplements when stipulating “ When discussing ethical issues regarding how we ought to treat entities, we discuss whether or not these entities are persons”
R3. CON
CON refutes the charges of an appeal to incredulity by arguing that the definitions are not “common place”, but this is exactly what PRO had charged as being an appeal to incredulity - the sentiment that “we ought use the common place definition” is exactly what PRO described as being incredulous. Furthermore, critiquing the notion that the "personhood" doctrine is uncommon isn't actually an engagement with the argument, merely a stipulation that it isn't very common (might I add as an example that it was once uncommon to hold that African Americans had rights). CON could have very easily argued that animals do not qualify for moral calculation, however, they did not.
-
Overview of arguments
CON's entire argument is that PRO does not conform to most dictionaries. In a clearly philosophical debate, it is clear you must do more than this (e.g. arguing abortion is wrong because it is illegal is akin to this level of argumentation). PRO correctly argues that, adopting the narrow view of CON's case, we would never have been able to further the rights of Africans and Jews, or have any dialectic in the abortion debate. CON could have won the debate if they had invested more into the moral aspect, as they did in round two, but it must be admitted that the majority of their case is semantics, and as the semantics was nullified by PRO's personhood doctrine, the argument is neutralised and the rest of PRO's arguments go untouched. Like Whiteflames said, it is clear that in a debate like this, crucial terms like "person" are up for grabs (especially in a distinctly morally grounded debate) , and I ultimately favoured the engagement of the personhood definition when compared to the regurgitation of dictionaries.
Conduct
I don’t appreciate that CON hinges their entire argument on semantical grounds - a kritik here and there as a supplementary riddle for the opponent to address is fine, but when you base your entire case on semantics, it’s quite annoying. Nonetheless, my personal dissatisfaction does not constitute enough of a justification to deduct a conduct point.
More convincing arguments:
CON showed that it is impossible to argue the notion of personhood for animals because:
1. PRO never gave animals personhood in his opening argument.
2. the word "another" denotes, as CON put it, equal value between two things.
Some reasons CON interpreted PRO correctly:
"Premise one is definitional, with all terms being found in the description of our debate. Premise two, subsequently, is truistic. In animal agriculture, animals are owned as the property of their rearers." - Here PRO distinctly states animals and humans are different.
"Animal agriculture is the enslavement of sentient creatures, turning them into resources for human consumption." - Here PRO states that animals are enslaved by humans. This is important because his opening point was the "another person" was a human.
It was not until Round 2 where PRO actually stated he meant animals were persons under the philosophy of personhood. At minimum this means PRO was trying to hide his argument for this, or he automatically assumed without cause, since the description did not include a dictionary or a definition for personhood, that person meant the philosophical sense. So PRO is doubling back because CON destroyed his argument through simple tautology.
* * *
Reliable Sources:
CON cited Pro's .edu source for personhood, the LII, Merriam Webster, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Oxford's learner dictionary.
PRO cited three .edu websites, the EPA, a reputable philosophy magazine, and one Oxford link, in addition to Cambridge Dictionary.
Therefore PRO used more reliable sources.
* * *
I ran both arguments from all the rounds into Grammarly's grammar checker (which is one of the best on the market) and arrived at the following scores:
CON: 29 issues
PRO: 28 issues
Therefore, CON had worse spelling and grammar using an objective measurement for both parties, a program used by colleges and universities nationwide to help students write better.
* * *
Conduct:
Tied.
Following a mysterious vote deletion 1.5 hours before the results deadline, without an explanation, I am voting again without the conduct point. Allocated as that is what I assume was the issue.
RFD: https://www.debateart.com/debates/3775/comment-links/46505
Edited to remove sources. Conduct and arguments are unchanged.
...
Pro gave himself a high BoP in needing to prove that animals are in fact people. Not merely that they ought to be granted rights and regarded as similar to people, but in plain English that they already are people.
Pro is successful in showing that the meat industry is bad. However, as con is apt to point out, without showing that people are being farmed for food, BoP is unable to be met.
While you can compare apples to oranges, that doesn't cause them to equal each other.
...
Pro is effective in using repeated pathos appeals along the lines of /imagine the same was done to your children!/, but con is fast to point out the disjunction of this when applied to the topic being a definitional fallacy. And further if farming is bad is non-sequitur to this topic unless people are being farmed.
Pro comes back declaring "Black people, Jewish people, etc." are the same as animals (I wouldn't phrase it like this, but con already caught the horrible implications of this comparison, and pro actively chose to double down on it). He further claims that con claims "it is ethical to torture, farm, and kill animals." Which is obviously a non-sequitur poisoning of the well (that con argues it is not the same, does not mean the debate changes topics to be about if it is right or wrong).
Human rights:
Going to use the first instance of a definition for that "HUMAN RIGHTS- humans are the only species capable of conceiving, demanding, upholding civil rights and as such, enjoy a superior and unique claim to those rights we perceive as self-evident." Pro basically accuses con of being in favor of eating the disabled for this (literally on the next paragraph he follows up with an accusation that con's logic is in favor of farming "elderly, the sick, and infants," so I think I'm at the point of not listing any more of these pathological insults) rather than showing the farm animals which rise to the level of thought as the average person (AKA, the average human being).
Personhood:
Con argues we should use English. Pro asserts that "Animals are persons because they are entities that have a moral right to their own self-determination" yet instead of showing this, he falls back to R1 Google searches for the definitions of key words, without actually showing the animals in question are capable of self-determination even to a comparable level to humans.
Abortion:
Pro for some strange reason keeps bringing up abortion. This is way too far off topic to be seriously considered.
Conduct: con.
I wouldn't assign this, except pro requested the point be given to him for con making arguments in R1. Which by itself is just weird, but when combined with obvious gaslighting at the start of R2 by pro (claiming that con accused him of conceding the debate; when no such words were written) undermines his case in a way that takes the reader out of the debate distracting from the topic at hand. It gets worse as noted above (such as claiming that con is in favor of murdering and eating defenseless human beings).
Sources: Tie, leaving toward con.
Initially voted this in con's favor, but in re-review both sides indeed put in their due diligence. That some of pro's own sources were proven to favor con, greatly hurt his case, but without deeper review on more of them it does not net the points.
Original reasoning: Pro brings up sources which proclaim personhood equals human being, cherry picks around that obvious problem, and then declares that con was really the one cherry picking for pointing out what pro's source says (the defense is good when applied to different webpages within any site, but not literally the same page on the same site). So for better leveraging of pro's own sources, con is able to claim this.
Legibility:
Both sides were fine on this front.
The crucial contention in the debate is one which lies far from the topical stipulations. We can all agree that, in the intended debate regarding the moral aspects of animals, Novice_II clearly wins - however, this was not how the contest panned out. Oromagi opts to instead critique the fundamentals of the instigator's case, by exposing that the definition results in a tautological impossibility. It’s a risky strategy - let’s see if it pays off.
R1. PRO
Nothing which will be substantive in the overall decision is said here because Oromagi will undermine the entire argument. Thus, I need not make any comment.
R1. CON
Nothing much needs to be said here either - CON establishes the beginning of their Kritik - that the term “another” implies “in addition”, which further implies that according to the provided definitions, slavery is that which must include at least two agents. Thus, the rest of the instigators case is null, for they apply to animals as opposed to “another” human being.
R2. PRO
PRO responds compellingly here (personally, I had thought the debate was over already and that CON had won). They argue that “person” refers to “that who has personhood” and further compliments this by showing examples, where in the traditional definition of “person” is insufficient (ie, the abortion debate is one where “person” is in contention, there was once a time when the status of African’s or Jew’s were questioned etc).
R2. CON
CON replies by arguing that PRO’s definitions fall prey to the stipulative fallacy, wherein the ambiguous defining of a term is done so in order to bolster one’s own argument. They also claim that PRO does not use the most common of definitions. I don’t buy this - if it were the case that we can only use surface level definitions, debates regarding abortion and the rights of minorities could never be accelerated, as PRO observes in both rounds.
R3. PRO
Much of the same here, though PRO adds that CON’s reliance on “common sense” defines an argument from incredulity. I buy this - once upon a time, common sense determined the subjugation of African Americans, a point which PRO made in the prior round and also supplements when stipulating “ When discussing ethical issues regarding how we ought to treat entities, we discuss whether or not these entities are persons”
R3. CON
CON refutes the charges of an appeal to incredulity by arguing that the definitions are not “common place”, but this is exactly what PRO had charged as being an appeal to incredulity - the sentiment that “we ought use the common place definition” is exactly what PRO described as being incredulous. Furthermore, critiquing the notion that the "personhood" doctrine is uncommon isn't actually an engagement with the argument, merely a stipulation that it isn't very common (might I add as an example that it was once uncommon to hold that African Americans had rights). CON could have very easily argued that animals do not qualify for moral calculation, however, they did not.
-
Overview of arguments
CON's entire argument is that PRO does not conform to most dictionaries. In a clearly philosophical debate, it is clear you must do more than this (e.g. arguing abortion is wrong because it is illegal is akin to this level of argumentation). PRO correctly argues that, adopting the narrow view of CON's case, we would never have been able to further the rights of Africans and Jews, or have any dialectic in the abortion debate. CON could have won the debate if they had invested more into the moral aspect, as they did in round two, but it must be admitted that the majority of their case is semantics, and as the semantics was nullified by PRO's personhood doctrine, the argument is neutralised and the rest of PRO's arguments go untouched. Like Whiteflames said, it is clear that in a debate like this, crucial terms like "person" are up for grabs (especially in a distinctly morally grounded debate) , and I ultimately favoured the engagement of the personhood definition when compared to the regurgitation of dictionaries.
Conduct
I don’t appreciate that CON hinges their entire argument on semantical grounds - a kritik here and there as a supplementary riddle for the opponent to address is fine, but when you base your entire case on semantics, it’s quite annoying. Nonetheless, my personal dissatisfaction does not constitute enough of a justification to deduct a conduct point.
"The majority of animal agriculture in the United States is slavery"
That's the topic, and given how much back-and-forth there is in this debate, I think it's surreal that my decision comes down to a single, seemingly unimportant word in that resolution: is. Animal agriculture IS slavery. That's a fact resolution. It's not a should resolution. There is room in this kind of resolution for discussion of the terms, but those discussions surround the facts of what slavery is and how it is defined, not how we ought to define it. So when I look at Pro's case, I'm not seeing engagement with how slavery is defined (if anything, that's largely agreed up front), but rather with how persons are defined. Even in that sense, Pro's case focuses on how we should define persons, critiquing the way that we use to determine whether an entity is a or is not a person. I've got problems with that argument that I won't get into here because they aren't pertinent to the debate (Con did start down some of these lines, but I didn't think he went far enough in his analysis), but the long and short of it is that I end up agreeing with a lot of it... but it doesn't seem relevant to the debate. I could wholly agree that farm animals at least SHOULD BE considered persons and end up still voting Con because that doesn't mean that they are.
And that's the fundamental sticking point for me. I can understand how Pro's argument works and I can see him using rather careful language to say that his argument means that farm animals ARE persons and therefore the term slavery DOES apply to them, but just saying it that way doesn't make it so. I can accept that standing definitions for persons are arbitrary and deeply flawed, but that doesn't change what they are. Hell, I can even grant all the points about how the definitions for persons have changed over time, since those points only demonstrate that the term has been used to exclude humans that most or all of us would now consider to be persons. All that tells me is that the meaning of persons should change, not that it already is what Pro wants it to be. And Con does a good job of pointing that out, arguing that common usage supports his position on the terminology, and that there are many definitions of what makes a person that support his case whereas Pro's only definitions that support his require expansions on and selective readings of existing definitions.
At the end of the day, while Pro spends most of his time pointing out the problems with our delineations between persons and non-persons, and I largely agree with him that he has demonstrated those differences to be problematic, they are insufficient for netting him this debate. This is the topic Pro chose and, yeah, it doesn't give him a lot of wiggle room to argue this way. I can't just agree that the definition should be what he says it is. I need to see good reason why the definition of persons already includes animals. Bringing up issues like the abortion debate and whether the unborn have personhood might have been a start down that road, but all it does is show where there is disagreement over existing definitions of personhood, i.e. what wiggle room exists within the definition. It doesn't tell us that animals are within that span of wiggle room. Without doing that, Pro fails to meet his burden for the debate, so I end up voting Con.
I will say that I don't end up buying the two Kritiks from Con. I didn't really see this as a tautological trap, especially given that terms like person were up for debate. As for sensationalizing, I get the point being made, though I think it would have to be clearer that Pro is somehow degrading the human suffering the results from enslavement. I didn't see him doing that, though he was certainly applying it to a much larger subset of life on this planet.
RFD in comments.
A desperate attempt of AI supporters to give rights to AI:
"If there were a species that was sentiently identical to humans, it would be absurd to suggest they can be farmed, enslaved, and ultimately consumed by virtue of being non-human"
Wrong. "species that is sentiently identical to humans can exist" is true. "species that is sentiently identical to humans can be farmed and consumed" is true. "is absurd" is not true. They can be farmed to increase human population. Thinking that non-human is more important than human is absurd. They are not equally important. Human is more important. There is no value in sentience. Nobody cares if you are sentient. AI doesnt have rights and will never have them. You can try all you want to give rights to AI. However, AI is only there to serve humans. It doesnt have any rights other than to serve humans.
"just as it would be to suggest the same if a population of humans over time evolved into a different species, but maintained the overwhelming majority of the same attributes."
Wrong. "population of humans that evolved into a different species can exist" is true. "population of humans that evolved into a different species can be farmed and consumed" is true. "is absurd" is not true. Thinking that non-human is more important than human is absurd. Non-human is less important than human. Non-human can be consumed to increase human population. Increasing human population is of greatest importance to humans. Humans should not allow to be decreased so that some non-human may live. Human life is the most important thing. Thinking that something non-human can have equal importance as human is absurd. Nobody cares about non-human attributes. We should judge such thinking as plot against humans. Anyone not working to increase human life decreases it. Non-human life is not more important than human life. Humans hold the greatest value. Anyone disagreeing with this should be corrected and put to shame for being an AI pervert.
Huh. I guess I did miss the personhood argument. Though I think it is true - as oro said - that round 2 is too little too late for this kind of push.
it isn't a flaw though, if you follow Novice's Round 2.
In fact Oromagi's way of exploring the lesser sentience of animals was so bad here that Novice got away with not at all proving that the animals have their sentience.
Sure RM, if you really want to split hairs, maybe if oro made that argument and then screwed it up in the next rounds I still would've voted for Novice. But the whole reason I made my initial comment is because I noticed an immediate and exploitable flaw in the aff that would be hard to come back from. It's not like judges only can be confident in a debate's outcome once the final words have been said.
It actually does mean that, you are saying using the argument wins the debate regardless of execution or what the opponent said.
It is the very same blindness driving all the people who voted against Novice in this debate.
Yes, in this hypothetical I would've favored the side that made the stronger argument. But that doesn't mean that I'd always vote for Oro no matter what he said, just because he's a "human supremacist".
Your vote was promised to always favour the human supremacist, mine is the openminded approach.
If the value of humans vs. animals is directly relevant to the resolution, a vote that can put their views on that issue aside is clearly better than one that can't.
I could say the opposite to you. I am entitled to vote as I want.
If you wouldn't vote for any argument that is "human supremacist", then you probably shouldn't have voted on this debate.
And I wouldn't.
It is human supremacist bigotry, plain and simple.
It seems to me that Pro's definition of "slavery" loses the debate on the spot. Con is right that grammatically, the word "another" implies that the person being owned in Pro's definition is a human; therefore, under Pro's definition, animal agriculture cannot be slavery.
Reading Con's R1 though, he kind of mishandles the issue. I think the correct (and kind of tricky) strategy here would have been to wholly concede Pro's definition and then make the argument that it negates the resolution. That takes out Moral Equalization because even if animal agriculture is morally equivalent to slavery, that's insufficient to prove that it is slavery, since slavery is a human-on-human offense. Con has all the right pieces to make this argument, but since he responded to everything and introduced a couple Ks, the point didn't come through.
Now, would people have voted on this argument? I don't know. I would've.
damn a #1 vs. #2 battle
I haven't noticed much attention towards my vote. Just a report made against the original (but not the recast one), which is expected from some debaters regardless of the quality of the vote; and a couple comments from RM directed at me.
I thought my vote was pretty clear. The debate quickly became about if animals are people (as is required for them to count as slaves). While it might prove an interesting topic in its own debate, in this one it was perhaps the most extreme Semantic Kritik I've seen; and yes, I have been quite honest for a long time that I frown upon instigators K'ing against their own topic selection. Still I read the debate, and quoted from it to make my conclusions. A key factor was of course some of pro's own sources being caught directly contradicting pro's own case. I lost count of how many times pro repeated the same assertion about how animals are people because of self-determination, and I seem to have missed the evidence of said self-determination being actualized to then be violated (an assertion repeated 20 times without evidence, does not become good evidence by virtue of being repeated so many times). Whereas con leaning on the dictionary gave a definition for person which excluded farm animals and there was no reason to disregard.
So in short: con proved with evidence that within English humans are people, and offered sufficient challenge to pro's case of for being "non-sequitur."
Conduct over issues such as pro accusing con of being in favor of farming "elderly, the sick, and infants" from the human population; and rather obvious lies (such as at the start of R2 (I'll never understand why people on message boards do this, we can literally scroll up if we've forgotten what actually happened)).
At the end of the day, pro was not convincing to me that animals are the same as people, nor even significantly similar to people for there to be doubt. Were the debate /animals ought to be considered a class of people/ then he would have done quite well.
I usually do not look into on going vote dramas, but I think that, in the case of Barney's vote, his mind was made up prior to reading the debate. This is evident in the first line of his RFD, indicating Novice must win the debate with terms used "in plain English", implying that it is impossible for the instigator to win, despite the compelling justification of why a more compelling definition of person ought to be used.
I cannot imagine that anything Novice could have done would have adjusted his adjudication.
Barney, I think the issue is your vote received a lot of attention and it felt you didn’t really have a lot of good justification for it (especially for a moderator). You might think or know in your heart something that we can’t see, but you have to tell us. I myself am quite confused too. Could you go into more detail what your vote means?
I find it hilarious how Barney got to grudgevote against Novice and has zero warning because they lack proof but with me they assume it and punish. Hypocrites.
No it did not. You did not even say so and you were indeed online after I posted it as you replied to me after it was up.
I didnt base my vote on any policies except my own policy.
https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy#based-on-outside-content
I consider my vote logical because only I can decide what is logical. Therefore, whatever I label as logical is logical. I agree with this, so this too is logical.
The simple answer is that RM's vote broke the guidelines of the CoC due to surmounting evidence being a retaliation vote
Rules against voters participating will not be upheld by moderation btw.
Well, I am a bit appalled here. I don't understand why this could not have been left as is, a fair debate. I can understand wanting oromagi to win, and I have no problem with such on the face of it, but I tend to take issue when the phenomenon becomes taking actual moderation/voting action solely to ensure that this happens.
As a baseline, I tend to expect this from Barney, and some aspect of this could have been prevented (I should have made the rule that "Barney may not vote") so I may take slight indigence to that missed action.
I don’t really understand Barney’s first vote with sources too, and the second one isn’t much better. I didn’t notice any severe errors with conduct, but again I’m a pretty logical guy.
I'm not going to take a side on a vote removal that another moderator executed and justified. Given that only Supa could make this call without being biased by his own vote, I'm not sure why you want me to take a position. It was his call. It wasn't mine to make during the debate and it's not mine to make now.
I'm telling you why he did it at this point instead of a different one prior to this - I talk to Supa often enough to know that his schedule is hectic. You're the one who is assuming an insidious reason is behind it. If you call it defensive of him to point out that there's nothing insidious about being busy, then yeah, I guess I defended his actions, though he is perfectly capable of defending himself.
"Why are you asking me to apologize for this when I was neither able to remove the vote as a voter on this debate nor had anything to do with Supa’s decision?
I’m more than willing to apologize if I’ve made a mistake, though you seem to think otherwise."
so protest it then, don't defend it.
He works under you and you defended his actions.
Pick a side, then I can explain why I expected you to apologise, now that I understand he was acting rogue, it perplexes me why you defended it.
Can you actually believe this shit, he will allow the reason Barney voted conduct but remove mine based on 'intent'.
This is a joke.
The only issue Supadudz had with the original vote was conduct, the fact he'd have removed it again if he had time proves pure corruption based on protecting Oromagi against an earned defeat.
you cannot even justify the vote removal other than assumed intent.
you didn't have a second vote to take down. You only said conduct was the issue and I used the same RFD again.
Based on the evidence provided, I, as within my rights, concluded that RM's vote was a retaliation and was not a genuine vote on the debate and should not count. I stand by the decision I made despite me not being available to take down the second vote
I am not going to sit here and argue for you when I have a life to live. I stand by my vote that your vote was a retaliation vote and is forbidden by the CoC and should not have been verified due to implicit bias with bad conduct and source points. I could give benefit of the doubt to arguments, but the majority evidence suggest you retaliated to oromagi, especially after the comments you left on your debate and the vote he made.
And the fact you think I am lying about my activity is shocking. If I had the time, I would've removed your second vote under the same clause and the others and if I had the chance, would still remove your current vote and other vote bombs
As I understand, you will believe that your vote is a good reflection of the arguments presented in this debate. If that is the case, I will take it that you would have no problem with debating someone who may disagree with that system. Now that I am done with this debate, here is my proposition to you: (https://www.debateart.com/debates/3809-thbt-vote-4-is-an-insufficient-analysis-of-the-instigators-case).
First, I will state that I am not interested in any obfuscation here. I noticed you were already very hesitant to accept this animal agriculture debate. While satisfied that someone else I have been just as eager to debate took it, I am still very interested in debating you, and thankfully, you seem to have created a pertinent subject matter for an engagement. To this, I want a direct answer, not a dodge, not a tirade irrelevant my proposition. I don't want to be rude to you, but this specific expression is to control your previous behavior.
The rules prohibit anyone else from accepting this debate. It is either, yes, or no.
I am sure we can all agree that whiteflame exhibits incompetence regularly. This is honestly nothing surprising to me, I don't even understand why he is still a moderator. I am, regardless, satisfied that it was not enough to taint the outcome of this debate.
I’d like to see that change as well. As for imposing the two-day period, I think that might yield its own complications since a lot of people tend to wait until near the end of the voting period to vote. Maybe it’s worth the cost of losing those votes that happen in the last 48 hours, but I’d need to think on it.
Why are you asking me to apologize for this when I was neither able to remove the vote as a voter on this debate nor had anything to do with Supa’s decision?
I’m more than willing to apologize if I’ve made a mistake, though you seem to think otherwise.
The dirty voters of the past actually helped oromagi secure some of his wins.
Stop making excuses.
This was absolutely vile play and you know it.
Any other user less active than me and even me myself easily is not there in the last 1.5 hours of a debate to revote. I bet he would he deleted the rfd too if I had not commented it.
You can never say sorry nor own up to a genuine mistake. Neither you nor Barney seems to possess this quality. Supa screwed up.
I'm not too bother in this instance as the ballot is unaffected by problematic votes, but I think this highlights the underlying issue of the current voting system. It's an issue which is blindingly easy to fix - just establish a time period between the last ballot that is allowed to be cast and subsequently the completion of the debate - say two days, where votes cannot be casted but moderators can impose judgement. If the site user is too busy to do this, moderators can send an announcement stipulating that, for any debate which is in voting period, no votes can be casted in the final two days (in spite of the fact that you physically can), and anyone who does receives harsh punishment. The latter is meant only to temporarily alleviate the issue.
I'm honestly surprised that the likes of Oromagi and Barny's streaks were not unjustly disrupted before their current records.
Supa’s been busy, so whatever you may think of the timing of his removal, it wasn’t “dirty play”.
Both of those last minute votes would have been removed if possible, though their decisions to cast them likely would have happened regardless, since this debate has regularly been on the front page of recent debates. Both of them knew what they were doing.
While the dirty play got what I see as the correct result, I want you to realise that Supadudz's last minute vote moderating and me protesting it resulted in two votebombs.
Best Korea copy and pasted Bones' RFD.
If you had been responsible and this debate had stayed lower down the list of active debates, I doubt both would have struck.
Public choice's vote was neutralised by itself but Best Korea's could have swayed results especially if mine had stayed removed and if mine had been for Oromagi.
Not sure why you just copied the text of Bone's vote...?
With or without it I would have won the debate, but I don't know why you would even logically think of doing that.
No need, I have seen enough at this moment.
I am usually not in charge of votes so I do not know the format. Therefore if any other moderator wants to take charge of this case, feel free.
Maybe I am on to something you don't see. What is your perspective here?
Indeed, this seems to have been orchestrated somehow.
(a) It seems that Barney removed his vote quietly and edited the source points, so his vote would not be removed alongside Rational Madman's. Peculiarly enough, this suggests that Barney knew his own vote did not meet the voting standards, and he cast it anyway which is interesting in its own right.
(b) SupaDudz only chose to review votes an hour before the debate ended, despite me having reported Barney's vote over 3 days ago. Why is that?
(c) SupaDudz did not even follow the typical format for vote removal. He did not mention anyone, he did not use the proper text format, and he did not even copy the text of RationalMadman's vote out. Not to mention, he deleted the vote quietly without even giving a reason, and then provided a rushed one after his tactic was pointed out. The goal here seems to have been to remove x vote without anyone knowing.
The moderators are acting very strange here (outside of their usual incompetence) and I very much agree with RationalMadman based on these three propositions. I am a bit disappointed in that sort of conduct. Why not just make debates fair?
Voter: RationalMadman
Vote: 3 for conduct, 2 for source,1 for conduct in favor of PRO
Status: Removed
Reasoning: Voter fails to provide a reason as to why the conduct presented in such statement should award the point to PRO, therefore, the justification of conduct point is not valid. Giving yourself an advantage by specific wordings DO NOT cause a conduct point. The voter also blatantly lies about sources used and purposefully avoids sources from oromagi for a bias toward the PRO. Therefore, due to the bias in regards to the vote, both of these are constitute under the retaliation vote, thus is against the rules
If I had been offline in the final 1.5ish hours of the debate, Supadudz's vote deletion of me would have won Oromagi the debate.
I recommend you to strongly consider what the fuck you have d9ne here. Stop rigging debates. Do not expect me to keep your corruption quiet.
I agree, however Whiteflame is extremely strict about these type of debate topics so I can see how he chose con, especially since oromagi is the type to think “Aha the debate is set in stone”. However Your display was the precise implication. The title was deceptive (Ex “a fetus is a person” complicated into the idea that the fetus has the personhood rights). I think a less trapping/strict title could have given more leeway, but also perhaps Oromagi would not have accepted. Since there is little way his style can win a debate as incredibly complex as abortion.
Most of the votes cast in my favor take considerations to logic and philosophy, and I for one see this as the only efficient way to judge debates. That being said, thanks to Bones, Undefeatable, and RationalMadman. There is a lot to say about some of the other particulars of this debate, but I will keep that to a little later.