All current debate sites are of poor quality or in a poor condition, including DebateArt
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with the same amount of points on both sides...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 1
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 5,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Shared BOP
In this debate, the burden is shared, and con opens his case without definitions of what a debate site is. I believe this goes on to hurt him later. However he does define poor as worse than is usual, expected, or desirable; of a low or inferior standard or quality, and that is the baseline for both debaters. At a glance at the first argument, I am on the face convinced that Kialo is not in poor condition, but con only shows that debate art is not poor by the standard of website functionality in argument 2. This presents obvious reductios such as a perfectly functioning website with no users etc. and it seems clear that there should be some larger criteria involved. But con tries to close this gap with the third argument that deals with the actual activity and user base of the site. Con says that the website has a "the front-page detailing how there is “a team of community-approved moderators” and that the entire site is driven by its community." this is not compelling to me as it is an appeal to authority and does not actually prove the claim in question and common experience on the website will tell you that hardly any of the moderators are active, just to show the flaws of the implication. Regardless, we get a clear idea of con's conjunctive criteria, P∧Q, P representing quality website functionality, and Q representing an active community and user base. Modus Ponens off that for the argument.
So while pro may actually seem to have a larger burden, it is actually not the case by the end of the round. Because con did not argue for debate island, all pro needs to do is disprove that the two platforms in question are poor debate sites. He does this by first defining the pivotal term in the resolution. Because there is generally a distinction between the two concepts and the dictionaries were both standard representations of public language I would take that alone prime facie. But, con shows that by the website's own statement, it is a source for "collaborative reasoning" which seems distant to the environments associated with debate art or debate island. Now because con did not define the term in question, and does not have the opportunity to respond to pro by the one-round structure, pro wins this point with three clear distinguishing factors in conjunction with the above definitions.
Now all that is in question is that P∧Q conjunction and pro goes for the second proposition, where he shows that hardly any of the users are active, a ton of forfeited debates, and a lack of participatory activity. Now, this alone is relevant to me even without a point of comparison because con did not argue for Q well.
Arguments: The fact that "There is only a single open challenge," can show that people accept them all, or that hardly any are created. On my view, there is an underdetermination there and con does not present some sort of statistical analysis to resolve that. Appeals to the authority in question, con also points out how there are 41 ongoing debates, but this does not account for the number of forfeits like pro mentions. On the flip side, pro using debate.org as a reference does not seem to account for the time the respective platforms have existed, debateart for 4-5 years, and debate.org for 14. However, even by trajectory and proposition, it is clear that debate art is nowhere near the former. Another potential objection could be that debate.org breaks the norm of debate sites, but as a voter, I am only aware of 3 debate sites, only two of which are on the baseline. Because of this, the only points that remain without scrutiny are the lack of activity on our platform with the presidential race as evidence, the significant quantity of forfeiture on the website, and the lack of strong growth, and the arguments go to pro.
For further note, I am very disappointed in other votes on this debate.
I must say, I'm really impressed with Con.
Con starts off very strong. He lays out the definitions which establishes the framework for quality and clarifies that it is an "on-balance" debate. His first argument uses the website "Kialo" as an example. He provides the statistical data which shows high numbers in regard to contributions, claims and votes, using this as evidence that their website has grown significantly. The argument's strength is based on the satisfaction on the high supply of users. Con's second contention is that DART is currently high-quality, and he uses Google Lighthouse to assess the score and compare it with a website such as DebateIsland. In showing that Dart's score is higher, Con makes the point with data indicating DART is a high-quality site.
Con's third argument is fairly weak when he tries to say that DART is in a good state. He makes vague claims by saying there are a lot of active users but fails to specify an exact number. Con does elaborate that there are currently 41 debates in the debating stage, but there is a lack of evidence and information required. Firstly, what does Con mean by "good state?" How many active users are on the website? Are there enough moderators? It's questions like these that remain unanswered.
Pro starts off by introducing some new terminology to explain the difference between a "discussion" and a "debate." He states that Kialo is not an applicable example because it isn't a "debate" site. He uses the definitions of the terms to highlight how Kialo's criteria makes it a "discussion" site. While Pro is providing reasonable explanations for this distinction to exist, this argument still falls flat because it appears based on his own interpretation of what constitutes a debate site vs a discussion site. Just because Kialo isn't a traditional debate site doesn't disqualify it from being a valid example. The only way this rebuttal could be successful is if Pro managed to prove that a second category of the website existed, but the homepage of Kialo shows it is categorized as a 'debate site,' despite the differing definitions.
Pro unsuccessfully attacks Con's argument about DART being in a good state by comparing it to DDO. This argument is invalid because DDO is a dead site. The resolution addresses only "current debate sites." So this point is void from Pro.
Spelling and sources are a tie. Conduct is also a tie.
Con used data, evidence, and research to back his constructive arguments. Pro uses semantics to explain how Kialo is not a valid example, but these technicalities are insufficient on their own to establish how Kialo isn't a debate site. Furthermore, Pro's second rebuttal would have held more weight if he hadn't compared DART to a website that no longer exists.
This is a victory for Con.
If you look at the way that each vote distributes points, a fully tied vote would give both sides 7 points. Every category that's awarded to one side grants some subset of that 7 point total to a single debater, taking it away from the other debater. The argument points are worth 3, meaning that, if one side gave you arguments, you won 3 points of that 7 point total that your opponent did not.
So when Sir.Lancelot gave you arguments, you won 7 points from that vote, while your opponent won 4. That's what I call "3 points to Con" because that's the point difference. The opposite was true of Novice_II's vote, which awarded 7 points to Austin and 4 points to you. Hence, each of you got 11 points total.
Where are the three points that I was supposed to receive?
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>Reported Vote: Sir.Lancelot // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Con
>Reason for Decision: see voting tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter sufficiently explains their point allocation and covers many of the applicable arguments to the debate. The voter is allowed, so long as he is not actively making new arguments for one side, to interpret the validity or strength of a given point with regards to the resolution, especially on a single round debate.
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Bump for votes
I appreciate the detailed vote, but I do have two small objections to your vote.
First of all, you mentioned that my argument was "based on my own interpretation of what was a debate site vs a discussion site." Aren't all semantic arguments fundamentally based on interpretation? This doesn't make them any less valid.
I supported my interpretation, and the resultant exclusion of Kialo, based on a reliable educational source that clarified the distinction between a debate and a discussion. I then used these distinctions in order to demonstrate why Kialo did not qualify as a debate website.
Although I admit that there is always some room for leeway for definitional arguments, the main reason why I think my argument holds up is that my opponent failed to convincingly demonstrate that Kialo is a debate website.
Kialo calls itself a debate site. This is fine. But in these situations, we have to apply the "duck test." If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then maybe, just maybe, it is a duck. Furthermore, I also provided a quote by Kialo's founder that Kialo is a "collaborative reasoning tool." This clearly fits the definition of "discussion" more than the definition of "debate" (both of which I provided).
Second of all, and this is my more major objection, DDO is valid as a comparison, not an example.
The resolution mentions "current debate sites." However, I was using DDO as an example of what is "usual, expected, or desirable." It was merely a benchmark for comparison.
When comparing the quality or condition of current things, it's natural to use the past as a tried-and-tested benchmark - just like if I was comparing whether a president was good or bad, I would compare his performance to past presidents.
R1 SOURCES:
1: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/debate
2: Oxford Languages Dictionary
3: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/condition
4: https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/debate-and-discussion/
5: https://www.kialo.com/static/FT-Meet_the_start-up_that_wants_to_sell_you_civilised_debate.pdf
6: https://www.kialo.com/should-there-be-a-universal-basic-income-ubi-1634
7: https://www.kialo.com/the-existence-of-god-2629
8: https://www.kialo.com/are-arranged-marriages-better-than-love-marriages-16340
9: https://www.debateart.com/debates/4050-islam-is-not-a-good-religion
10: https://www.debateart.com/debates/4032-cannabis-is-not-risk-free-and-isn-t-especially-medical-applicable
11: https://www.debateart.com/debates/3958-my-view-abortion-is-wrong-cons-view-abortion-is-right
12: https://www.debateart.com/leaderboard/debates
13: https://web.archive.org/web/20220309150623/https://www.debate.org/about/demographics/
14: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8374-remember-me-real-murky-memory-there-oh-you-do-nice
15: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8640-official-endorsement-for-wylted-as-president-by-presidential-candidate-vermin-supreme
16: https://www.debateart.com/debates/3025-dart-vs-ddo
Resolution.
Quality debate sites are far and few between from my understanding, if they even exist. My first time searching led me to choose Debateart since it was the only available one that was easy to search.
Because of the debate format, or the resolution?
This is going to be a difficult (maybe impossible, idk) position to win as Con.