Instigator / Pro
18
1495
rating
6
debates
33.33%
won
Topic
#974

Gun control is a flawed policy

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
9
9
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
0
3

After 3 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
21
1687
rating
555
debates
68.11%
won
Description

No information

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:

Conduct - pro plagiarized without attribution the first two rounds. The third round, whilst attributed is still under the same umbrella as plagiarism. Taken all together it constitutes not just an attempt to make con argue against the person who wrote the source pro used as his argument - but also there were so many points that it is impossible for con to deal with them all. While the plagiarism is poor conduct, this is largely undermined by pros own dependents on quotations for his argument adding little of his own context to it. Saying this, the Gish Gallop and forfeit was outrageously unfair behaviour and clearly warrants conduct mark down in its own right

Arguments. Pro didn’t really make a central thesis here. It was primarily throwing a huge number of facts at con, without real context or organization to his stream of consciousness/copy pasting. There was little attempt to structure a compelling narrative by pro, if he had, pro may have done better, but as such there was little in the way of a compelling argument to adjudicate.

Con was also all over the place. The difference between his round and pros round - is that he quotes and cites his sources, whereas pro simply posted them. The key thing is that con doesn’t contextualize his argument based on these quotes : but offers them as his argument without his own contextualize thesis.

The issue with plagiarism is not the attribution as much as using a source to make an argument for you. Given that con and pro both use other people’s sources and information to support their own position and do so both to as substantial an extent as each other: I can’t really give this to con either.

If con had referenced this sources to justify a thesis he described and justified in his own word- he would have won. However, the central point of his argument are effectively to post a huge quote: then conclude the overall concept the quote was talking about was correct.

Further, the key points where he could have won outright - the point that gun control could work with enforcement/stings ; and that reduction in gun crime is not matched by an increase in others - was unsupported and unsourced. Again, pro is providing sourced indication that this is untrue
- in a debate, denying that it is true and not sourcing it, is always going to be a problem.

Given that no thesis was given by pro, and no real justification of his thesis other than depending on arguments via quotations

S&G: I thought about this, as con spent a lot of time with poorly worded sentences that made it very difficult to follow some points, but wasn’t substantially worse than normal.

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:

Reason:

Pro's Round 1 argument was plagiarized from a Daily Wire article about gun control (https://www.dailywire.com/news/27439/6-facts-show-gun-control-not-answer-amanda-prestigiacomo). Plagiarism is bad conduct. Pro also forfeited a round, which is also bad conduct.

I would have actually given the convincing arguments point to Pro, but those aren't his arguments (they're Daily Wire's) and so he gets nothing.

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:

Round 1 plagiarized from here: https://www.dailywire.com/news/27439/6-facts-show-gun-control-not-answer-amanda-prestigiacomo
While also forfeiting is bad conduct.

If plagiarism is not worthy of a conduct loss then the rules should be change to allocate for it.

Sorry about not voting on other criteria but if I am supposed to vote on other criteria. I would actually want arguments from both sides not 1 person giving arguments and the other copying arguments. Why is the instigator here if he copied? Surely not to debate his ideas if he is too busy copying someone else.

His rebuttal for copying his awful. He states those were the facts but does not realize his entire Round was copied. Meaning either his entire Round 2 arguments were facts or he simply copied things that were not facts but didn't realize it. The first would apply to Round 2.