When did DDO die?

Author: Barney

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@Earth
Please name a different cause of death?
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@sadolite
The main reason that DDO is worth so much is that it's the original, undisputed name for someone to find via Googling 'debate' or anything related. The single-word name for that topic makes it the most sought after website name.

It also is important to note that when changing from Debate.com to Debate.org, they maintained ownership of D.Com and it is Juggle you have to pay to get D.Com even thought the site is 'dead'.

Unregistry isn't a default thing like GoDaddy for a dead website to go to in order to 'die'. It is a way of unregistering a site that lets you still pick who gets it, I am quite sure.
Earth
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@Barney
Time?
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@RationalMadman
Um, DDO isn't worth that much, I wouldn't give 10 grand let alone 750 grand LOL
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@Earth
You have offered zero reason for anyone to agree with you. If time is a valid cause of death for websites, than I suppose Google must be dead because even more time has elapsed for it.
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@Barney
Google has a reason to exist. Most sites die in time and DDO was one of them. Everyone grew up and there wasn't a new group to replace the old.

How is this wrong?
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@Earth
I agree that eventually most sites die, but disagree that time alone is the attributable cause of death... Nearly every website has a reason to exist, users come and go, but functional websites usually attract new users. MySpace for example, failed to innovate when a better platform design came along (Facebook); yet without a website like Facebook being dreamed up to compete with it, there is no reason to suppose people would have just stopped using social media.

Someone smokes a hundred cigarettes per day, gets a bunch of tumors growing in their lungs, the corner does not list "Time?" as the cause of death. While time played an important role, it does little suggest anything related to the health or function of the organism.
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@Barney
Myspace wouldn't sellout to NSA or Illuminati investors, do your research. Their olatfirn was superior to Facebook.
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@Barney
It really doesn't matter, as it was obvious DDO was well past its prime when the spam hit, or even when the FF glitch hit. My point is that DDO was always near death, spam/glitches or not. There wasn't a new YYW, or a new tvellot(?) or Roylantham. In time, DDO became a forum and not a debate site and this spelled the end because people did not have the time for debates and besides the spammy or trollish debates, people just didn't debate like they did. Did you really think DDO was going to be in the "Good old days" forever without the spam? Also DDO was undeniably the best debate site on the internet, especially when it was good. DDO had no competent competitors besides reddit, if you count it. Mafia was dying, debating was dying, people moved on. That should be a cause of death as much as glitches tbh.
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@Barney
What do you think the reason was then? 
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@Earth
I agree it was past prime, I've been extremely harsh toward it in that regard. However past prime does not imply dead. The majority of popular movie actors are past their physical (or even career) prime, but are not reclassified as dead.


DDO became a forum and not a debate site and this spelled the end
I will wholly agree with you on this, even if not your disconnected conclusion.
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@DrChristineFord
As I've addressed through most of this thread, I've settled on the cause of death (not to say cause of illness), as debate functionality being disabled. While such might seem like a late phase in the illness to focus on, but it's about like the cancer patient who suffers a heart attack, technically the cigarettes caused the cancer, and the cancer caused strain on the heart, but the heart is the vital organ which failed first.

The first page of the DDO guide now reads as follows (if anyone has better wording, I am amenable):
Warning: Debate.org is broken beyond utility, and should be considered dead.
DebateArt.com is the advised alternative.

This tragedy happened in large part due to debate.org's developers being outright opposed to spam suppression (even basic CAPTCHA), likely given that spam is unmistakable from real content to ad agencies.

Some may argue the site lives on as long as spam bots produce new pages, but for the human fraction of the user base, the point was debates. On July 11th 2016, an update which broke debate functionality was identified and never reverted or otherwise corrected.
As debates are the beating heart of a debate website, this is the attributed cause of death.





R.I.P. Debate.org
October 2007 - July 2016
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@Barney
Like, for example, this one here.  One of the debaters forfeited, but the debate continued.  I've seen debates in the voting period with forfeits in them.  What am I missing?


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@Barney
Here's one in the voting period.  There are lots of them:


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@Barney
There are lots of problems, but this one really does seem fixed.  Also, I never really understood why it mattered all that much (to the point of death).  The best debates have no forfeits, so they wouldn't have been affected anyway.
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@DrChristineFord
You're missing years of debates being in limbo unable to be updated. Case in point, the user who first filed a bug report (https://www.debate.org/forums/debate.org/topic/82207/2#2511128), still has their debates sitting there. As recently at five months ago, still active members have the same BS happen (the second user to formally report the error, currently has 4 of 5 from their most recent debates affected: https://www.debate.org/dsjpk5/).

In the interim, there's been reports of users trying to post arguments and having the site fail to do that (causing forfeits when they did not), and various other problems with core site functionality.

To say a broken watch isn't broken because it's right twice per day, does not mean it's been fixed.
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@Barney
Of course.  I agree that there are problems.

It's not true that nothing has been fixed, though.  Some things have been fixed.  Someone put that "I am not a robot" filter in there. 

That means things can be fixed.  Further, that there's some kind of communication, perhaps between airmax and admin.  

It also probably means that the owners haven't entirely abandoned the site.

All this makes me think coma rather than death.

 

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@DrChristineFord
If you wish to believe it is merely a coma, and wait for a full recovery, that is your right. ... Let me know when they have completely fixed debate functionality (at least the reported bugs), at that time I will gladly reconsider.

Likely it is because for a long time I was one of the best contributors to that site, and seen the owners intentionally sabotage the community again and again, which has jaded my opinion.
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@Barney
Intentional sabotage?  I always assumed it was incompetence, but I wasn't on ddo at all for the last couple of years.  What makes you think it was sabotage? Why would they do that to their own site?
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I think DDO is not quite dead as there are many debates still going on the site if you check.

8 days later

Barney
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@Alec
I am reminded of the Dead Parrot sketch.

Regarding the number of debates happening there, the number of non-zombie debates is well under 1% of the claimed ongoing debates. What the site owners are doing, is akin to arguing that a graveyard is the next Disneyland due to total occupants.

13 days later

IlDiavolo
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To me it's very suspicious that when the spam started to hit DDO, there was a dude around the site trying to convince people to move to another forum. Besides, this new site seemed to be better developed and professional, so maybe one thing is associated with the other.

Il Diavolo
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@IlDiavolo
You can find an explanation for it somewhere here, I am afraid I am just too tired to explain it every time :/ I wish we had a forum search functionality though ...
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I know the specific question asks for the actual moment DDO died but I wasn't there to witness it so I'll just say either the mobile update or the FF glitch because either/both of those were pretty clear signs of imminent degression

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@revivedmuse
While I am sure there's an angle where you're baiting people to challenge yout o debates and yoru nice DDO record adds to that, the tone you speak in and general context of who you are to DDO make it more likely you genuinely think you're shit at debating and useless to the site in that regard.

You are only ever going to become the best of the best by grinding it out, analysing why you lost what you lost and coming out just as ferocious the next day. Spit in the face of your haters, secretly take on board what they spit back and become the best there is.
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@RationalMadman
Eh I don't know lol, I like to think I've made massive improvement from the basic argumentative/articulatory skills I had during my time on DDO but I feel like my reasoning and thinking skills are still a bit rigid rather than strategic or flexible. I hope to improve to the point that I feel confident enough to debate more though, so thank you for the motivation :)