Platform development

Author: DebateArt.com

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@Tejretics
Hmm, interesting. Could you please give me some information about the monitor that you are using? I could fake the resolution and see what may be the problem in your case.
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@DebateArt.com
Oh no, it's not a problem unique to me.

I'm saying I don't like the full width to the point where it impairs readability.

It's like any other full width mode. 

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@DebateArt.com
So this is a minor nitpick, but my profile is different from what I put in edit profile > personal information. My birthday is 9/11/2003, but the site says its 9/09/03.

Thanks DART,
Great seal

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@TheGreatSeal
So this is a minor nitpick, but my profile is different from what I put in edit profile > personal information. My birthday is 9/11/2003, but the site says its 9/09/03.

Thanks DART,
Great seal
Hi and welcome :) 

Could you please make sure that you selected the correct month while editing your profile? I've just tried to change mine to 9/11/2003 and it worked correctly.

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@DebateArt.com
Hello DART,

I've tried again in changing my information, making sure I got the month correctly. I have the screenshot link for it (as an aside, perhaps a way to upload images for debates and forums?), but I could have done something wrong. 

As a last resort, it could be a problem on my part. I'd hate to take up your time on something like this, but is it possible for my birthday to manually get changed by DART?

Thanks DART staff,
GreatSeal.
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@TheGreatSeal
I think you have discovered a bug, my dear sir. I am sorry for the headache that it caused you. I will fix it and add it to the new release tomorrow.

Image uploading is a complicated thing and I am still not sure how to go about it. I will probably add it first for the debate arguments and we'll see how it goes from there.
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@DebateArt.com
Hello DART,

I'm sorry for the headache I caused you. The birthday problem isn't a huge deal for you and your co-workers to fix right away; it was my fault for not being careful when registering. Still, I'd like to thank you for your time in fixing the problem. The DART community is very appreciative that the team is so diligent about providing feedback and fixes.

I'm not much of the technical person, so I'm afraid I can't be of much help in image uploading. I do think that it is something that can be very beneficial for the site. Image uploading can make memes on the games forums and suit pictures for fashion. In debating, it might be that a debater would wish to upload a visual aid, such as a map or a graph, both of which can swing debates if used by talented debaters. I, for one, would be visually inclined in voting towards someone who can use data tables and models with skill. Even photography can be extremely powerful; someone in an animal rights debate might (for example) find that the debater could augment his/her argument with photos of abused animals, and someone in a Katana vs Longsword debate might find a visual reference of the physical layout of a Katana incredibly useful when explaining things about physics. Again, I understand that the DART staff is mostly doing this with limited funding and time. I just wanted to throw the idea out there, because I see it as something that would generally be useful for DART, and also as I believe I wouldn't be the only one who would find great potential in it.

Kind Regards,
GreatSeal.
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@TheGreatSeal
I'm sorry for the headache I caused you. The birthday problem isn't a huge deal for you and your co-workers to fix right away; it was my fault for not being careful when registering. Still, I'd like to thank you for your time in fixing the problem. The DART community is very appreciative that the team is so diligent about providing feedback and fixes.
Don't worry about it, I am always glad to be of help, it's never a headache :) And thank you for the kind words!

I'm not much of the technical person, so I'm afraid I can't be of much help in image uploading. I do think that it is something that can be very beneficial for the site. Image uploading can make memes on the games forums and suit pictures for fashion. In debating, it might be that a debater would wish to upload a visual aid, such as a map or a graph, both of which can swing debates if used by talented debaters. I, for one, would be visually inclined in voting towards someone who can use data tables and models with skill. Even photography can be extremely powerful; someone in an animal rights debate might (for example) find that the debater could augment his/her argument with photos of abused animals, and someone in a Katana vs Longsword debate might find a visual reference of the physical layout of a Katana incredibly useful when explaining things about physics. Again, I understand that the DART staff is mostly doing this with limited funding and time. I just wanted to throw the idea out there, because I see it as something that would generally be useful for DART, and also as I believe I wouldn't be the only one who would find great potential in it.
There is no doubt that this feature could be highly useful and most likely I will go with the way when a user provides a link to the image and it allows him or her to insert that image into the debate argument but the image will have to be stored somewhere else, which is good enough. The problem with allowing users to upload their own images (instead of linking to them) for the arguments and other things is that I'd have to store them somewhere and that may end up costing me rather a lot because I'd have to pay for ever growing space and bandwidth usage (and that's additionally to other expenses, such as server hosting, domain hosting, CI system, email delivery system, monitoring system and some other).  I'll add the donation system at some point later but I don't imagine it's gonna be that effective, but I guess we'll see :)



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New changes:

1) Updated the site rules

2) Fixed the birthday problem.
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30 minutes and 3 hours should be options for the length of time between rounds.
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@bsh1
30 minutes and 3 hours should be options for the length of time between rounds.
You mean add two options for the Time for argument  option? In order to be able to create the "fast" debates ?


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@DebateArt.com
Yup
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@Tejretics
But in what is it hard to look at? I simply removed the categories sidebar which was pretty much useless and took too much space on the side.

The fonts look untidy and weird. 

The sideward expansion has made cases seem smaller than they actually are. 

And the categories sidebar was useful so I could just directly click to look at debates from a particular category. 

I'm also just used to the sidebar being around, as on DDO. 
I'm not experiencing these font problems. They sound annoying. It's probably also that you're most comfortable absorbing and processing a debate when the screen looks like the one your brain most strongly associates with that activity.

I just open all debates in a new tab so that I never navigate away from the main debate list and its categories sidebar.

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@bsh1
I imagine that's gonna be quite easy so we could give it a try. I am gonna be quite busy in the next couple of days but after that, I could add it to the next release and see how it goes :)
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New changes:

Fixed a bug with wrong process of calculating the debates rating. The bug was introduced alongside the change that allowed instigators to take the CON position. I apologize for the inconvenience! 

My special gratitude to @Imabench for discovering the bug!

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@DebateArt.com
Suggestions:
  1. A concede button (done in lieu of a debate round, with any formalities carried out in the comment section if the debaters wish).
  2. An auto loss on repeated forfeits (say two or more, but > opponent forfeitures), along with an auto draw on repeated equal forfeitures.
The two above could be done a few ways. How I would personally envision it is a using a called function for each one.

Concede (four actions):
  1. Applies a copy of the function which writes "Forfeited" but instead writing "Conceded"
  2. Ends the argument period.
  3. Calls the vote function, casting it as if from user DebateArt.com, giving argument points to the victor and conduct to the loser, with a RFD of "Concession. ... [INSERT ANY LENGTHY EXPLANATION HERE]"
  4. Ends the voting period (or sets the countdown to 1 second, so that any scripts related to it can run properly).
Forfeiture (a check run at the end of the debate)
  1. IF(ANY(ConForfeit >= 2, ProForfeit >=2) THEN ... [code for following steps triggered] ... END (the end is a part of it, only triggered if the path is triggered at all, and prevents the rest of the normal code from happening so as to decrease errors)
  2. IF(ConForfeit = ProForfeit) THEN ... Calls the cast vote function with no points awarded, and an RFD of "Draw due to duel forfeiture." ... Set voting period to 1 second ... END
  3. IF(ConForfeit > ProForfeit) THEN ... Calls the cast vote function, assigning just the conduct point to Pro, with an RFD of "Forfeiture. ... [INSERT ANY LENGTHY EXPLANATION HERE]" ... Set voting period to 1 second ... END
  4. IF(ConForfeit < ProForfeit) THEN ... Calls the cast vote function, assigning just the conduct point to Con, with an RFD of "Forfeiture. ... [INSERT ANY LENGTHY EXPLANATION HERE]" ... Set voting period to 1 second ... END
Related to the forfeiture idea, would be the ability to on debate creation setting a forfeit cap to automatically end the debate. This would be a stored variable to be tested against after each forfeited round (added to the existing script there). This would +1 to their forfeit count to the loser (trust me), followed by the end argument period script.
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@Barney
I really like the ideas and they are not that difficult to implement so I imagine we could have them rather soon but we'll need to discuss it somewhere.

Thank you for the ideas and your time! 

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I agree. Those features would be nice. 
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@DebateArt.com
I really like that you have the options for "open voting" and "judicial decision".

I would like to request that you consider adding an option for "self moderated" where each participant can grant (and deduct) points to their opponent with the stipulation that scores can never go below zero.

I've sketched out a brief idea of having 3 rules of civil debate -

1 - Establish common ground

2 - Never disqualify your opponent

3 - Only your opponent can grant or deduct points - scores can never go below zero

As a practical matter, only rule 3 needs to be enforced.  I'd also like to see if generosity (in rewarding points) can be rewarded in the ranking system, even though a particular debate may technically be counted as a loss.
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@DebateArt.com
I'd also like to add some upper limit to the points you can award your opponent.

Perhaps 6 points per round would be good, and it would be nice to be able to quote your opponent to show why each point was given or taken away.

The points could be awarded per round, or at the end of the debate if that is easier to implement.

I just wouldn't want someone awarding their opponent something like 20,0000 points in order to game the ranking system.

The whole idea is to incentivize open mindedness and encourage logical critique instead of simple bullheadedness and insults/burns/slams/nitpicking.

I also thought it might be worth considering making a self moderated tie count as a win for both parties.
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@3RU7AL
Hi and welcome. The idea seems rather unique, could you please create a separate topic for it and discuss it with other folk? And if it goes okay, at some point we may merge something like that into the current functionality.

And thank you for you feedback, it's really appreciated :)
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@DebateArt.com
Ok, that sounds fair.

I started a topic under philosophy, I'll see if I can drum up some feedback!
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@3RU7AL
Awesome, thanks :)
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Also I wanted to apologize for the lack of updates this week, it's been another busy week and I just can't find enough hours to put into the work. 
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Can we get the ability to send images via PM?
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@Vaarka
I am afraid that it's lots of work to implement it properly so I wouldn't expect it on the early stages, if to be straightforward.

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@DebateArt.com
Cool cool

I imagine a downside would be that people can send unwanted images, so if you did do it, it would be best to have an option to not receive photos from members, or to have a preview "you are about to view an image" filter, or just the option to turn on and off photo-receiving. All of it sounds like hard work so if you can't then that's fine

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@Vaarka
Yeah, it's a lot of work from many points, design, storage, functionality to support it and etc but maybe we'll go for it at some point, when everything else is already good enough.
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New changes:

I've barely had any time this week but I found a few hours to implement the button for the mods to delete the debates (so now it's way easier and they don't have to go through me) and also I've added a reporting buttons for the debates as well.

I know it's not much but hopefully soon I'll have much more free time and progress much quicker.
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@DebateArt.com
Can you help me get the quote function to work everytime I try to use it? It's seems to be random.